No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

Somewhere out there is a true and living prophet of destruction and I dont want to confront him. I know he’s real. I have seen his work. I walked in front of those eyes once. I wont do it again. I wont push my chips forward and stand up and go out to meet him.

You might recognize some of the quote above from the beginning of the awesome movie for this book. Tommy Lee Jones narrates a shortened and slightly modified version of the start of the book at the start of the movie. Interspersed throughout the book are other ruminations like this one by one of the three main characters, Bell, the sheriff, who realizes more and more that times are changing and the bad guys are getting badder. That’s the clear theme that gets acknowledged much more in the book than the movie. Both of these works are beautiful pieces in their own fields, but I think seeing the movie first really handicaps the book. Going through each of the scenes in the book, I already had images in my mind from the movie, and I think this precludes one from fully enjoying a book. Conceiving your own images from reading a book is a lot of the fun.

But this book is still really good in its own right. It’s notorious for being a quick read but I found that I had to slow down my pace because McCarthy could be real vague at times and lose you if you weren’t careful. But this minimalist style is what makes him so great. He reminds me a lot of Carver in this book, and I’m not sure if that comparison has been made a lot by literary critics or not at all but this kept recurring to me. I do know, though, thanks to Jon, that McCarthy is considered the successor to Faulkner, but I can’t speak to that because I’ve yet to read him. I really like how McCarthy will make his characters have some pretty deep conversations but using simple, colloquial language that’s true to their personalities. These discussions can range from the nature of life to how God works to what a girl really wants. And they’re so good.

The movie was a faithful adaptation save for one character being condensed in her role. Chigurh comes across as much darker and more ruthless in the book. Also, all of the funny parts in the movie came from the genius of McCarthy, who apparently has a good sense of humor. A lot of the dialogue in the movie comes verbatim from the book. Cormac’s the man.