I read The Road approximately four or five years ago, and it had a profound impact on me. At that time, I didn't have children, but now that I do, I'm not sure if I could ever reread that book as I initially planned. It provided me with a great introduction to McCarthy's writing style, and it's been a long time since I've read more of his work.

No Country for Old Men is a chilling tale that showcases the extent of the world's depravity. The actions of certain individuals are truly incomprehensible and terrifying. It's especially shocking to someone like myself, who has led a relatively sheltered life.

Right from the start, Anton Chigurh's brutality is on full display when he murders the deputy while in handcuffs. Llewellyn Moss stumbles upon a grisly scene while hunting, with evidence of a violent gunfight and a large stash of drugs. He makes the fateful decision to take the millions of dollars he finds, which turns his life upside down.

Overall, this book had me both pondering the nature of evil and feeling physically ill at times. There's one particular part that I want to discuss, but it's a spoiler. I'll try to be vague, but I also want to touch on some of the more interesting aspects. After all, everyone has read this book, right? I'll use a spoiler tag just in case.

As the story builds up to its climax, I was on the edge of my seat, eagerly anticipating the big scene. But then, McCarthy surprises us by jumping ahead to the aftermath. I had to go back and listen to the previous scenes again, only to realize that Moss and the hitchhiker are suddenly dead. It felt unjust, as I had been waiting for that showdown. However, upon further reflection, I think McCarthy is making a powerful statement here. He's not just telling us how bad things are, but showing us that it's so obvious that it doesn't even need to be spelled out. Also, he's not interested in telling that particular story. What he really wants to convey is the horror of how bad people can be, and what happens after Moss and the hitchhiker is even worse. Omitting that scene actually adds to the overall impact of the book, especially when compared to the disturbing final discussion between Chigurh and Carla Jean.

If you can handle the darkness, No Country for Old Men is a must-read. It's more than just a book; it's an experience that will pull you in and keep you hooked until the very end. It's both powerful and deeply disturbing, and I highly recommend it.

4 out of 5 Stars (highly recommended sort of)

EDIT: I just realized that I didn't mention anything about the narrator of the audiobook. I guess that's a good sign, as it means the narration was so seamless that I didn't even think about it. At least that's what I'm going to tell myself from now on, rather than admitting that I'm a complete idiot. In any case, Tom Stechschulte did an amazing job. His voice had the perfect rustic quality, with a nice drawl here and there and a nearly perfect Hispanic accent. These types of narrators truly amaze me with their talent.

“How does a man decide in what order to abandon his life?”
― Cormac McCarthy, No Country For Old Men




My initial encounter with this fictional work was through listening to a 'Partially Examined Life' podcast. It featured three young philosophers and Eric Petrie, a university professor who had delved into the study of Cormac McCarthy's dark novel set in Texas in 1980. This captivating discussion not only inspired me to read the book but also to listen to the audiobook narrated by Tom Stechschulte. I'm truly glad I did. Stechschute's reading is impeccable, especially his portrayal of one of the main characters, the good old boy named Sheriff Bell.




Since numerous reviews have already been posted, in the pursuit of freshness, I'd like to share some philosophical reflections. My observations are in light of what contemporary British philosopher Simon May has to say about the nature of love. According to May, love isn't what philosophers like Plato claim it to be, that is, love being a longing for the Good and Beautiful. Instead, May argues that love has a broader scope: we fall in love inspired by an anchoring for our life, an anchoring that gives us a sense of home in the world. Such a love is worthy of dying for, as we deeply desire to be rooted in the world with a feeling of being fully alive.




Now, with Simon May's concept of love in mind, let's take a closer look at McCarthy's novel. An entire essay could be dedicated to each main character. However, for the sake of brevity, I'll limit my remarks to a few sentences regarding each man's way of living and loving.




Llewelyn Moss, a 37-year-old welder who served as an army sniper in Vietnam, is out in the desert with his sniper rifle hunting game when he spots something unusual in the distance - a collection of cars and trucks seemingly abandoned. He approaches for a closer inspection and discovers the aftermath of a botched drug deal - men and even dogs riddled with bullets and covered in blood. Moss then stumbles upon a briefcase filled with $100 bills. He takes the money, knowing that this moment will forever change his life. Why would he do such a thing? I see one significant reason Moss would take the money: by doing so, he will be catapulted into a world where the intensity of being alive is a thousand times greater than that of being a welder. Having experienced life-and-death intensity in Vietnam, Moss is familiar with the feeling - and he loves intensity, which is further heightened when danger looms.




Anton Chigurh, also a Vietnam vet or a veteran of other types of wars (or so it seems), is the man from the drug world who pursues Moss. As we follow Chigurh in the story, it quickly becomes evident that he views himself as a grim-reaper. Anybody who stands before him, if he so desires, has come face-to-face with their own death. Well, not entirely by his choice alone. Chigurh will occasionally flip a coin and ask the person to call it. If anyone shows the slightest hesitation in facing their own choices in life or the reality of their own death, then, by Chigurh's standards, they might as well be dead. We would have to search far and wide to find a character in literature, perhaps Richard III, who is equally the embodiment of pure evil. Love? Chigurh loves death; he is a true necrophiliac, and he shares his love whenever the opportunity arises. In the course of this McCarthy novel, Chigurh kills men and women without hesitation.




Sheriff Bell, a World War II veteran, witnesses his county losing its moral foundation. And this moral foundation anchors Sheriff Bell's life and gives him a sense of home in the world. He reflects towards the end of the story, "These old people I talk to, if you could have told them that there would be people on the streets of our Texas towns with green hair and bones in their noses speaking a language they couldn't even understand, well, they just flat out wouldn't have believed you. But what if you'd told them it was their own grandchildren?" We also learn that what particularly anchors Bell's life (what Bell loves) is a prime military virtue: loyalty to your men. And Bell tells his old uncle about the major regret of his life - when he was a Sergeant in the war and faced a choice: stick with his men or save his own life. Since at one point in a battle, the overwhelming odds were that all of his men were dead, he chose to save himself by leaving. Bell says he has been reflecting on this event over the years and concludes that he violated the code of loyalty. He goes on to say that if he had to do it over again, he would have died with his men rather than leaving.




These observations about the nature of love are presented as an invitation to read McCarthy's novel and determine where you stand philosophically. Is love solely love for the Beautiful and Good, or can love have, as Simon May proposes (and as illustrated by the respective objects of love of these three men), a more expansive and darker range?







American novelist Cormac McCarthy - Born 1933

Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/

No Country For Old Men has an unprecedented FOUR POINT THREE TWO rating among my Goodreads friends. So what's left to say? Let the book speak for itself...

“Do you love it? I guess you could say I do. But I’d be the first one to tell you I’m as ignorant as a box of rocks so you sure don’t want to go by nothing I’d say.”

The story is about Llewellyn Moss, a welder living near the Mexico-US border with his young wife. One day, while out hunting to put food on the table, he stumbles upon a group of dead bad guys, a pickup truck full of heroin bricks, and a satchel with two million dollars in used bills. Instead of leaving well enough alone, Llewellyn takes the money without thinking, making him the number one target of the baddest hombre you never want to meet, Anton Chigurh. Interwoven with this storyline is that of Sheriff Bell, an old timer who has witnessed the deterioration of his corner of the world due to the narcotics trade.

I don't know how to "sell" a Cormac McCarthy, so I won't even try. He is definitely not "normal". McCarthy is incomparable to any other author and is a love him or hate him storyteller. There is no world building - you are thrown right into the middle of a scene as it unfolds. He also has a severe aversion to using quotation marks, so if you need proper punctuation to follow along, you'll struggle. His stories are not for everyone as they are not light and fluffy at all. In fact, they are as bleak as can be. I'm telling you, even Mitchell was scared when faced with the bad guy in this one...

If you're not brave enough to tackle McCarthy's writing, you can opt for the film version instead. It won all the Oscars, which made Tommy Lee Jones happy...

Surprisingly, I had never seen this movie before. But it happened to be on the night I finished reading, so it's now on my DVR. It's probably a good thing too because although Josh Brolin is a great actor, I picture him in the lead of "scientific motorcycle maintenance journals" (wink wink) and would have been easily distracted from all the stabbing going on...

Book number something or other in the Library's “Read to Reel” Winter Reading Challenge

I hate to admit it, but the film was indeed better than the book. And I hardly ever feel this way. Javier Bardem was an amazing psychopath in the film, and the other actors really made the movie come together.

The writing in the book was a little strange for me. There were no quotes when the characters were speaking in conversation, and no apostrophes in contractions. However, as the story started to unfold, it didn't bother me as much.

The story is set in a small town in Texas near the Mexico border. Llewelyn Moss discovers dead bodies in the desert and, out of curiosity, stumbles upon a dying man with a suitcase full of money. The fool then goes back to the crime scene with his truck, and soon he is on the run, becoming a highly sought-after man. Chigurh is the psychopath who wants the money back for the people he works for. He has no interest in the money itself, only in killing anyone who crosses his path, without remorse or humanity. Bell is the sheriff who tries to live right, cares about his small town, and has a deep respect for his wife and for being a good person.

The dead bodies and the suitcase set off a chain of events in this small Texas town, leaving everyone scared and mostly confused. The paths of innocent bystanders, drug dealers, and everyone in between are affected by the greed and stupidity of Moss and the hunger for death of Chigurh.

There are many great quotes in this book, but the following one really stuck with me: "She was just tryin to be a reporter. She said: Sheriff how come you let crime get so out of hand in your county? Sounded like a fair question I reckon. Maybe it was a fair question. Anyway I told her, I said: It starts when you begin to overlook bad manners. Any time you quit hearin Sir and Mam the end is pretty much in sight."

"She give me kindly a funny look. So the last thing I told her, and maybe I shouldnt of said it, I told her that you cant have a dope business without dopers. A lot of em are well dressed and holdin down goodpayin jobs too. I said: You might even know some yourself."

I don't typically write reviews.

And books like this are precisely the reason why. What more can I possibly say about this classic that hasn't already been said and said far better?

This was a captivating story about fate, luck, and faith, and the intricate ways in which they intersect. Anton Chigurh was seemingly driven by what he believed to be the hands of fate. It truly seemed as if he didn't feel responsible for any of the heinous crimes he committed. Everyone had their "turn," ran out of luck, and begged him not to carry out his actions. Sheriff Bell, on the other hand, longed for faith through his perfect love for Loretta. However, he was losing his faith in his less-than-perfect love for humanity. Llewelyn Moss was a faithful man, a plaything of fate, and decently lucky, until that luck ran out. I really took a liking to his character.

The similarities between this book and William Gay's Twilight are difficult to overlook. While Gay crafted a good monster in Granville Sutter, Chigurh was something entirely different. He had a method to his madness. There wasn't that two-dimensional villain feeling with Chigurh; he was complex and deep. Gay clearly adored McCarthy's writing and managed to create his own unique world within the same literary space as McCarthy.

Where have you gone, Cormac McCarthy? Blood Meridian is an apocalyptic masterpiece. Even after twenty years, folksy Ed Tom Bell, inevitably played by Tommy Lee Jones in the movie, is dispensing Buckaroo Banzai homilies like this:

"It's not about knowin where you are. It's about thinkin you got there without takin anything with you."

He's become sentimental and conservative in his old age.

"These old people I talk to, if you could of told em that there would be people on the streets of our Texas towns with green hair and bones in their noses...well, they just flat out wouldnt of believed you. But what if you'd of told em it was their own grandchildren? Well, all of that is signs and wonders but it dont tell you how it got that way."

Back away, kids, gramps has been at the moonshine again.

Look, there's nothing irredeemably wrong with this book. It's a crackerjack action story, at least until around the three-quarter mark where it commences to never stop ending. Before that, there are exciting shootouts and suspenseful sequences. I'm giving it four stars because I had a good time reading it. Llewelyn Moss makes for a decent hero; you hope he gets away with that terribly bad decision he's made. Chigurgh is a great villain, with his bolt pistol and his coins.

But he's a henchman. He is no Judge Holden. He's a servant of the judge. He has a sort of psychotic Zen to him: at times he allows a coin toss to dictate his actions.

"Call it," he says to one terrified man in the best scene of the book.
"Well I need to know what it is we’re callin here."
"How would that change anything?"

Compare that to a coin scene in Blood Meridian, where the judge tosses a coin that flies in a circle around the fire and returns to his hand. Chigurgh is human.

And this book is a henchman to the awful majesty of Blood Meridian. The Road is the same way: McCarthy's got his usual tricks, his shocking violence and cruelty toward people and punctuation, but both books deliver essentially corny messages. He's made a bold attempt to acknowledge that women exist, but about the most he can think of to say about them is that they seem nice. "That's my heart yonder," says Ed Tom to his horse. "It always was." Barf, gramps. Now in his 70's, he's come to a conclusion about the armageddon he wrote twenty years ago: "It starts when you begin to overlook bad manners."

McCarthy's worldview hasn't really changed. It's still bleak. It's just that he's gone from showing it to whining about it. If this is good manners, I miss the judge.

One chapter into the book, it dawned on me that I had been missing out on reading Cormac McCarthy’s books. The prose, so stark and stripped to the bone, along with the unflinching portrayal of violence, and the words that flow like a frenzied torrent without quotations, all contribute to a heady rush. If you’re new to his works, the initial parts of the story might lull you into thinking it’s a typical thriller. But then, McCarthy turns the entire thing upside down. He sits down with you to watch as his story evolves from a botched drug deal to a bloody cat and mouse game, which ultimately becomes a profound meditation on the nature of good and evil, set in Texas in the 1980s.

Rolling a (big) spiked ball down an incline on a road full of people is a recipe for chaos. You can never predict the extent of the damage it will cause. At some point, you wonder what kind of force you’ve unleashed on an unsuspecting group. Anton Chigurh is such a force. While a spiked ball might eventually stop due to lack of momentum, Chigurh doesn’t. In a review by a friend on GR, he’s referred to as the Grim Reaper, and I can’t think of a more fitting analogy. He’s not evil in the traditional sense as he doesn’t enjoy killing or tormenting others. He functions like a machine, eliminating anything and anyone that stands in the way of his assignment. The man who crosses him, Llewelyn Moss, has smarts and a strong survival instinct, but Chigurh is an unstoppable juggernaut. The chase between them is complex and thrilling. All in all, the chase story makes up about 70% of the book.

Then there’s Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, who initially pursues the trails of Moss and Chigurh with the tenacity of a hound. But as the carnage spreads across his county and beyond, he realizes this case is beyond his control. That’s when he drops the pretense of being a strict lawman and shows his softer, human side as a man nearing retirement, longing for a quiet life with his wife. Through Bell’s monologues and interactions with his colleagues, uncle Ellis, and his wife, we understand the uneven matchup between the Sheriff’s department and the drug cartels. The Sheriff also represents an era that mourns the replacement of a slow country life by fast-spreading consumerism fueled by drug money. He’s one of those characters who watches the world pass him by, sighing despondently at the rapid changes and reminiscing about the good old days.

Highly recommended! There are still many more thoughts about the writing swirling in my head, but I think they’d be better expressed after a reread.

P.S: This is one of those books where the film adaptation has remained largely faithful to the original material.

To be honest, I must admit that I found this particular work a bit irritating.

It seemed to jump around rather erratically, and the violence depicted within it was not only pointless but also excessive.

I also had a hard time digesting the so-called 'home-spun' philosophy that was presented.

There wasn't a single character in this book for whom I would have bothered to urinate on if they were on fire. Their deaths, consequently, held no interest for me whatsoever.

I guess one could say that this book is like Dirty Harry from the dark side. It's the same old crap, with the same fascination for guns and the voyeurism that is caused by the effect bullets have on the human anatomy.

I often wonder what it is about modern life that eroticizes violence to such an extent.

People claim that McCarthy is the 'greatest living writer' in the US. But clearly, they can't have read Delillo.

It doesn't come as a surprise to me that this was made into a film (or should I call it a movie?). Part of the reason I no longer watch American films is that this would have seemed like an absolutely obvious choice.

If you need your prejudices about America (whatever those prejudices might be, I suspect) to be confirmed and reinforced, then this is as good a book to read as any.

‘I just have this feelin we’re looking at somethin we really ain’t never even seen before’

Sheriff Ed Tom Bell is having an extremely bad day. A brutally bloody body has been discovered in the trunk of a car. As he arrives at the scene, Bell, an ageing veteran of World War II, experiences an overwhelming sense of foreboding. This kind of thing simply doesn't occur in the sleepy Terrell county, located on the Mexican border.

Llewelyn Moss, a thirty-something veteran of the Vietnam War, is out hunting in the desert. Amid the barren landscape of rock and dust, he stumbles upon some SUVs filled with drugs and bodies. A short while later, he finds a satchel stuffed to the brim with money. Moss, who is essentially a good person, now faces a moral dilemma that will have a profound impact on him, his young wife, and numerous people he hasn't even met yet.

The stage is set for a thrilling chase, a series of senseless murders, and the quiet, calculated steps of a psychopath. The backdrop is highly evocative - endless stretches of desert, empty highways, and cheap motels. Cormac McCarthy's writing is incredibly taut and exact (as this work initially started out as a screenplay). Any more minimal and the page would be completely empty! However, that's not to say there isn't a pared-down lyricism. The Texan speech inflection and dialogue seem absolutely perfect (at least to this UK expert!).

Set in the eighties, "No Country for Old Men" speaks volumes about a changing America, an America that is beyond the comprehension of Sheriff Bell. It portrays the world of drugs, organized crime, and the impersonal killers that accompany it. The old-fashioned values of justice, community, and friendliness are being steadily eroded. Life and death are left to the luck of the draw, and good doesn't always prevail over evil. This is a dark, searing, and mostly disillusioned novel, yet it is lightened by some touching character portraits and moments of wise humour. It is truly very impressive stuff.

‘It's a mess, aint it Sheriff?’
‘If it aint, it'll do till a mess gets here.’

The book had a very fast pace. It was going so quickly that I was missing a lot of parts of the story. For example, a lot of events and incidents were happening one after another. Before I could even say to myself, "Oh, now I understand what happened", four new events had occurred and I had no idea what was going on :)). There were many places where the story didn't make any logical sense and couldn't be understood with a rational mind. But I wish the author had at least given a dry and empty explanation about some of the problems. I mean, this book wasn't supposed to be a story about supernatural beings anymore! Right? It was supposed to be about real people who, for example, had more mental and physical power. After, for example, how a character found a way and defeated the enemy until the four cities of Onor were destroyed, it was really an empty ending
:))
On the other hand, the author would delete the characters whenever they lost their enthusiasm in the story. For example, a character would be introduced into the story with a lot of fanfare and given a lot of importance, and then suddenly their enthusiasm would fade and they would be deleted from the story within a few pages
I really would have preferred if the author had focused more on the main characters of the story instead of adding all these extra characters, so that they wouldn't have to delete one of them every few pages
Overall, the book wasn't bad for entertainment, but it didn't have an interesting topic to talk about.

In conclusion, while the book had its moments of excitement due to its fast pace, it also had several drawbacks. The lack of clear explanations for certain events and the inconsistent treatment of characters detracted from the overall reading experience. However, it could still provide some entertainment value for those who are not too挑剔 about the details.

This is a truly weird and captivating crime thriller, mystery, interwoven with elements of horror.

I had the opportunity to watch the movie first and was so intrigued that I felt compelled to explore the book as well.

Llewelyn Moss, a hunter by trade, stumbles upon a grisly crime scene. It's evident that there has been a violent shootout, a drug deal that has gone horribly wrong. The scene is littered with countless dead bodies, firearms are scattered everywhere, vehicles are riddled with bullet holes, and there are two separate bags containing money and drugs. The moment Moss decides to seize the money, he unknowingly unleashes a terrifying maelstrom. This force is not interested in just one or two people; it will not be appeased by an apology, a symbolic gesture, or even a sacrificial lamb.

Chigurh, on the other hand, is an elemental symbol of death. He is like a grim reaper that haunts one's dreams. I had never read any of Cormac McCarthy's works before "No Country for Old Men." This novel is a cynical and introspective exploration of crime and the ever-changing state of the world. If this is the style McCarthy employs in all of his novels, then I can say without a doubt that he is not for everyone.

Sheriff Bell's preoccupation with his belly button lint is as avid as I've seen in any other fictional character. In this one novel, it suits the retiring sheriff as he looks back over the span of his career, recognizing both the positives and negatives. However, I'm not sure if I would enjoy this in every novel. Enjoyable? I'm not entirely certain, but it is definitely contemplative. Without a doubt.

So are we gonna talk about No Country For Old Men, he said.

Why not, she replied.

Then we gotta do it like McCarthy, he said. Short sentences. Southern dialect. No punctuation.

I can drop the punctuation, she said. But I can't do Southern.

You can try.

Well then I caint. That good enough for you?

Youre tryin. That's the important thing. Caint do more than try.

Thank you. I wish I could speak it. It's a beautiful language. But I aint got his ear. He's got the best ear for dialect this side of Mark Twain.

He's got a mighty fine ear, that's for sure.

Well like I said I loved the language. And I loved the characters. Sheriff Bell and Llewelyn and Chigurh and even the minor ones. Carla Jean and Loretta and Carson and the hitchhiker.

They are all fine characters. They just come alive off the page.

They do. I aint gonna forget none of them soon. But I dont know what it's about.

It's gotta be bout somethin?

Hell yes. Chigurh is more than just a man. He's some kinda elemental force. A symbol of somethin.

A symbol.

And his duel with Llewelyn. That's a symbol too. It's like that Swedish movie we saw. Where the guy plays chess with Death.

The Seventh Seal.

That's the one. But I dont think Chigurh is Death. He's somethin else. Somethin else we caint escape from.

Now what would that be.

I bin lying here thinkin and I caint rightly say.

Maybe he aint no more than what he looks like.

I know what I know, she said. But I caint put it in words.

I dont think this conversation is goin noplace, he said.

They lay there for a while until she heard he was asleep. She got up quietly so as not to wake him and checked the door was locked. Then she got back into bed.

They continued to lie there in silence for a few more minutes. The room was dark, with only a sliver of moonlight peeking through the curtains. She thought about the book and the characters they had been discussing. Chigurh was such a mysterious and menacing figure. She couldn't quite put her finger on what he represented, but she knew it was something deep and profound. Maybe it was the chaos and randomness of the world. Or perhaps it was the inescapable nature of fate. She wasn't sure. But she knew that the book had touched something inside her, and she would be thinking about it for a long time to come.

As she drifted off to sleep, she could still hear his soft breathing beside her. She felt a sense of comfort and security, even though their conversation had been somewhat frustrating. She knew that they would continue to talk about the book in the days to come, and maybe they would eventually figure out what it was all about.