-
He has this compelling language that we want to listen to.
-
It's very sonorous.
-
There is that debt to the oral tradition,
-
and yet he is this incredibly evil man.
-
So, there is a problem, here, of moral valence.
-
Can we condemn, or does the book condemn, this figure?
-
It's the problem in Paradise Lost.
-
It's the problem, also, in Blood Meridian.
-
If you find the violence
-
in Blood Meridian simply gratuitous,
-
then you've answered that, in a certain way, by saying, "No.
-
The character is not so compelling that I can put up with