Platoeatssouls's review
No Country for Old Men
by Cormac McCarthy
I would disagree with this quote:
"The book's central thesis (or, I suppose, one of them; books are relatively poor places for straightforward philosophy) is this: you make choices as you go through life. There are rules and other, smaller choices you make which propel you along. And then eventually there's an accounting."
In contrast, I think one of the points McCarthy was trying to make is that there are things(often bad things) that are going to happen to everyone that they have absolutely no control over. None whatsoever. There is no just accounting. Shit happens. But the one thing we DO have control over is what choice we make in those situations. We always have a choice to make. To our death, we can and do make choices. The question is, what are our choices going to be?
My feeling came from Anton Chigurh's little speech on page 57:
Anything can be an instrument, Chigurh said. Small things. Things you wouldnt even notice. They pass from hand to hand. People dont pay attention. And then one day there's an accounting. And after that nothing is the same. Well, you say. It's just a coin. For instance. Nothing special there. What could that be an instrument of? You see the problem. To separate the act from the thing. As if the parts of some moment in history might be interchangeable with the parts of some other moment. How could that be? Well, it's just a coin. Yes. That's true. Is it?
Your thesis is nice, that we have control over our choices in bad situations, but it seems far too positive for such a dour book. Perhaps a better way to put it would be to say that McCarthy examines the line between free will and fate and finds that in most situations, most people freely choose the same things.
What do you mean when you say "in most situations, most people freely choose the same things."?
It seems to be a recurring theme; Chigurh even points out when he kills Wells (and, I think, some of the others) that people always say and do the same thing when he kills them, even when he points out beforehand that *that* is what people do. So is it free will - they're choosing to do something, and everyone just chooses the same? - or is it fate? He leaves it ambiguous, in my opinion, as to what the true mechanics of the universe are.
Platoeatssouls's review
No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
Platoeatssouls's review
rating:
bookshelves:
theboxmarkeddone
recommended for: people who like it dark
A literary critic (of whom I am not fond) by the name of Harold Bloom referred to Cormac McCarthy as one of the four living (and still working) American novelists who write "the Style of our age", saying they have composed canonical works. So with this ringing in my ears, and the film version still playing through my mind, I decided to read the book.
Cormac McCarthy writes about the west, but not the vaguely-homoerotic wild west that we all know and love. This is West Texas, where there's antelope and dust and drugs and a bunch of stuff that's been around forever and not a whole lot else. The men are tough and taciturn; they don't use apostrophes or quotation marks, they're slow to anger and quick to strike once roused. They love their wives with a slow, steady passion. Their wives, on the other hand, are strong, steely women who do well by their menfolk (of course they're called "menfolk".) They may carry weapons, but in the end they're not too important, m...more
Cormac McCarthy writes about the west, but not the vaguely-homoerotic wild west that we all know and love. This is West Texas, where there's antelope and dust and drugs and a bunch of stuff that's been around forever and not a whole lot else. The men are tough and taciturn; they don't use apostrophes or quotation marks, they're slow to anger and quick to strike once roused. They love their wives with a slow, steady passion. Their wives, on the other hand, are strong, steely women who do well by their menfolk (of course they're called "menfolk".) They may carry weapons, but in the end they're not too important, m...more
I would disagree with this quote: "The book's central thesis (or, I suppose, one of them; books are relatively poor places for straightforward philosophy) is this: you make choices as you go through life. There are rules and other, smaller choices you make which propel you along. And then eventually there's an accounting."
In contrast, I think one of the points McCarthy was trying to make is that there are things(often bad things) that are going to happen to everyone that they have absolutely no control over. None whatsoever. There is no just accounting. Shit happens. But the one thing we DO have control over is what choice we make in those situations. We always have a choice to make. To our death, we can and do make choices. The question is, what are our choices going to be?
My feeling came from Anton Chigurh's little speech on page 57:Anything can be an instrument, Chigurh said. Small things. Things you wouldnt even notice. They pass from hand to hand. People dont pay attention. And then one day there's an accounting. And after that nothing is the same. Well, you say. It's just a coin. For instance. Nothing special there. What could that be an instrument of? You see the problem. To separate the act from the thing. As if the parts of some moment in history might be interchangeable with the parts of some other moment. How could that be? Well, it's just a coin. Yes. That's true. Is it?
Your thesis is nice, that we have control over our choices in bad situations, but it seems far too positive for such a dour book. Perhaps a better way to put it would be to say that McCarthy examines the line between free will and fate and finds that in most situations, most people freely choose the same things.
What do you mean when you say "in most situations, most people freely choose the same things."?
It seems to be a recurring theme; Chigurh even points out when he kills Wells (and, I think, some of the others) that people always say and do the same thing when he kills them, even when he points out beforehand that *that* is what people do. So is it free will - they're choosing to do something, and everyone just chooses the same? - or is it fate? He leaves it ambiguous, in my opinion, as to what the true mechanics of the universe are.