What more can you say about Cormac McCarthy

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	• No Country for Old Men (Vintage International) Cormac McCarthy Vintage, 2007 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 402 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Disappointing prose

You know, this could have been a good book and McCarthy shows a lot of potential as an author. But that potential was not actualized in No Country for Old Men. The weakest areas of the book involved Chigurh who is supposed to be this sub- or super-human character, without emotion, without remorse, without scruples, and without pain. This is clear from the very beginning when Chigurh kills a trooper brutally by strangling him with his handcuffs, and then calmly washing the blood from his wrists, with hardly an increase in breath. This is followed by a brilliantly tense scene where Chigurh chooses a car at random that he wants to steal and kills the driver with an airgun used to kill cattle. This scene ends with Chigurh's cold response to the man's slumped dead body, "I didn't want to get blood on your car." So far, so good. Chigurh is a psychopath and the reader is captivated. But then McCarthy gets lazy. He throws in a bunch of garbage lines like when Chigurh gets shot, "His leg was throbbing like a drum." Okay, we know that. He was shot with a rifle. We assume he feels pain. But we don't need that spelled out for us as Chigurh methodically buys supplies to tend his own wound. He is not supposed to feel anything. Leave his physical and psychological state to the reader's imagination. Another case in point, when Chigurh waits for Webb McCarthy throws in the line, "He waited all afternoon. Nobody would have done that." Yeah, we know. He's a psychopath. That's the point. You don't have to tell us that nobody else would have done that. Again, leave this to the reader to decide. These two examples reflect a larger problem I have with McCarthy. He lacks the prudence to decide when he needs to explain himself and when the reader should have to figure things out. I think, he errs in excess too frequently regarding the former. The mark of a great author is that he cleverly knows how to use language in such a way that he doesn't always have to explain himself. McCarthy lacks such talent. That being said, there are some brilliant scenes in the book--the two coin toss scenes, especially the second one, were excellently done. The sheriff's narration is also excellent, though weaker at the end than at the beginning. Overall, a three star book. Not deep, nor particularly well-written, but interesting and thought-provoking nonetheless.

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Hell (American style)

I'm not partial to McCarthy.

I like it far better, though, when McCarthy (does Hemingway, "No Country. . .") than when McCarthy (does Faulkner, "Suttree").

This is a well-told tragic tale. Almost everyone dies messily--leaving drying brainmatter somewhere. But, more sadly--prematurely(?) or prophetically(?)--McCarthy is burying Present American Society: "I wake up sometimes way in the night and I know as certain as death that there aint nothin short of the second comin of Christ that can slow this train."

And so, well told or not--before all my leaking optimisim is gone--I better stop reading McCarthy, right though he may be; this train passenger needs something more than death before he dies.

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A great book on many levels

Cormac McCarthy's "No Country for Old Men" is a tale on many levels. On the literal level, it is a simple plot of a man who finds $2.4 million in cash after a drug-deal gone wrong and his race to hide from the man trying to get the money from him (Anton Chigurgh). A splendid cat-and-mouse game, the novel progresses with each stop that Moss makes on his journey to get further away from Anton. Stuck in the middle is Sheriff Thom Bell. The sheriff, who is an "old-timer", is new to this string of violence that he is investigating. Disguised as almost as a Western/crime/thriller novel, "No Country for Old Men" tells the story of a man becoming aware of the changes in society and realizing that maybe he isn't fit for what's up ahead. I believe this book is perfect for when it was written, as we are now at a turning point in our society and the problems that we face now and will face up ahead are going to need to be solved by those who are willing to accept new ideas and make compromises. This society certainly has become a country not fit for old men. (There is a poem by William Butler Years called "Sailing to Byzantium" and the first line is "That is no country for old men..." although I'm about 75% sure this is where McCarthy got the title of the book from, I'd like for someone to confirm it for me.) "No Country for Old Men", in my opinion, will go down as a book that will be remembered as a staple of our society's changing face.

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What more can you say about Cormac McCarthy

I wanted to read the book before seeing the movie - it was a spectular novel - not unlike all of McCarthy's fiction. Just love this author!!! Never a dull moment - and I never want them to end.

reviews: 1, 2, page 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

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