No Country for Old Men, by Cormac McCarthy
By Peter on Apr 13, 2008 in Cormac McCarthy, Excellent book, Fiction Books
No Country for Old Men is a novel by American author Cormac McCarthy, published in 2005. In 2007 it was released as a film, directed by the Cohen-brothers. The film has, so far, been winning four Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
The action in the book is set along the United States–Mexico border in 1980. The starting point of the story is a drug deal in the desert that somehow went wrong. We never learn why this was the case, only that it did, and of its consequences.
At the scene of the failed drug deal, a Vietnam veteran, Llewellyn Moss, finds $2 million. Moss takes the money and runs, thus setting in motion a chain of events involving both the country sheriff, Bell, Anton Chigurh, a ruthless predator who really enjoys his work who is out to recover then money, and others.
Moss soon finds that he can’t hide from the killer that the dealers have sent after him. And Anton Chigurh is so bad, so bad, in fact, that even his employers are frantic to stop him when they realize the trouble they’ve set in motion. And Moss is in the thick of it, with no way to get out of the action. So he fights.
I think I liked No Country for Old Men. It is, of course, wonderfully written. It is written in a dense, enormously edited style for the most part. An sentences, spelling and sentence structure is used actively by McCarthy to convey a thick description of people and settings. That aspect of the book I loved.
But the book also has, at the same time, a cynical, distanced coldness to it that is, in a sense, frightening to read. It is describing heart shattering events, yet is chillingly distanced in its descriptions. Like others of McCarthy’s stories, this one too paints a dispiriting picture. However, like other of his books, Blood Meridian, All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and The Road, this book too, of course, is a best-seller.
Reading No Country for Old Men, I sympathized with sheriff Bell, who is losing any hope he has for humankind. He scowls and says, “I always thought when I got older that God would sort of come into my life in some way. He didn’t.” I do, of course, recommend the book. Highly, even. But it is a disturbing book to read, in all its strange beauty.
I do, of course, recommend No Country for Old Men. Highly, even. But it is a disturbing book to read, in all its strange beauty.
Other great books by Cormac McCarthy: The Road (Oprah’s Book Club)
Also, you can order the DVD from amazon as well: No Country for Old Men (DVD)
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