Table of Contents
Introduction: "A Direct Apprehension of Reality": Cormac McCarthy and the Perennial Philosophy 1
Chapter 1 "Terra Damnata": The Anticosmic Mysticism of Blood Meridian 7
Chapter 2 "Suzerain of the Earth": Unravelling the Mystery of the Judge in Blood Meridian 31
Chapter 3 "Disciples of a New Faith": Satanic Parody in Blood Meridian 53
Chapter 4 "This Luminosity in Beings So Endarkened": Gnostic Soteriology in Blood Meridian 71
Chapter 5 "Diverging Equity": The Nature of Existence in All the Pretty Horses 101
Chapter 6 "All Was Fear and Marvel": Positive and Negative Epiphanies in The Crossing; Book 1 125
Chapter 7 "The Illusion of Proximity": Transcendence and Immanence in The Crossing, Book 2 141
Chapter 8 "Mourners in the Darkness": Blindness and Insight in The Crossing, Book 3 161
Chapter 9 "The Right and Godmade Sun": Destiny and Salvation in The Crossing, Book 4 179
Chapter 10 "Beauty and Loss Are One": Transience and Fate in Cities of the Plain 201
Chapter 11 "The Bloody and Barbarous God": Sin and Forgiveness in Cities of the Plain 217
Chapter 12 "That Man Who Is All Men": The Illusory and the Real in the Epilogue to the Border Trilogy 235
Chapter 13 "In All That Dark and All That Cold": Good and Evil in No Country for Old Men 259
Chapter 14 "All Things of Grace and Beauty": The Presence of the Sacred in The Road 287
Notes 327
Works Cited 397
Index 413
