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In No Country for Old Men, Cormac 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.

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-ISBN13: 9780307387134
-Condition: New
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 "`If the rule you followed led you to this of what use was the rule?'" 2010-08-23
By J. Cameron-Smith (ACT, Australia)
Llewelyn Moss, hunting antelope near the Rio Grande, stumbles across a drug deal gone horribly wrong. Amongst the dead bodies and abandoned vehicles he finds one badly wounded man who asks for water. Moss responds that he doesn't have any, and continues searching. He finds heroin, and then finds a man, dead beneath a tree with a caseload of cash. Moss chooses to take the money, and thus begins a chain of events which cannot then be stopped. Moss may be an opportunistic thief, but he is not totally without conscience. Later he returns to the scene with water for the dying man only to find that he has been murdered. Moss is seen, and the ensuing chase is the beginning of a hunt which forms much of the balance of the novel.

`Somewhere out there is a true and living prophet of destruction, and I don't want to confront him.'

The other central characters are: Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, a man haunted by aspects of his own past, who investigates the drug crime. Anton Chigurh, a murderer with his own absolutist code of honour who is tracking the money. Both converge on Moss. Bell is trying to make amends for the past by protecting his community while Chigurh will murder almost everyone who tries to prevent him from recovering the money. Chigurh is the most enigmatic of the three. We are not privy to his motivation, and the few insights we get into his justification is unsettling. Chigurh is relentless, self-sufficient and utterly focussed.

`When I came into your life your life was over.'

Sheriff Ed Tom Bell is the closest to a hero that the novel possesses, but the world is changing in ways he is not comfortable with, and he is hampered by memories of the past. Bell tries to help Moss and his wife Carla Jean but they are naive about what they are facing and by the time Bell puzzles out all of the clues it is too late.

It took me a little while to get into the rhythm of this novel and to appreciate the broader issues behind the regional setting. I found this an unsettling novel because the ending is not a conclusion.

`I don't know where you're at because I don't know who you are.'

Jennifer Cameron-Smith



 "Dull, Dry, See The Movie Instead." 2010-08-01
By Dennbert (Pittsburgh, PA)
Forget the book, See the movie. The movie is a brilliant piece of cinema... up until the end: one of the most frustratingly terrible endings in movie history. That horrible ending marred an almost perfect movie, so I bought the book, thinking that, surely it was not originally written that way. But I was wrong... the book is exactly like the movie. But worse.

Yeah, I know, Cormac McCarthy is one of America's most revered authors, but this book reads like a newspaper article. The matter-of-fact style has no feelings, no emotions, no suspense, no characters that you care about. It's confusing, because the story starts and revolves around the main character who steals some drug money and the bad guys who are chasing him to get it back. But, clearly the book was written for the sheriff, whose only role in the book, and the movie, is to simply mumble numerous soliloquies using that stupid idiosyncratic texas mumbo jumbo. He adds absolutely nothing to the plot, but yet, somehow he's the central character??? I don't get it.

The book ends just like the movie: terribly.
So, forget this book; it is dry and dull; characters are lifeless. The movie is excellent, filled with great acting, suspense, danger... but yet that god dammed ending...


 "Gave this old man a few more gray hairs" 2010-07-31
By Jean E. Pouliot (Newburyport, MA United States)
First of all, if you saw the movie adaptation of this marvelous book, you'll realize just how faithful the film version was to the Cormac's plot and characters. I can't swear to it, but it was almost a scene for scene, word for word adaptation. Second, the story stands on its own, apart from the film's visuals. Cormac McCarthy's bleak vision of the modern world, voiced by the narrator, Sherriff Ed Bell, leaves no doubt that he thinks life was better in the old days. Today's world -- in which lack of respect for authority, tradition and the land figure sharply - is becoming less and less habitable for people like Bell. He understands his world less and less. But he understands enough to know what he is up against in Anton Chigurh - the remorseless killer on the loose on the Texas plains.

"No Country for Old Men" can be read as hairy yarn about a drug deal gone bad and one good man's decision to deviate from the path of light. But the book is a reflection on death, old age and change as well. Like death, Chigurh is cleverly cruel, relentless, unstoppable and shows partiality for neither age nor gender. He deals death with a facility and cool brutality that is stunning and stomach turning. Only by dumb chance can his predations be deferred.

I listened to the unabridged audio version of the book. Narrator Tom Stechschulte was utterly amazing, bringing to life the dozen-odd characters in his dry, spare Texas intonation. Gorgeous to listen to.



 "Took Some Getting Used To..." 2010-07-28
By Bobby T (South Riding, VA)
All in all I TRULY enjoyed reading this book. As this was my first McArthy novel, it definitely took some getting used to. By now you're probably aware that he does not use " " when a charcter is speaking. So from that perspective, it was challenging. But his wit, black humor, and impressive story telling made this book well worth the cost.

Not a MUST read by any means, but a "should" read.


 "Ok. But I was expecting more....." 2010-07-21
By TomasDelSol (New England)
I decided to read this book after seeing the movie. I was so intrigued with the characters that I wanted to learn more about them figuring the author would have delved deeper into them. But there really wasn't much more there. This was one of those rare instances where I felt the movie was better than the book.

This was the first Cormac McCarthy book I've read. I loved the story and I loved the characters and I appreciated the regional aspects of the writing, but I couldn't help but feel I was reading John Grisham's version of Bridges of Madison County.


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