Book Review: McCarthy's No Country for Old Men

Though my parents know and love all the classic western films, the cowboy genre never really appealed to me. I suppose the separation from my world is part of it, but maybe also the dry, hot Texas plains just made me feel...well, dry and hot.

My first venture into cowboy literature was reading "Brokeback Mountain" by Annie Proulx, which I read out of my choir friend, Joy's, creative writing book. After all, I had penned a short story about a young man scared to death to see the movie with his girlfriend and so, while I grinned at exploiting it without seeing the film, I felt I needed some basis in the story to run with. If there's one thing I remember about Proulx's short story, it was the vivid sensory details, particularly the smells, which was a unique experience in my short reading history. While I still wasn't sure precisely how to react to the story she told, it was told with a sense of detail I hadn't before encountered, capturing the rash, confused nature of the cowboys' relationship.

Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men, like Proulx's piece, is a modern western. The novel is set in 1980 Texas, running through deserts and into trailer homes and oasis hotels, following the chain of events set into motion by Llewelyn Moss, a habitually sarcastic war veteran, who chances upon the carnage of a drogas-related-massacre and pockets the suitcase of cash inexplicably left behind. Trying desperately to find him are two men, troubled Sherriff Bell and ghost-like hitman Anton Chigurh.

McCarthy's novel communicates the barren landscape of its setting and characters strongly, but rather than doing so with ample sensory detail--though the author hardly fails there--No Country's presentation suggests this strongly, with traditional syntactical devices hurled to the wayside like a bystander interfering with Chigurh's work. McCarthy uses neither quotation marks nor commas (I counted just one, though in absorbed reading I might have missed some) and this works well, putting description, dialogue, and thought all on the same plane, the same way the three uniquely-equipped characters seem to stay ahead of one another. While the syntax at first makes reading a little cumbersome, as dialogue and thinking look identical, it makes the read unique and really offers a sense of the way each character prioritizes their communication.

While Moss takes up most of the novel, Bell and Chigurh are the characters that make it work. Moss puts himself in one awful situation after another, and although he realizes at each step that his little run will surely end in death, he continues making one mistake after another, and his constant refusal to even listen to a word his grounded wife says frustrates quickly. Bell, the only character McCarthy offers first person insight into, reflects a reluctant version of the classic sherriff: owns a perfect record of solving homicide, exudes an aura of quiet confidence, but always doubts himself as a human being. Bell gives a clear look into the drug-infested wild west of today, and shows a depth of conscience that either Moss lacks, of McCarthy wants the reader to miss.

Chigurh, while the sort of cold blooded killer we cross our fingers doesn't exist, also possesses Bell's deep attachment to morality. At first presentation, Chigurh is almost catlike, toying with a potential victim, demanding he call a coin flip for his life. Though the situation suggests a sort of grim pleasure at the prospect of murder, Chigurh discloses no disappointment when the store owner calls it correctly; indeed, Chigurh is not a monster for his penchant for murder. Rather, Chigurh governs himself by a horrifying set of morals, never above murdering a meddlesome hotel clerk, but also thoughtful enough to use small bullets so as not to spill glass on innocent bystanders. Killing for cash, yes, and with a cold efficiency, but the hit man adheres strictly to his word, "even to a dead man," and turns into as deep a character as Bell (although Chigurh feels none of the guilt that haunts every moment of Bell's existence).

If you're into the classic western, I think McCarthy's novel will offer a nice change of pace, and with the movie on the near horizon (my initial motivation to read it; the trailer was a masterpiece), getting to understand the characters a little bit is surely worth the time. It's definitely a unique read, stylistically and story-wise.

Next up, on Jim's suggestion, another future movie: The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman.