
Llewelyn Moss stumbles upon a fortune in drug money near the Texas-Mexico border, setting off a deadly chase involving a drug cartel, a ruthless killer, and the aging Sheriff Bell. The narrative delves into the decay of modern society through Bell's eyes, showcasing McCarthy's unique writing style that mirrors spoken language with a thick Southern accent. The story unfolds with a sense of inevitability, exploring themes of death, violence, and the loss of nature in a brutal, unforgiving landscape.
McCarthy's novel is a gripping tale of survival, morality, and the relentless pursuit of power and money. The characters, including the larger-than-life antagonist Chigurh, are sharply drawn and engage in a battle of wits as they navigate a world where death looms large and the rules of storytelling are upended. The narrative propels forward with sparse, haunting prose that captures the harsh beauty of the West Texas landscape, leaving readers on edge as they witness the characters' fates unfold.
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Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings
The book contains significant content warnings for graphic violence, murder, and themes of nihilism.
From The Publisher:
In his blistering new novel, Cormac McCarthy returns to the Texas-Mexico border, setting of his famed Border Trilogy. The time is our own, when rustlers have given way to drug-runners and small towns have become free-fire zones. One day, a good old boy named Llewellyn Moss finds a pickup truck surrounded by a bodyguard of dead men. A load of heroin and two million dollars in cash are still in the back. When Moss takes the money, he sets off a chain reaction of catastrophic violence that not even the law-in the person of aging, disillusioned Sheriff Bell-can contain.As Moss tries to evade his pursuers-in particular a mysterious mastermind who flips coins for human lives-McCarthy simultaneously strips down the American crime novel and broadens its concerns to encompass themes as ancient as the Bible and as bloodily contemporary as this morning's headlines. No Country for Old Men is a triumph.
Ratings (87)
Incredible (15) | |
Loved It (48) | |
Liked It (15) | |
It Was OK (4) | |
Did Not Like (4) | |
Hated It (1) |
Reader Stats (142):
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4 comment(s)
4.5 stars. Set in the Texas-Mexican border it's a story with violence, drugs and a lot of action. It's unlike anything I've read, a gritty and intense book without any kinds of fluffyness this is a rather mad story. I doubt I would have enjoyed by a less talented writer then Cormac McCharthy. Its not really my thing to read but I ended up enjoying it a lot anywho
The writing style and the charcters
very spare prose but that lack of anything extraneous, that sense that the story is pared down to the bone, is what i love about mccarthy
this can be read as a thriller or a modern western and it is great that way
but anton chigurh blasts a path through the plot of senseless violence, sometimes deciding someone's fate on the flip of a coin
he represents violence in a new america to the other characters, many of whom are veterans of ww2 and vietnam
these people did things they aren't proud of in war, and came back to america with a shaky moral compass, wondering how to get back to the people they were
which makes chigurh weirdly the most steadily moral character in the book
he has a set of beliefs that are clearly psychotic, but he believes in them and has no doubts about what he should be doing or how he should live
important life lesson: if you find a bunch of drugs, money, and corpses in the desert, maybe just keep going and forget you ever saw it
Things happen to you they happen. They dont ask first. They dont require your permission.
I still don’t know how to feel about McCarthy: profound or pretentious? What I do know is that
No Country for Old Men is remarkably atmospheric and a definite page-turner that completely captivated me.
But it’s impossible to discuss McCarthy without first discussing his writing style:
He went around and opened the driver door and pushed the lever and slid the seat forward and set the case and the machinepistol behind it.
On the one hand: His no punctuation, wordsruntogether style felt somewhat logical in
The Road, where the world has ended and formal writing is the last thing on anyone’s mind; it makes less sense when the setting is modern-day (or thereabouts) Texas. It feels pointless, gimmicky, and deliberately difficult, almost as if McCarthy despises his readers: “could’ve” and “could of” sound exactly the same so why spell it wrong? It feels almost
arrogant to write this way, tossing out centuries of convention because he feels punctuation “clutters the page” or some nonsense when it doesn’t, it provides clarity, and if McCarthy bothered to write narrative sentences with any real shape beyond just
he did this and he did that and he did this then he might just see the beauty in punctuating. His style is also arguably limited in the range of emotions it can convey or the types of stories it can tell to only those that are as equally raw, jarring, uncomfortable, and brutal as his prose (I can’t imagine a tender love story written this way). McCarthy also refuses to describe what the characters look like, which is incredibly frustrating with a cast this large—I don’t need paragraphs of description, but give me
something to go off of.
On the other hand…it’s undeniably evocative and compelling. With this novel, this story, it kind of works. Something about his writing gives a visceral, atmospheric reading experience, and while I’m not entirely convinced that would be erased by quotation marks, I can’t deny that I
enjoyed reading it.
I don’t have that much to say about the story: it’s bloody and brutal. There is some unexpected humor (primarily in the character of Wells), which was badly needed. McCarthy explores what the postmodern world looks like completely unmoored from religion and truth, and while his characters scramble to grasp onto some sense of morality, onto some definition of right and wrong, McCarthy seemingly resigns himself to nihilism.
Like
The Road, the ending does affect the way I feel about the book. In this case, though, it convinces me that McCarthy sees just clearly enough to glimpse the truth (
that there can be no perfect justice in this world and there will always be evil
) but comes to the wrong conclusion (
that there is nothing to be done but accept it, that pursuit of justice is futile, that America has lost its faith and that’s that
). It is overwhelmingly fatalistic.
So why not five stars? I think I can’t quite get past either the writing style or the ending; or maybe it’s just too violent for me to love. Ultimately I can’t quite articulate why, but
No Country for Old Men just feels squarely like a 4-star read. It’s definitely a novel that will stick with me, though—maybe even moreso than
The Road.
Some favorite passages:
They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. I dont know what them eyes was the windows to and I guess I’d as soon not know. But there is another view of the world out there and other eyes to see it and that’s where this is goin.
Somewhere out there is a true and living prophet of destruction and I dont want to confront him. I know he’s real. I have seen his work.
To the west the baked terracotta terrain of the running borderlands.
When the moon did rise it sat swollen and pale and ill formed among the hills to light up all the land about and he turned off the headlights of the truck.
Red dirt and creosote.
Mrs Downie I havent seen that many dead cats in trees. I think he’ll come down directly if you’ll just leave him be. You call me back in a little bit, you hear?
He made his way up the street to a small park or zocalo where the grackles in the eucalyptus trees were waking and calling.
A rich tang of gunpowder on the cool morning air. Like the smell of fireworks. No sound anywhere.
Watching the capillaries break up in his eyes. The light receding. Watching his own image degrade in that squandered world.
Just how dangerous is he? Wells shrugged. Compared to what? The bubonic plague? He’s bad enough that you called me. He’s a psychopathic killer but so what? There’s plenty of them around.
He turned his face on the pillow and looked into the eyes of a man sitting on a metal chair against the wall holding a bouquet of flowers. How are you feeling? the man said.
I can make him go away. I can do that myself. I dont think so. You’re entitled to your opinions. If Acosta’s people hadnt shown up when they did I dont think you would have made out so good. I didnt make out so good. Yes you did. You made out extremely well.
The people he meets tend to have very short futures. Nonexistent, in fact.
How would you describe him. Wells thought about it. I guess I’d say that he doesnt have a sense of humor.
The sun pooled in the low blue hills before him. Bleeding slowly away. A cool and shadowed twilight falling over the desert.
And she kept talkin about the right wing this and the right wing that. I aint even sure what she meant by it. The people I know are mostly just common people. Common as dirt, as the sayin goes. I told her that and she looked at me funny. She thought I was sayin somethin bad about em, but of course that’s a high compliment in my part of the world. She kept on, kept on. Finally told me, said: I dont like the way this country is headed. I want my granddaughter to be able to have an abortion. And I said well mam I dont think you got any worries about the way the country is headed. The way I see it goin I dont have much doubt but what she’ll be able to have an abortion. I’m goin to say that not only will she be able to have an abortion, she’ll be able to have you put to sleep. Which pretty much ended the conversation.
Things happen to you they happen. They dont ask first. They dont require your permission.
You think when you wake up in the mornin yesterday dont count. But yesterday is all that does count. What else is there? Your life is made out of the days it’s made out of. Nothin else. You might think you could run away and change your name and I dont know what all. Start over. And then one mornin you wake up and look at the ceilin and guess who’s layin there?
The yellow police tape across the door lifted in the wind and the trucks droned past headed for Arizona and California.
He said: People will tell you it was Vietnam brought this country to its knees. But I never believed that. It was already in bad shape. Vietnam was just the icin on the cake. We didnt have nothin to give to em to take over there. If we’d sent em without rifles I dont know as they’d of been all that much worse off. You cant go to war like that. You cant go to war without God.
About the Author:
Cormac McCarthy is an American novelist, screenwriter, and playwright who has won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. A number of his works have been adapted into films, including All the Pretty…
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