No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthyMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Cormac McCarthy completed the novel "No Country for Old Men" in 2005. The author returns to the border country between Texas and Mexico, locales he had previously explored in The Border Trilogy (1992-98). This stark and powerful novel, written by one of the American masters, was published in 2006 by Vintage. The novel is an intense 310 page read, a rough ride in an old pickup truck while a huge flatland storm is building on the horizon. This book is dark, chilling, and desperately beautiful.
The Coen Brothers thought so much of this novel that they adapted it into a screenplay. The film went on to win four Oscars, and to make me an even bigger fan of Javier Bardem. But we aren't here to talk about the movie, as much as I loved it. We are here to talk about the novel, which is even darker, more intense, and more beautiful.
Cormac McCarthy uses the fewest and most well-chosen words to say a very great deal. The author's prose is relentless, never allowing the looming threat to dissipate. From the first pages, there is a massive storm brewing just out of sight. The reader knows it its there. When it strikes, it is swift and without warning. This is McCarthy's approach to a classic American crime novel: Use the fewest words to convey the greatest possible danger. The lightning is ever there, crackling at the edge of the page.
The jacket notes for the novel will give a reader the basic plot. A hard but basically decent man stumbles across a massacre in the desert; a drug deal gone horribly wrong. By the time he leaves the place, he has found a bag filled with a great deal of money. The money is not his, and taking it sets of a chain of events that are both dark and violent. In this the novel follows a traditional plot line: Outsider gets money; Bad Guys come looking for it. But there is much more to this tale.
Some folks will tell you that you should never ask a question in a book review, but we are going to break that little rule. What if you make a choice that awakens the Devil to your presence? What do you do if you are suddenly the sole focus of the Devil? Not an angry, raging devil, and certainly not a demon with red skin and a pitchfork. This Devil walks amongst us, calmly leaving a trail of dead men. He tests others as as he tests himself; with an intense curiosity and callousness that treats life and death as the same. He takes great pleasure in the last moments of a dying man, holding life and death to the banality of a coin-toss. McCarthy has created a nemesis that, simply by his presence, undermines the community and the country he passes through.
When our protagonist, Llewellyn Moss, takes that bag of money, forces are set in motion. Killers are unleashed. The devil takes notice. An aging Texas County Sheriff, who is also our narrator, tries make sense of what is happening and fails. The yardstick he uses to measure good and evil is not suitable for this new menace. The moral values of the old country are not up to the task of measuring this wave of violence; values that seem to the Sheriff to have evaporated, outdated and without roots.
I can tell you, without risk of spoiler and by means of warning, that there is not a happy ending coming for most of the characters in this novel. Perhaps for the Devil, but nobody else. I would wonder why, if a reader is looking for a happy ending, they would pick up a Cormac McCarthy novel. Many years before Oprah decided she liked "The Road," McCarthy was writing dark sagas of the American West, both past and present. His language is stark, stripped, and cuts like a well-honed knife. In "No Country for Old Men," the author has taken his art to a higher level. Striped to their essentials, his minimalist descriptions carry powerful images. They stand out as if etched in a desert sunset. Likewise is the dialogue striped to the bone. The characters do not waste many words. The only voice of compassion, the glimmer of hope of human decency, comes from the voice of Sheriff Ed Tom when he serves as the narrator. These small passages of narration give the reader a brief pause before the next burst of thunder, the next bolt of lightning.
I highly recommend this novel, both for the quality of the story as well as the art of the writing itself. Readers who need a happy ending, or who are adverse to a dark tale: run far away. This is not your book. If you wish to explore a masterwork written in the language of loss, this novel will suit you well.
View all my reviews
No comments:
Post a Comment