This is an extraordinarily sublime book. It showcases McCarthy at his absolute rawest and best. The characters within its pages are so compelling that they truly manage to capture the essence and various elements of the human condition. Each character seems to leap off the page, with their flaws, desires, and struggles laid bare. McCarthy's writing is so vivid and powerful that it draws the reader in and refuses to let go. It's a work that will stay with you long after you've turned the final page.

Tragically, we must now say rest in peace to Cormac. His passing is a great loss to the literary world, but his body of work will continue to inspire and move readers for generations to come. This particular book is just one example of his genius and will surely be regarded as a classic in the years to come.

We should all be grateful for the opportunity to have experienced his writing and to have been touched by his unique vision of the human experience.

I’m almost certain that the moment you pick up a Cormac McCarthy novel, especially the Southern ones, Ennio Morricone’s theme for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly starts playing immediately in your mind.

The sun is at its zenith, casting a harsh light over the desolate landscape. Tumbleweeds roll by, and dust settles as the shimmering waves of heat dance on the horizon.

No Country for Old Men gave me this exact feeling from the very first page. The voice that McCarthy lends to his characters is simply undeniable. As you read about the abhorrent acts described in excruciating detail throughout the book, you can’t help but feel hot and sweaty. The feeling of dread is a constant presence – after all, this is a fast-paced thriller.

Just as he did in Blood Meridian, McCarthy creates another larger-than-life pantomime villain in Anton Chigurh. He is the embodiment of pure evil, so much so that all of his acts begin to follow a certain logic. You start to see the pattern and the law underlying his “perfectly rational” actions. That’s truly terrifying. He is beyond a creature towards whom you would feel anger, disappointment, or bitterness. You just know that your hairs stand on end when you read about him. You know he has his own way of doing things, and by god (or satan) he will stick to them. And yet, believe it or not, he is still not as bad as the Judge.

I finished this book much faster than the other two I had read by McCarthy. It’s really hard to put down. When the dialogue is on point, it’s truly excellent. It was also much easier to digest than Blood Meridian and The Road. Unfortunately, this meant that I also enjoyed it a tiny bit less than the other two. Not that difficulty level is a prerequisite for enjoying a book, but the bar is set so high for McCarthy that continuously hitting that level may not be entirely realistic. I look forward to taking on Suttree and The Border Trilogy in the future.

This book tells the story of a man who accidentally witnesses a conflict and a crime.

However, with his own naivety, he helps in this incident.

I had read McCarthy's "The Road" and was extremely attracted to it.

This book is also very good. Although it is completely different from "The Road", it also has some commonalities.

The author's concerns about the end of the world, the change of people, the change of people, their strangeness (even children), the difference between generations, and so on are also on the verge of this story and can be found from the words of the characters.

I think the most attractive part of McCarthy's books is his dialogues, which are short, straightforward, and vivid, without any extra and complicated words.

They sell drugs to school children.

Even worse than that.

What?

The school children buy from them.

In the 1930s, the government sent a group of teachers to schools in different parts of the country and asked them to identify the problems of these schools and the problems of teaching. They gave them some forms to fill out. They filled out the forms and sent them back.

The biggest problems that caught the teachers' eyes were things like talking in class and running in the hallway. People's running. Writing on the desk. From these things.

Forty years later, they copied one of those forms again and sent it to the same schools. Forty years later. The answers came back. Violence. Arson. Murder. Drugs. Suicide.

I thought a lot about this matter.

Many times when I say that the world is going to hell, people smile at me and say I'm getting old.

"This is one of the signs of misfortune."

Just like these old people I'm talking to. If you tell them that these are human beings.

Who paint their hair green and drill holes in their heads in the streets of Texas, throw bones in them and talk in a way that we don't understand at all, well, they don't believe a word of it. But then if you tell them that these are their own children, what happens?

Well, these are all signs, but you can't say based on these signs which way the world is going.

I think if you're the devil and you sit down and think about trying to build something.

"That will bring the human race to its knees, it must be drugs."

Cormac McCarthy is truly a remarkable writer, a goddamned poet with some insanely good, kick-ass storytelling skills. At the moment, I'm left speechless. My brain feels like goo. Please stand by.

This book has completely broken my brain. On the surface, McCarthy is crafting a modern-day western that is appropriately drenched in blood and ruthlessness. Here, the line between hero and villain is sharply defined. On that same surface, we have a cast of archetypes. There's the weary sheriff who has endured for too long and witnessed far too much. There's the everyday man who lives right until he is undone by greed. There's the young and dutiful wife committed to "standing by her man" no matter what. And finally, there's the relentless villain who will cut down anyone and everyone who crosses his path.

That's just on the surface.

Even if you only read the book for that tale, it is an awe-inspiring and rewarding one. It's tense, violent, dark, and oppressive. You find yourself constantly wondering: who will live? Who will die?

But as you read, your brain will naturally want to do a lot more thinking about the story. In fact, the story demands it. Those archetypical characters also demand it. Like a hologram, if you shift them just a few degrees to the right or left, they become much more nuanced than you initially thought, revealing other angles and deeper reflections.

Take Anton Chigurh, for example. Is he just a blood-thirsty villain? An amoral badass? A demented sociopath? The answer is yes, yes, and yes. But he also walks through the story doling out justice in an Old Testament style. There's a Biblical quality to him. You've committed your sins, and now the reaper has come a-calling. Not for vengeance, not for his pleasure, but for justice. There's a debt to pay that is non-negotiable. Chigurh doesn't like loose ends. There are "rules" to death and dying. But that's part of his mad psychology (and his hubris).

Chigurh's character made me think deeply about the concept of free will versus destiny. What choices does any man or woman make to get them to the exact moment they are in now? Is it all random or has it been predestined all along? I'm not sure what Chigurh believes; he's definitely an enigma on this point.

I love Carla Jean. She's a bundle of contradictions: innocent yet knowing, vulnerable yet strong, naïve yet wise. She's loyal and loving, and even though she finds herself in a heap of trouble, she doesn't buckle under the pressure. Her confrontation with Chigurh is my favorite scene in the entire novel. It's heartbreaking. Here's an innocent facing death. It's not fair, it shouldn't be happening, but it is. Chigurh offers her a faint hope with the coin toss, but even that doesn't work out for her. What breaks my heart the most about her death is that she went out of this life believing Llewellyn didn't love her, that he had betrayed her.

Llewellyn is a good man. I don't believe it was naked greed that made him run off with the money, but rather a hope for a better life, an easier life for him and Carla Jean. I think he's a man filled with love, and many of the choices he makes in this novel are made with only his young wife and the life he wants to give her in mind.

I love, love, love this exchange between the two of them that comes early on in the novel. As subtle as it is, I think it speaks volumes about their relationship. For me, it reads as such a tender and playful moment.

Where have you been all day?
Went to get you some cigarettes.
I don’t even want to know. I don’t even want to know what you all been up to.
He sipped the beer and nodded. That’ll work, he said.
I think it’s better just to not even know even.
You keep runnin that mouth and I’m goin to take you back there and screw you.
Big talk.
Just keep it up.
That’s what she said.
Just let me finish this beer. We’ll see what she said and what she didn’t say.

This novel has made my head explode with questions. McCarthy gives the reader a lot to ponder and chew on, but there are also many places where he is silent and leaves it up to the reader to do all the work and come up with some answers. And, as in life, answers are not easy to come by.

This work is extremely difficult to evaluate.

On one hand, it presents a truly brilliant ending that leaves a lasting impression. The conclusion is so well-crafted and unexpected that it elevates the entire piece to a new level.

However, the overall evaluation is not without its challenges. The complexity and ambiguity within the work make it hard to simply assign a definite score.

Despite this, based on the remarkable ending alone, it can be awarded a score of 4.5 out of 5. This score reflects the outstanding quality of that particular aspect, while also acknowledging the difficulties in comprehensively assessing the entire work.

Overall, it is a work that demands careful consideration and reflection, leaving the reader with a sense of admiration and a desire to explore its depths further.

Bizarre reading experience indeed! The writing style is often completely straightforward, with entire pages of dialogue lacking attribution or quotation marks. McCarthy simply describes actions as bluntly as possible. And yet, despite the various elements not really coming together neatly at the end but rather slipping apart into melancholy, I find myself strangely liking it.

It has this odd quality where, when reading a single page, it may seem like the story isn't being told efficiently. One might wonder why he's wasting all those words. But in hindsight, the entire book feels super efficient, covering a vast amount of ground without sacrificing depth. Even though his word choice is extremely simple, there's something about it. I struggle to describe it. The pacing, not of the entire novel but of his sentences, works remarkably well. It's written in a way that's engaging, not overstaying its welcome in a scene. I don't quite understand how it all works, but when I look at an individual page, I often think it's nothing special. However, when I sit down to read, I'm extremely engaged.

Also, by the way, here's another data point in favor of faithful adaptations. The last three books I've read that already had a movie I'd watched are The Princess Bride, The Martian, and No Country For Old Men. All of them, as much as possible, are scene-by-scene adaptations of the book, and astonishingly, they're all really good. 8.6

The Academy Award-winning film version was truly awesome. However, it doesn't do justice to the novel. It's like blowing hot air compressed to the novel.

I wholeheartedly recommend this novel to anyone who has seen the movie, as it offers a much deeper and more detailed exploration of the story. And it's equally captivating for those who haven't seen the movie.

This is an American treasure set in 1980 in southwestern Texas. It provides a profound meditation on the ongoing war between good and evil, which is as intense and blood-marinated as it can be. Moreover, it showcases how choice and chance blend in a remarkable way to shape fate.

The novel is a literary masterpiece that will keep you on the edge of your seat from beginning to end. It's a must-read for anyone who loves a good story with complex characters and a thought-provoking plot.

I'm not truly a die-hard enthusiast of Westerns. Only on rare occasions do I immerse myself in this genre and discover that I'm enjoying it. I'm also somewhat hesitant when it comes to classics, perhaps due to all the years in school where I was bombarded with them and then compelled to analyze them to death.

However, I was delightfully surprised by No Country For Old Men.

This book is a rapid-paced, bloody pursuit. It is filled with morally ambiguous characters, having both good and bad intentions. The setting is gritty and realistic.

I must admit that the writing style is rather... plain. But to be honest, it functions extremely well here and enhances the storytelling. It can be a bit odd to become accustomed to if you're not familiar with this style of writing, but it didn't pose much of a distraction.

My favorite aspect of this story was the banter among the characters. Everyone in this book is either as pure as cotton or a smartass bastard. Some very clever moments had me laughing out loud!

The story can seem a little preachy at times, but it depends on which character you place your trust in. I got the impression that it is a textual criticism of society's moral decline, yet simultaneously a commentary on how previous generations perceive the unique problems and challenges of future generations.

But hey! That's the wonderful thing about reviewing a classic outside of a classroom environment. No one is grading my opinion!

I'll definitely be picking up the movie adaptation of this book shortly!

Great novel.

I've watched the Coen brothers' adaptation about five times.

In terms of content, the text doesn't differ much from the film. However, it does offer a broader perspective and helps one understand some details that might have been overlooked in the movie.

This is one of those rare cases where there's no need for comparison. The text and the film coexist perfectly together, each enhancing the other.

The style of the novel is very concise and to the point. There isn't a single unnecessary word, which makes it a pleasure to read.

It's a testament to the author's skill that they were able to convey such a powerful story in such a简洁的 way.

Overall, I highly recommend this novel, whether you've seen the film or not. It's a great work of literature that will stay with you long after you've finished reading.

This is undoubtedly a man's book, filled with violence and a male inclination towards under-explaining compared to female over-analyzing. In the first half, I believed there was surely nothing to be gained from the book compared to the movie (which I haven't seen) as it read like a movie script, depicting one violent murder after another without any in-depth exploration of the characters' motives, emotions, or intentions, all the aspects that make a book superior.

However, near the end of the book, one realizes that this is not Moss' story, but rather sheriff Bell's. We are privy to snippets of his thoughts. It's not about a shortage of old men because they are all being killed off young, but rather a country where old men are left clinging to the values of the past and wondering what has become of society.

The story revolves around a young man (Moss) who stumbles upon a botched drug exchange and seizes the millions from the carnage. He soon finds himself being hunted by hit men (with Chigurh being the main one) seeking to recover the money, and one step behind it all is sheriff Bell, on the verge of retirement, who has never had an unsolved homicide and desires the world to make sense and be good.

There are numerous statements regarding right and wrong and the fine line between the two. Take sheriff Bell, who is the epitome of good, yet he is doing good to live up to his father and make up for a war failure, but it brings him no joy as it is merely retribution. And in the one moment when he could redeem his youth, he succumbs to the same pattern by hiding and waiting for backup.

Then there is Chigurh, the villainous assassin who will kill someone simply because they inconvenienced him. Later, we learn of the warped scruples his psychotic mind has fabricated to justify himself. Of all the characters, he seems to possess the most integrity, although one might want to kill him oneself for it. He views himself as a symbol of death that has no sense of right or wrong, only an unchangeable fate. We witness how the other characters deal with him in the classic stages of death. Of all the characters, he was the most fascinating to read about.

Finally, there is Moss, a good guy who makes a dumb mistake, or perhaps many of them. Where does he fit in the spectrum of good and bad when he allows greed to overshadow his consideration for his wife? It was well into the book before I could determine whether I liked him or not as he seemed so indecisive himself.

I appreciated the lack of a fairy tale ending and the surprises. What I didn't like was the style. Not the loose grammatical style that added character to the book, but the lack of description. At times, I got lost. Which character am I reading about here? Who did what? What are they talking about? The condensed dialogue seemed to meander aimlessly at times and then suddenly snap into profound insights without a transition.

I would have liked to understand more about what transpired in the motel with the hitchhiker, but all we are given are police reports, not who came, how, or even why. It could have been as random as a car accident. But I suppose the senselessness is the entire point of the story. I felt the ending dragged a bit. It was quick to the point of being abrupt and then followed by page after page of sheriff Bell's mind wandering, unexplained, and sometimes difficult to follow. The end didn't quite match the rest of the book.

The writing and the story aren't extraordinary, but once the flavor of the book fades and one is left reflecting and wondering, the book grows on you. It was frustrating to read initially, but upon further contemplation, I liked it better.

The main story here is centered around a cantankerous sheriff who is constantly grumbling that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. The thrilling cat-and-mouse game between Chigurh and Moss serves to vividly illustrate this point. The pursuit is filled with unrelenting suspense, keeping the reader on the edge of their seat. The characters, although outlandish in many ways, also feel genuine and believable. The dialogues are truly memorable, leaving a lasting impression on the reader. And the sheriff's grumbling logs are even more so, adding an extra layer of authenticity to the story.

As much as I have a great fondness for this book, I must admit that I would have liked it even more if I hadn't watched the movie first. Now, don't misunderstand me. The movie is, without a doubt, one of the greatest of all time. But that's precisely the problem. Having seen the movie prior to reading the book, some of the surprises and the element of mystery were already somewhat diminished for me. Nevertheless, the book still has its own unique charm and is well worth reading for anyone who enjoys a gripping and thought-provoking story.

Every moment in your life is a turning and every one a choosing. Somewhere you made a choice. All followed to this. The accounting is scrupulous. The shape is drawn. No line can be erased. I had no belief in your ability to move a coin to your bidding. How could you? A person’s path through the world seldom changes and even more seldom will it change abruptly. And the shape of your path was visible from the beginning.

Christ, does anyone do depressing better than Cormac McCarthy? The only other book of his I’d read before is The Road, and somehow No Country For Old Men manages to be almost more depressing than a book about the literal end of the world.

Sitting down to recap this book for a review, I’m realizing how much it has in common with The Pearl by John Steinbeck: a poor man stumbles upon an object of great value, but it turns out he’s not the only one hunting the object. From the second he picks it up, he’s caught in a desperate struggle to save himself and his family from the dangers the object brings with it.

The way McCarthy writes this story is fascinating. His writing is the antithesis of dramatic – I don’t think there’s a single exclamation point in the entire book. And yet, so many of the scenes are filled with an almost unbearable tension as you read breathlessly, anxious to find out what happens next. I don’t know how he does it, but it’s incredible to watch.

(There was one major thing that really bugged me and actually took me out of the story. I'm going to hide it under the spoiler tag. Not because it's a spoiler at all, but because McCarthy is very deliberate about when exactly in the narrative he reveals this information, and I don't want to ruin that.)

So McCarthy does this very interesting thing where he doesn't reveal the ages of Llewellyn and his wife Carla Jean right away. It's not until Carla Jean has her interview with the sheriff, almost halfway through the book, that we learn she married Llewellyn when she was sixteen, and is just nineteen at the time of the story. At this point, no age has been specified for Llewellyn but the sheriff refers to him as \\"the boy\\" a few times in conversation, so I figured he was...maybe twenty-five? And that immediately made the story so much more tragic, because you realize that Llewellyn and his wife are just kids who are being pulled into this horribly violent situation. It isn't until the very end (probably only a couple chapters away from the conclusion) that we learn Llewellyn's age: he's thirty-six. So not only is he a grown-ass adult who should have known better than to steal a briefcase of cartel cash, if we do the math that means when he was thirty-three goddamn years of age he married a sixteen year old girl. I don't care if it's legal, it's still gross as hell, and it totally soured me on the character, who I had really liked until that point. Anyway, it was distracting as hell and I wish McCarthy had just kept that information to himself.

Overall, No Country For Old Men is a powerful and thought-provoking novel. Despite the one major issue I had with it, I still found myself completely engrossed in the story from beginning to end. McCarthy's writing is masterful, and he creates a world that is both terrifying and captivating. If you're a fan of literary fiction or crime novels, I highly recommend giving this book a read.