No Country for Old Men [Paperback]

I have read the "Border Trilogy," and "All the Pretty Horses" was my favorite, especially the horse breaking scenes and the scenes set in the Mexican Prison. BUT a lot of the time McCarthy leaves me scratching my head. Sometimes his stories go wandering off on tangents I just don't get (I sometimes fear I am just not intelligent enough to understand his point). This book however is more direct and simply laid out. A kind of modern day thriller that has so much more going on.

The basic story is this: While out hunting along the Rio Grande river, Llewelyn Moss, a Texas welder, stumbles upon $2 million, and a bunch of herion ready for the street all guarded by a dead man. Ross takes the money and is soon on the run from drug dealers, assassins, and the law. The author uses the plot as way to explore good and evil, heaven and hell, right and wrong; and do these things even exist?

The book also contains plenty of action and some very gory, brutal scenes, so if you are bothered by graphic violence be forwarned! The Violence, though is central to the story and the issues the author is exploring.

To sum up this is an excellent thriller read with a lot more to say, than just entertain. I also recommend "Tourist in the Yucatan" another Violent thriller, set in Mexico, about a gringo on the run from people on both sides of the law, while also trying to find his missing wife.

I have to admit that I bought the book after seeing the movie in the hopes that it would bring some clarity to the ending. It did, to some degree. The first third or so of the book is very close to the movie but the characters are much better developed. The sheriff is very much the main character in the book, unlike the movie.
However, at times I felt like I was reading a book by a real gun nut because of the detail in which McCarthy described the weapons and methods of killing. There are a couple of places in the book that strain the credibility of the story, not least of which is what finally becomes of the money.
This is the first book by Cormac McCarthy that I have ever read. It is certainly not an uplifting tale, but it is a powerful story that is written extremely well and it does make me want to read some of his previous works. I would recommend it highly.

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