I barely though it was violent.

Everyone should read it for the writing style alone, it's great.

I appreciate what you’re saying but I thought McCarthy was not suggesting this is a world without good and evil. But rather the forces at work are beyond our ability to control or even understand. Termites never know why pesticide is being sprayed. At least that was my take from Blood Meridian, the Road and No Country. For instance, the scalp hunters are often horrified but in awe of the judge, subconsciously aware their souls have been signed away. And that part at the end where the kid falls before the dying woman and almost begs for some explanation for what is happening. As McKenna said, trying to use our reason and science is like “throwing an ice cube into a blast furnace.”

And I should say McCarthy is not fixated on just evil, but equally on the goodness that miraculously finds us. Only time I’ve ever openly sobbed from a book was the end of The Road.