No Country for Old Men | Cormac McCarthy | Shocking, stunning and VERY relevant in our country...

No Country for Old Men | Cormac McCarthy | Oh how the world has changed

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No Country for Old...

	No Country for Old Men Cormac McCarthy Knopf, 2005 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 433 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Shocking, stunning and VERY relevant in our country today...

Right off the bat: I'm 41 years old and have been an avid reader since I was about 7 years old (when I read Watership Down), and this book quickly nestled itself into the top ten books I've ever read.
If you are reading this, more than likely you have seen the movie and are interested in the book. Just remember, the book is almost always better than the movie, as is the case here.

For all you morons who gave this book one and two stars: You have not one single clue as to what true literature is and you probably think Shakespeare is a cartoon character from the 1960's.

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Oh how the world has changed

Riveting story and amazing writing. If you are looking for a happily ever after, this is NOT the book for you. The "man on the run" storyline hooks you and keeps you going. But what makes this book truly amazing is how McCarthy subtly shows how in 30 years (from the 1950's to the 1980's) how the world has drastically changed. Going from an age of Ozzie & Harriet and Leave it to Beaver where people thought saying "damn" was a swear word and no one felt the need to lock their doors. To a world where drugs, murder, sex, and violence are the norm.

McCarthy immediately pulls you into the story and into the character's lives. The ending (which is a somewhat different than the movie AND better than the movie) was fantastic. It doesn't end with everything neatly taken care of, in fact you wonder what is going to happen with a few of the characters. But at the end you can't help but say "WOW!!"

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On Par With The Film

Wow.

I think you can sum up the entire review with the word above. This book is a lean juicy steak with zero fat. That is the most important thing about this story, that there is zero fluff, because if there was any unneeded junk put into the story, it wouldn't work at all.

I love that McCarthy isn't some literary aficionado somewhere at some university but he is somewhere living in a truck out in West Texas or East New Mexico, writing.

Seeing the movie before the book did not hamper my joy in reading this one bit. What is great about the book is that you get much more of Sheriff Tom Bell, and you get to see his view of things in panorama.

Moss's demise is explained in greater detail, and although it is still not satisfactory for most, it is the way McCarthy intended the book to be, without a tidy ending and without any sense of justice.

There is quite a bit more of Anton Chigurh as well, and he gives out some of his philosophy and world views, especially right before he kills someone. I'm not sure why he is obsessed with the people knowing why he is killing them before he does it, but this is part of his M.O., showing the victims that their life is hopeless if it led to this point.

This book is a fast read, and that is mostly because a good portion of it is dialogue. I'm a sucker for good southern dialogue, and McCarthy's use of the language and dialect is unmatched in this generation.

This is a highly recommended read, despite if you have seen the movie or not, and go into knowing that this is more than a story, but McCarthy's view on civilization and the culture of violence. If you missed his point in the movie, the book won't leave you guessing as to what this all means. We're all in a basket, and we're all heading down south.

I'm going out of my way here to say that I can't remember enjoying a book this much, despite the depression that lingers after reading it. It has jumped up to my top five books of all times list, and may be close to the first. I know that means something to you.

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Beautifully written

As an English major in college, I appreciated the style in which Mr. McCarthy wrote this book. The sentences were short and simple and clear and the message was powerful. I found the story haunting, and I felt that the "evil" character represented fate and/or death. This was a terrific read.

A Book That Approaches Greatness

This is one of those rare books that actually translated into a better film. The movie version deservedly won Best Picture for 2007, and it certainly benefited from its source material. However, McCarthy's writing is curious, to put it mildly. His prose is alternately insightful and infuriating; he is not content to write in a traditional style, which sometimes works to the book's advantage and sometimes works to its disadvantage. His subject matter is dark and ambitious, and in some ways, his writing fits it, but not always.

No Country For Old Men is written mostly in staccato form, which captures the fragmented nature of man's behavior but is also downright maddening at times. There are sections where this seems appropriate, but in a number of instances, it's vexing and downright frustrating to read. There is also a lot of southern vocabulary, which does indeed add to the genuineness of the setting and makes the story more vivid, even if you have to have a dictionary alongside you. The names were also very southern-sounding but also a bit pretentious, not to mention difficult to pronounce, at least at first (Chigurh? Llewelyn?). The most affecting parts of the novel are the interposing thoughts of the Texan sheriff at the center of events, which are both elegant and heartbreaking.

The names are the only thing about this book that even suggest pretentiousness. The story is simple yet tense and full of meaning. Llewelyn Moss comes across a drug deal gone bad, complete with rotting bodies and a suitcase full of money. He takes this suitcase, but he makes the mistake of returning to the crime scene to try to save the one man who was still alive. For some reason or another that is never really explained (but is implied), Chigurh is there and spots him, thus setting in motion the events that make up the rest of the novel. This scene is a perfect way to start the book off. Llewelyn likely would have gotten away with his misdeed had he not stumbled over his own conscience, and he is aware of this beforehand, yet he marches on to almost certain devastation. Right from the outset we are presented with complex characters and layered interactions, and they never disappear.

This is much, much more than just a chase novel, even though the chase takes up much of the narrative. The themes of predestination, chance, and adaptation are presented subtly and skillfully. Does our basic sense of humanity and goodness prevent us from living a live free of conflict and harm? Is the world so infested with evil that we cannot hope to lead a life free from its infection? These are just some of the questions McCarthy asks us, and he doesn't give us any facile answers. Despite a somewhat problematic approach, No Country for Old Men lives up to its reputation as one of the better novels in recent years.

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