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No Country for Old Men

Cormac McCarthy

Start date: May 15, 2019

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What Members Thought

Dec 18, 2010 Richard rated it it was amazing

Shelves: crime-mystery-thriller, cuuntry-grit-lit, author-cormac

I thought I'd get a re-read in before the year was out!

He's done it with the western and he's done it with the post-apocalyptic novel. And now Cormac McCarthy tackles a crime thriller and does what he usually does, turns it into something else that's part of a whole different genre: "Cormac McCarthy Fiction."

It starts as a simple noir. Llewellyn Moss is out hunting game when he stumbles onto a botched drug deal complete with dead Mexicans, dead dogs, dead trucks, and a satchel of 2 million dolla I thought I'd get a re-read in before the year was out!

He's done it with the western and he's done it with the post-apocalyptic novel. And now Cormac McCarthy tackles a crime thriller and does what he usually does, turns it into something else that's part of a whole different genre: "Cormac McCarthy Fiction."

It starts as a simple noir. Llewellyn Moss is out hunting game when he stumbles onto a botched drug deal complete with dead Mexicans, dead dogs, dead trucks, and a satchel of 2 million dollars. He decides that finders keepers, so he does what any hot-blooded human would do and takes it for himself, setting off a chain reaction of violence across Texas, as a multitude of enemies search for him.

I prefer the more recent McCarthy novels, like this one and The Road, to his earlier work. It feels like he's been able to really hone his style and become more disciplined and economical, straying away from some of the distracting bloat without losing any of the trademark lyricism and rumination he's famous for. And this book has some of his best characters. I think that Moss is a great "hero," a simple but resourceful man of straight action while still being charming, while with his lady Carla Jean, I at first got the sense that she was a bimbo, but she turns out to be much stronger, resilient, and acute than I initially thought. McCarthy really surprised me with her character. And then there's Anton Chigurh, the enigmatic figure doggedly chasing Moss. He's less of a person than a force, similar to the Judge in Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West. He's the embodiment of unstoppable judgment and inescapable fate. His character is pretty unsettling.

Anything can be an instrument, Chigurh said. Small things. Things you wouldn't even notice. They pass from hand to hand. People don't pay attention. And then one day there's an accounting. And after that nothing is the same.

But then you have the character of Sheriff Bell, whose character is what provides the soul and transforms this crime noir into Cormac McCarthy fiction, and turns a four star book into a five-star book. He's the real main character here, providing a point of view for the reader, as he muses on the nature of violence and his horror at the way that evil has evolved into something that he's unable reckon with.

Things happen to you they happen. They don't ask first. They don't require your permission.

Another stunning, instant-classic McCarthy novel. ...more

34 likes · Like · see review

Apr 27, 2012 Simon rated it liked it

Shelves: 2000s, reviewed, crime-fiction, historical-fiction, western

If it's sheer concentrated grimness, pessimism and Southern-fried machismo you're looking for in your contemporary American literature I guess you can't go wrong with Cormac McCarthy. I mean, even the author's name sounds like it belongs to a red-haired axe-wielding barbarian from a pulp story by Robert E. Howard. (best known as the creator of Conan the Barbarian)

His writing style is decidedly strange and might put off a lot of readers, but I eventually warmed up to it. It's the kind of prose yo ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Aug 29, 2016 Geoff Smith rated it really liked it

Shelves: novels

Loved the drama and the refusal to do the expected - will definitely read more Cormac McCarthy.

2 likes · Like · see review

Nov 24, 2007 Justin rated it it was amazing

Shelves: point-blank, read-in-2019, read-before-2008, read-in-may-2019

Point Blank Review

No Country For Old Men, written by Cormac McCarthy and published by Knopf in 2005, is a wicked beautiful neo-noir western set in southwest Texas around 1980.

There are three major characters.

The first is Ed Tom Bell, a small town Texas Sheriff who serves as the narrator and moral compass, or does he?

The second is Llewelyn Moss, a 9-5 welder and ex-Vietnam vet who lives in a trailer with his young wife Carla Jean. Out hunting, he stumbles across a bloody botched drug deal on t ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Dec 07, 2009 E Sweetman rated it did not like it

Shelves: total-crap, overrated

Well my second stab at McCarthy was just as unsuccessful and my first although this had a different level of dislike for me. Confusing, violent and again (so frustrating) writing that's not on the level of the heralding of this man.
The movie was so much better: my third book that meets this distinction. ...more

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Feb 22, 2010 Jake rated it really liked it

Shelves: mystery-thriller-crime

Basically word-for-word with the movie so it lessened the suspense. Good book otherwise but because I had seen the movie first, it was hard to appreciate it.

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