Do you feel obligated to finish every book you dig into deeply enough...

Do you feel obligated to finish every book you dig into deeply enough? I'm 200 pages into this son of a bitch and I'll be damned if it's not starting to feel a bit like a chore. I enjoy it well enough while I'm actually reading it, but the thought of doing so doesn't really excite me. If I've gotten this far and haven't really connected with it strongly, should I drop it? Or do you guys soldier through it 'til the end?

BM's end is the most crucial part of the book.

You're already an outrageous faggot but you'd be even more of one if you didn't finish it.

Ugh, I guess I'll finish it. It's just so ceaselessly lurid, and while it can sometimes be fantastic (that scene with the judge improvising the gunpowder out of sulphur and brimstone and the company's piss comes to mind), as a whole it's not totally captivating me. I think I have an idea of novel's ideas (though of course it's a bit early to feel sure of that), but I dunno, man... I'm really looking forward to being through with this thing so I can read some other shit.

Don't listen to this fag Bloodmeme is easily the worst thing anyone here tosses off over. YeCarthy is a fucking hack who appeals to inattentive readers and manchildren.

>corncob tortillas

I don't blame you. Sometimes it feels like he's describing the same southwestern vista over and over. But the end of it is amazing.

Plus the ~90 pages you have left is one or two days of reading max.

>Ugh

There are some great turns of phrase and, like I said before, great moments, but it's not really gelling with me on a visceral level. Perhaps it just doesn't concern content I'm totally interested in.

You're right. I'll bite the bullet.

;*)

when will you die

>it's another tortilla thread

avoid yecarthy OP don't get memed.

I'm already 200 pages; if there were any memeing to be done I'd have been subjected to it already

It's only an issue of content insofar as there isn't any to speak of. The thrust of the book is the same cowboys and indians bullshit you can find in any dime a dozen western with a very unconvincing pretense of exploring the quintessential qualities of it in a meaningful way. In reality, all you end up with is a gaudy pretentious mess by one of the most inadequate thinkers in literature.

The last third of it drags.

he will never die.
he never sleeps. he says that he will never die.

they hate this book bc it's about them

>he's describing the same southwestern vista over and over

That's the point. Have you ever been there. It's miles and miles of literally the same thing.

Can't speak for Blood Meridian but I try to give most books the benefit of the doubt until about 50% in. If I can't get into a book in more than a hundred pages, I'm not gonna waste the time forcing myself through a book I don't wanna read when I could be using that time to be reading something I actually like.

Just finished reading this. Is Blood Meridian better written than The Road? The bulk of The Road is comprised of "and" and "okay".

it's on another plane of existence

I have like 150 pages left in Moby Dick but I haven't read it in almost a year. I really like parts of it but then he goes on for 2 chapters about the shape of a whale's mouth and I lose interest. Something as short as Blood Meridian I will finish even if not into it (but I was).

this is divinely true. OP, don't waste your time on books that you think suck. There are books in the Western canon I think slurp dog diarrhea through a curly-straw. Every critic has their hates and loves. 200 pages is enough to get the feel. Personally I quit Blood Meridian maybe 50-60 pages in, and stopped reading Pride & Prejudice halfway through. Life is too short to read books you don't love.

Blood Meridian is leagues ahead of The Road, although it's a lot slower in its pacing.

OP here. Blood Meridian is much more interestingly and boldly written, but to be honest, I got a lot more enjoyment out of The Road. The Road's story is at least touching and heartfelt and empathetic, whereas BM is just "muh deconstruction of the Western and the American legacy"; BM is more interesting intellectually (though it still doesn't particularly floor me in any way), but it's pretty much only got one interesting character (despite having many) and doesn't really offer much to get invested in. I've really only made it this far because the prose is excellent and occasionally there's a monolithic event that somehow surpasses all the previous encounters in grisliness; but the story as a whole is very monotonous and grey.

A quiet intensity? Well, then, a certain noisy relaxed quality, maybe? How about ... uh ... a quietly noisy relaxed intensity.

BM is supposed to wear you down. By the time you reach the novel's conclusion you are as apathetic to the increasingly depraved violence as Glanton's gang. This needs to happen in order for the conclusion to be as powerful. Its not like its Moby Dick--shit is 300+ pages just keep reading.

Read a couple of books at the same time