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This book can be taken into two parts. The first part, which primarily composes it's majority, is a quasi-historical account of what life was like in the Wild Wild West. To be honest, I found it to be largely boring. I felt McCarthy spent an excessive amount of time describing the landscape and to his credit he does so in fashion, but at about half way into the book I felt it was just self indulgent. It was tedious to read. It reminded me of "Heart of Darkness."

The second part of the book is where the meat is. I wished there was more of it or at least a balanced ratio between the two (its only about 50 pages or so). This is where I found the usual components of story telling where I derive enjoyment: character development. Not that it was not present in the first part, but I found it to be sparse, albeit enjoyable when it was presented, particularly the bits of dialogue between Tobin, Holden and the Kid.

I didn't care much for McCarthy's exclusion of quotation mark. I thought it was gimmicky. But on the one hand, I suspect he did this so that the reader would pay attention to what he was saying. And trust me, this is the type of book where you have to pay attention and read between the lines, because McCarthy doesn't spoon feed you the story. Which I think is a good thing. I think this book would have made a good and a bit tough reading assignment in an English class. And I suppose that the outlines presented before every chapter, kind of played into that too.

I kind of wanted to give up on this book in the earlier stages. I guess I feel like it was a bit of a let down because I enjoyed "The Road," so much. And like "The Road," McCarthy shows he is a master in converting human depravity into prose. (Of course in "The Road," that depravity was more subtle, whereas here it is blatantly "Kill Bill-esque."The noble savage? Hmm... maybe more savage and a lot less noble than we would like to think).But unlike "The Road," I wasn't excited to get back into its sepulchral world. Maybe it was a case of "been there done that, got the shirt (and this is primarily why I avoid reading books by author).

I do wonder why people say "this book is great because it shows how violent the west was back in the day." Really? Sorry but Bonanza wasn't very accurate portrayal of the times. Further, if that was the main point of the book, then I think half the number of pages would have sufficed.

Holden reminded me of Stephen King's, Randall Flagg(minus the pedophiliac tendencies) and the "Dark Knight's" rendition of the Joker. Awe inspiring as he is sinister. Perhaps he represents, the white man(literally), as a destructive force. But at the same time, a self contradiction to his otherwise sagacious qualities. Or of course we could go with the simple explanation that he was your typical sociopath/psychopath. But where's the fun in that really?

The ending was thoroughly eerie. I took it as allegory of how the darkness of violence courses in our bloodline, like an endless waltz. "He dances in the light and in shadow and he is a great favorite. He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says he will never die." Eerie maybe an understatement.