Rebel Yell - S.C. Gwynne

Gwynne’s storytelling of the life of Stonewall Jackson gets better and sharper as this history goes along. Chancellorsville is particularly animated and thorough and in this ultimate moment Jackson’s actions and responses mesh well with Gwynne’s evocation of the character throughout. The biography peels back the legend. The difficulty in treating Jackson, or any Confederate, in our modern moment, is how to treat the cause; perhaps those difficulties are given too short shrift. Gwynne does show that, while the conflict tore the country apart, a type of camaraderie existed across the lines. 

“Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees.”

All the Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy

Sad and evocative in a variety of ways. The story moves with a liveliness that I had missed on previous readings. The language and dialogue is seamlessly constructed and moves with the narrative between people, the landscape, and horses. Action also becomes a slowly-emerging form of understanding a person’s character.

Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy

Third time in less than a year and I feel like I am starting to get it. The extent of the driftlessness and suffering cannot be overlooked. The judge, whether right or wrong, targets the Kid because he alone kept himself removed from the cleanliness of pure violence the others partook in. If war is god, then to withhold pieces of oneself is a type of defiance akin to Lucifer. Non serviam. Yet the judge, in his worldliness is a type of violence personified. And, therefore, he fits; is equipped for each situation. God as recognizable to the uninitiated, is dead. The judge, even in his seeming immortality which makes any claim dubious, may be the manifestation of an entirely material cosmology. One either blissfully or dangerously without arbiter. There is a trace of right and wrong in the Kid (though what are his actions on the raids?). It seems the judge cannot abide this. Finally, even the Kid is swallowed by the embrace of war as god.

The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy

On the back cover of The God of Small Things is a review by John Updike, in which the author says (paraphrase) that great novels need to invent their own language and in so doing create their own world. Roy creates new ways of talking and writing and thus thinking and experiencing the world in her novel. This starts slowly but grows throughout the book in a way that becomes seamless - transporting the reader into the world of Roy's creation. The book in complicated, complex, and nuanced. Deserving of all the praise it has received.

Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy

A sparse story about violence in 1840s Mexico. Populated by memorable, terrible characters. McCarthy pushes the edge of how a reader identifies with the wretched and the violent. Above all else stands the judge. And they are dancing.

The Stranger in the Woods - Michael Finkel

Finkel seeks to uncover what could posses a Maine from central Maine to live, on his own, in the woods for 27 years. That is exactly what Christopher Knight accomplished. Finkel is a generous interlocutor who attempts to unweave what to so many people may seem a crazy undertaking. If we are to take Knight at his word it may be that he simply sought to be alone.

Into the Wild - Jon Krakauer

One of the remarkable late-twentieth century on-the-road stories weaving adventure and, eventually, death at the limits of North America. Chris McCandless remains something of a cult figure whose experience resonated with many disaffected seekers. Krakauer is a sympathetic, yet thoughtful and careful biographer. On this re-reading McCandless' idealism and commitment strike me a symptomatic primarily of youth and energy; neither of which deserve criticism.