No Country for Old Men

by Cormac McCarthy

book data

11,542 ratings, 3.98 average rating, 2,061 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		30%
4		44%
3		19%
2		4%
1		1%

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published

July 1st 2006 (first published 2005) by Vintage

binding

Paperback, 320 pages

characters

Ed Tom Bell, Llewelyn Moss, Anton Chigurh

setting

The United States

isbn

0375706674 (isbn13: 9780375706677)

description

In his blistering new novel, Cormac McCarthy returns to the Texas-Mexico border, setting of his famed Border Trilogy. The time is our own, when rustle...more

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04/13/08

Kim rated it:

bookshelves: contemporary

Read in April, 2008

My first attempt at Cormac McCarthy. The movie just won an oscar and the hype was starting to wane some (being a month and a Britney relapse ago) and well, 'The Road' was out at the library.

I wasn't sure what I was going to get out of it. The writing style and use of southern dialect was a bit off putting, but once I found the rhythm...
It reminded me of that old cliche (the story, not the dialect--keep up)of the good guys with the white hats---bad guys in black (or Spy vs. Sp...more

Like this review? yes (7 people liked it)

9 comments

11/26/07

Taylor rated it:

bookshelves: desert-island-picks, favorites, fiction, own

Read in March, 2008

Right off the bat I have to say this is a book that I'm not so sure I can do enough justice to in my review. There are so many themes and subtleties here (this is another book as much about what isn't said/done as what is), and I'm not sure that I've entirely digested all of them. A lot of the "professional" reviews tie some of the themes to the Bible, and having little knowledge of the Bible, there's a chance I'm missing out on some things. That said, even without that knowledge, this...more

Like this review? yes (8 people liked it)

6 comments

12/04/07

Kenyon rated it:

(review of isbn 0307387135)

Read in November, 2007

recommends it for: all friends

I wrote a review of this for the Sackets Harbor Gazette!
If you think that the western novel genre died with Louis L’Amour. Think again. Cormac McCarthy has been writing them after a fashion for a while with a style all his own and a voice as stark and certain as the plains of Texas he often describes. No Country for Old Men, first published in 2005 and recently brought out in paperback as a movie tie-in, is a story of duty, treachery, loyalty, and evil; of a decision to act made by instin...more I wrote a review of this for the Sackets Harbor Gazette!
If you think that the western novel genre died with Louis L’Amour. Think again. Cormac McCarthy has been writing them after a fashion for a while with a style all his own and a voice as stark and certain as the plains of Texas he often describes. No Country for Old Men, first published in 2005 and recently brought out in paperback as a movie tie-in, is a story of duty, treachery, loyalty, and evil; of a decision to act made by instinct the consequences of which cannot be undone, ignored, or escaped especially by the three characters central to the novel’s plot. It’s also a story of our times and other times.

Set 1980 in the vastness of west Texas and its small towns, a Vietnam veteran out on an early morning hunt discovers from a distance, the deadly mayhem of a drug deal that had imploded with greed. This man, Moss, makes a decision that will set him on a path to converge with a diabolically sinister man named Chigurh who is out to square, rather than clean up, the drug deal mess and the local sheriff, Sheriff Bell, a longtime peace officer who wishes to save Moss from a fate that the sheriff comes to believe cannot be altered. As Sheriff Bell goes about his duty, the author takes the reader into the Sheriff’s confidence using first person narration to convey the weariness and confusion the sheriff has suddenly become aware he feels for the way the world has come to work, and the sense of frustration he has when he begins to reason that the value system that has served him so well no longer can be applied.

This reviewer found the whole of No Country for Old Men, as with many excellent books, to be greater than the sum of its parts. As a fast paced action tale of the old-fashioned page-turner variety, it will not disappoint the reader willingly enthralled by suspense and a fine tuned sense of apprehension. For the reader with an ear for, and appreciation of, the vernacular, rhythm, and speech patterns of the West Texas version of the English language that seems to be defined by the topography and weather as well as the drawl of its practitioners, this will be a book in which to revel. And lastly, there is a moral story here that reduces good and evil to the most, not the least, common denominator, and asks the reader to reflect, along with Sheriff Bell, on how the values that we count on to get by don’t necessarily add up any longer. Cormac McCarthy’s gift lies with interleaving these layers he creates into a fascinating story.

(less)

Like this review? yes (6 people liked it)

2 comments

08/17/08

Anthony Breznican rated it:

recommends it for: Anyone wondering why human evil so easily trumps the good.

Here's an unusual encounter.

I met Cormac McCarthy at the Oscars this year, and we had a very pleasant little chat. This was an important moment to me not only because he is the author of Blood Meridian, No Country For Old Men and The Road, which won the Pulitzer Prize, but also because McCarthy is famous for his almost Salinger-like reclusive tendencies. He does not do interviews or show up on The Tonight Show. He doesn't walk red carpets, tour colleges on lecture tours, or do any of...more

Like this review? yes (6 people liked it)

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07/16/07

Matthew rated it:

(review of isbn 0375406778)

No Country For Old Men may be Cormac McCarthy's most accessible and fun book yet, but that doesn't mean there's nothing more to it. Ostensibly the story of a drug deal gone bad, it's also an elegy for simpler (or at least, less horrible) times, a study of the relationship between fathers and their sons, and - like all Cormac McCarthy books that I've read - an existential probe into the nature of evil with only the faintest glimmer of any hope or any God. It also features one of the most frighten...more

Like this review? yes (5 people liked it)

3 comments

03/27/08

Annalisa rated it:

bookshelves: guy-lit, mystery-thriller

Read in April, 2008

recommended to Annalisa by: Ryan
recommends it for: guys

This is definitely a man's book, loaded with violence and male tendency toward underexplaining vs female overanalyzing. The first half I thought there must be nothing gained from the book over the movie (I haven't seen it) because it read like a movie script describing one violent murder after the next without any insight into characters' motives, emotions, intentions, all the reasons a book is better.

But near the end of the book, you realize that this is not Moss' story, but sherif...more This is definitely a man's book, loaded with violence and male tendency toward underexplaining vs female overanalyzing. The first half I thought there must be nothing gained from the book over the movie (I haven't seen it) because it read like a movie script describing one violent murder after the next without any insight into characters' motives, emotions, intentions, all the reasons a book is better.

But near the end of the book, you realize that this is not Moss' story, but sheriff Bell's. You are getting pieces of his mind. It's not about a lack of old men because they're all getting killed off young, but a country where old men are left holding values of the past and wondering what has happened to society.

The story is about a young man (Moss) who stumbles on a drug exchange gone array and takes the millions from the carnage. He soon becomes the hunted from hit men (Chigurh the main one) out to recover the money and one step behind it all is sheriff Bell about to retire who has never had an unsolved homicide and needs to world to make sense and be good.

There are plenty of statements about right and wrong and the fine line between the two. You take sheriff Bell who is the standard for good, but he is doing good to live up to his dad, to make up for a war failure, but it brings him no joy because it's just retribution. And the one moment when he could redeem his youth, he fails into the same pattern when he hides and waits for backup.

Then you take Chigurh the villainous assassin who will kill someone just because they inconvenienced him. Then you learn the twisted scruples his psychotic mind created to justify himself. Of all the characters he seems to have the most integrity although you want to kill him yourself for it. He sees himself as a symbol for death that has no sense of right or wrong, just fate that cannot change course. You see how the other characters deal with him in your classic steps of death. Of all the characters he was the most interesting to read.

And finally you have Moss who is a good guy who made a dumb mistake, or lots of them. Where does he fit in the good and bad when he lets greed overcome his consideration for his wife? It was well into the book before I could decided whether I liked him or not because he seemed so undecided himself.

I liked the lack of a fairy tale ending and the surprises. What I didn't like was the style. Not the loose grammatical style that added character to the book, but the lack of description. Sometimes I got lost. What character am I reading here? Who did what? What are they talking about? The condensed dialogue seemed to wander into nowhere at times and then snap into insightful without a transition.

I would have liked to understand more about what happened in the motel with the hitchhiker, but all we get are police reports not who came or how or even why. It could have been as random as the car accident. But I guess the senselessness is the whole point of the story. I felt the end dragged a little. Quick to the point of being snipped and then page after of page of sheriff Bell's mind wandering, unexplained, sometimes hard to follow wanderings. The end didn't match the rest of the book.

The writing and the story aren't amazing, but once the flavor of the book fades and you are left considering and wondering, the book grows on you. It was frustrating to read, but once mulled over I liked it better.(less)

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12/01/07

Trish rated it:

Read in March, 2007

When I tried to read this a while back, I stalled out in the early pages. Those spare sentences about guns and the Western landscape were like inpenetrable koans. This time, I concentrated and caught the rhythm of the fractured story McCarthy tells--a story about drugs, money and, mostly, murder.

Lllewelyn Moss is just hunting for antelope. Instead, he finds dead bodies, a cache of heroin, and $2 million. If he walked away, could he have been saved? Or was his fate sealed by happenst...more

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10/18/07

Adam rated it:

"You can't go to war without G-d." So says Cormac McCarthy. The concept that G-d has a vested interest in war is as ancient as war itself. Fore did G-d not say to the Israelites as they prepared to enter Canaan: "My terror I send before thee, and I have put to death all the people among whom thou comest, and I have given the neck of all thine enemies unto thee. (EX 23:27)." It is not only in Judaism that a deity steps to the plate in the eternal struggle between men. In ...more "You can't go to war without G-d." So says Cormac McCarthy. The concept that G-d has a vested interest in war is as ancient as war itself. Fore did G-d not say to the Israelites as they prepared to enter Canaan: "My terror I send before thee, and I have put to death all the people among whom thou comest, and I have given the neck of all thine enemies unto thee. (EX 23:27)." It is not only in Judaism that a deity steps to the plate in the eternal struggle between men. In the Greek classic "The Iliad" Athena, Ares, and Aphrodite play as prominent (if not more so) a role in deciding the battle's fate as Odysseus, Hector, Achilles, or a large wooden horse. It is not news that before facing the uncertainty, which lies latent in war, man looks to find an ally in G-d.

However, what if G-d does not take a hand in war? How does one go into battle w/o a principle and fundamental faith? A very good and pertinent question-especially with the mindset behind our current military involvement. When man looks at his destiny outside of what G-d’s providence has determined for him, a very strange and scary existence takes shape. While I have no doubt many a soldier has pondered over this, it was Napoleon Bonaparte (emerging from the Enlightenment, where fundamental theological beliefs were called into question) who succinctly summarized this concept: "God is on the side with the most artillery." Thus implying that, indeed, we form our destiny. We create the reality of our lives. This is a terrifying concept for the soldier venturing into the chaotic expanse of the battlefield. Fore, if the buck stops with me, maybe the bullet will too.

But, it is not just in the midst battle where one feels lost without a Divine Providence. The struggle of everyday’s existence can be combat in itself. As the Russian playwright Chekhov says: “Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.” The choices we may make on a day to day basis carry a significant weight when they alone form our tomorrow. It is this notion that McCarthy drives across in this saga of how life’s yesterdays yields to make today. Chance does not bring you to the bed of a cheap motel where you stare at a neon illuminated ceiling. Nor does bad luck put you at the working end of a silenced .22. It is the choices you make that chisel your sculpture of reality from the blankness of the broad, granite world. When one looks with an incisive eye, the destiny of decisions can be made clear. However, an insightful eye is rare. For this reason McCarthy employs Carla Jean’s grandmother in the archetypal role of the old (often sick and/or crazy) soothsayer (it is not by chance she is referred to as an “old woman” on p. 202 when she makes the inference that she deserves no credit for predicting the course Moss and Carla Jean’s relationship would take-the course of events where clear as day).

Many are unwilling to accept the notion that G-d is not laying a path for us; as is the case for the retired Sheriff Deputy Ellis. He waits his entire life for the arrival of G-d. He never comes. When the reader meets Ellis he is old, sick, and alone. Maybe this is the existence that waits those who spend their life waiting for a destiny, rather than creating one.

Ultimately, this novel weaves a tale of masculine brawniness in a world where destiny is created-not found. It is a harsh and cold world where scruples of sensitivity have no place. It is a border town world, where life bends only in the direction we are willing, and able to take it.
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5 comments

05/24/08

Jim rated it:

(review of isbn 0307387135)

Read in June, 2008

recommends it for: anyone interested in a disturbing and deep sketch of the human condition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

I have to say that the movie bugged me. But it bugged me in a way that made me want to give it another chance. I decided to read the book first.

The book is really amazing.

I see it as a balance between the best and the worst of what human beings are capable. The characters at opposite poles are the enigmatic murdering force of nature, Anton Chigurh, played off against the solidly humanistic Sheriff, Ed Tom Bell. Bell's italicized monologues punctuate the book, introduc...more I have to say that the movie bugged me. But it bugged me in a way that made me want to give it another chance. I decided to read the book first.

The book is really amazing.

I see it as a balance between the best and the worst of what human beings are capable. The characters at opposite poles are the enigmatic murdering force of nature, Anton Chigurh, played off against the solidly humanistic Sheriff, Ed Tom Bell. Bell's italicized monologues punctuate the book, introducing each section. His voice is troubled but solidly human. He knows he is up against something new and terrible and that he possibly has met his match. We learn a lot about Bell and what he thinks and his own demons. We get a good sketch about what has made him the way he is and why he thinks what he does.

Chigurh is written very much as Bell's opposite. We don't know much about him. We only see his actions, and his actions are horrific, at odds with anything we'd call human decency. He not only kills people, but kills them in horrible ways and seemingly without motivation at times. He seems to have his own deep and solid and furious set of values, but they are values we ultimately cannot understand or reject. He seems almost to stand outside what we'd usually call humanity, and yet he is human. That makes the character all the more disturbing.

Directly between these characters is Moss, who has made the monumental decision of his life in running off with the satchel of drug-tainted money. In doing so, he has opened himself to the world of Chigurh, while still being protected and pursued by Bell.

So, Sheriff and murdering demon at opposite poles, and a failed human being directly in the center, pursued by both.

Makes for a great and a deep novel.

McCarthy's writing is spare and poetic. Most of the time he portrays people through their actions, not their thoughts. Most of the thoughts as thoughts come in Bell's monologues, which are often a welcome balance to the ghastly actions of Chigurh.

That is part of what is great about this truly excellent writer's work. He is able to convey much about people and their motivations through detailed sketches of their actions only. He rarely dives into their thoughts, and when he does it is deliberate and powerful.

It is hard to heap too much praise on this great great book.

And, having read the book, I have to say that the Coen Brothers certainly stayed with it faithfully in their movie. There are few scenes in the book that did not appear in the film. Not very many, just a few.

Now it is time for me to view the film again, see what I think this time! (less)

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03/23/08

Tim Pendry rated it:

bookshelves: -------five-star-, crime, north-american, thriller

recommends it for: Anyone

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

This is a great book on two levels - style and content.

You have to enter into the laconic vernacular of the border country and see how McCarthy uses it to show how a few words in the right context can get you deeper into the emotions (or lack of them) of the main protagonists than long-winded description of feelings.

He manages the rare feat of showing how a basic decency, a sentimental decency, triumphs morally over cunning and intellect. He reminds us that 'sentiment',...more This is a great book on two levels - style and content.

You have to enter into the laconic vernacular of the border country and see how McCarthy uses it to show how a few words in the right context can get you deeper into the emotions (or lack of them) of the main protagonists than long-winded description of feelings.

He manages the rare feat of showing how a basic decency, a sentimental decency, triumphs morally over cunning and intellect. He reminds us that 'sentiment', that is feeling one's values as givens without too much analysis, is not to be despised by those whose default mode is knowing irony. There is nothing post-modern about this book.

As for the content, this is a deeply political book without once mentioning politics, as most readers would understand it.

It implies not so much the regret for lost values that other reviewers have noted and which may be obvious in the text (but which it is arguable provided a mere interlude of integrity between the normal condition of self-centred violence in the American West) but a gentle questioning of patriotism when your country has drifted far away from your own ideals and understanding, when you don't know what you are fighting for (and putting ourself at risk for) any more, when it asks too much and gives so little in return.

The American working man's experiences in America's wars overseas is a running theme 'sotto voce', underpinning the account of one incident in what is really a civil war in all but name, one in which government agents and drug runners seem to be fighting over who actually represents the will of the American people.

The Sheriff seems to sense that urban America has chosen the other side to his by providing markets for the 'criminals'. The killer Chigurh is almost a parody of the Ayn Rand libertarian in his peculiar a-social determination to 'succeed' on his own terms. He is out of the 'Fountainhead' but with crime rather than architecture and art the model. He should be fascinating but is merely chilling - a half person compared to the much weaker hero.

This book might appear to be an elegy for an older America which has been left behind (that is how most would like to interpret it), but this reader detected a darker mood, an implied anger that the betrayal of simpler souls in matters of war and peace starts to return home at the border between America and the world outside.

A cold hell (represented by Chigurh) has seeped into the homeland, looking for opportunity. Of course, nothing is made quite that clear - but that is what happens in great art, and this is great art. (less)

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11/26/07

Tony Q. rated it:

Read in November, 2007

I'm one of the many who left the movie theater completely unfulfilled. I saw No Country for Old Men on it's opening weekend, and could not wait to see the fantastic performances on screen. I loved everything about it, until the last fifteen minutes or so stopped making sense. As soon as Ed Tom Bell finished sharing his dream with his wife, the screen was black for a moment, and I said to myself "this f___ing movie is gonna end...it's gonna f___ing end!!!" Roll the credits.

...more

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07/30/08

tadpole rated it:

bookshelves: 2008, uncle-cormac

Read in July, 2008

After going all fanboy over 'The Road' I had to run out and grab this one.

While this is a fine book, it has a more straightforward narrative style than 'The Road'. Personally, I found this fact a little disappointing.

Essentially, a drug deal goes bad and the money goes missing. This leads to several extra dead bodies.

There are two characters of note: Anton Chigurh and Sheriff Bell. Chigurh who serves as the "bad guy" is interesting because he seems...more

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06/15/08

Trevor rated it:

To be honest, I found this a bit irritating. It jumped around a little too much and the violence was pointless and excessive. I also found the ‘home-spun’ philosophy a bit hard to take.

There was not a single character in this book that I would urinate on if they were on fire – their deaths, therefore, were devoid of interest. I guess this book is Dirty Harry from the darkside. Same crap, same fascination with guns and the voyeurism caused by the effect bullets have on the...more

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01/28/08

Trevor rated it:

This book most explicitly addresses what seems to be a common theme for McCarthy, that being a man's view of the world as it spirals inexorably out of control. The author, and in this case, one of his characters, stand back and tremble, unable to comprehend the more terrible aspects of life and its unraveling. Instead, McCarthy writes them down in a matter of fact way, as if to move closer to finding meaning in such mayhem, only to leave us, as readers, with the charge of doing so, and perhaps l...more

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12/14/07

Caroline rated it:

(review of isbn 0375406778)

bookshelves: fiction, read-in-2008

Read in October, 2008

I enjoyed this, well as much as I really could when it's a story of people getting their brains and other gooey bits splattered across the scenery, but I was so bugged by the vagueness towards the end.

The first half of this seemed very clear and, while it was stark in terms of prose, it told the story very well and I never felt confused. Around page 250, though, I swear McCarthy rushed it or something because he skipped some scenes which I would have thought would be pretty important...more

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03/11/08

Sera rated it:

(review of isbn 0307387135)

bookshelves: favorites, literary-fiction

Read in March, 2008

I loved this book. After having read The Road and now this other book by McCarthy, I have to say that this man is a genius. His commentary on how America has quickly become out of control and much more violent over the last few decades provides one element of the foundation of the insight into the Sheriff, who is the central character of the book. The story is simple and straightforward, but McCarthy took me, as the reader, to so many other places while reading this book. This book gave me ...more

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01/12/09

Katherine rated it:

What struck me most about this book is how perfect the delivery was. The story is incredibly engaging and written in sparse, efficient language with pitch-perfect dialogue that's just ... well, perfect. An example of "male" literature, but the themes of fate and humanity are universal. I'm personally increasingly intrigued with literature moving towards the Greek -- we are controlled by the fates, rather than we control our own destiny. (Or are we?) It provides a fatalistic but .....more

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09/30/08

Nicholas Merlin Karpuk rated it:

Read in October, 2008

recommended to Nicholas by: The Coen Brothers
recommends it for: Fans of the movie, Crime Fiction Enthusiasts

Seeing the movie before reading the book is something I avoid if I'm at all interested in the subject matter. One is going to alter my view of the other, and I'd rather my book reading experience be untainted by images of what the characters look like or sound like. In the case of "No Country for Old Men" I saw the movie before even taking an interest in Cormac Mc McCarthy, but after reading the book I was surprised at how little it mattered.

The movie is essentially the boo...more

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06/19/08

Capitu rated it:

(review of isbn 0307387135)

bookshelves: 2008

Read in August, 2008

I approached this book full of bias. It has become a bestseller after the movie version, and I tend to be naturally shy of bestsellers. I was also told by many who saw the movie – which I haven’t yet – how gruesome it was.

But I had read The Road by Cormac McCarthy earlier in the year and was extremely impressed by his writing, so I pushed myself to read No Country for Old Men. I actually started on it a couple of times, never quite getting past page 10 or so. I seemed to...more

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06/16/08

Lisalit rated it:

Read in June, 2008

A gripping crime-scene thriller plus more, which takes us through a series of murders in the small border town of an older, dedicated sheriff trying to police in a world that has changed, where the bad guys sometimes win. Suspenseful and charged with a hope-ridden hopelessness, and peppered with bleak yet fascinating characters, this was one of my favorite reads of the year. The violence was enough to make me shudder, but I couldn't put it down--even though I knew where it was going.

...more

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"You think when you wake up in the mornin yesterday don't count. But yesterday is all that does count. What else is there? Your life is made out of the days it’s made out of. Nothin else." More quotes...