The experience of rereading a book for the third time is different from both the first and the second. The first time is discovery. The second time is recognition. The third time you're looking for something specific — a question you have now that you didn't have before, an element you want to examine, a passage whose significance you only partially understood.

Blood Meridian was the book I read three times in four years. The first reading I was disoriented. The second reading I followed the plot. The third reading I was reading the Judge's speeches specifically, trying to understand if McCarthy endorses the Judge's philosophy or is demonstrating it as the worst possible position a human mind can reach.

I don't have a final answer. I think that's correct.