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No Country for Old Men
by Cormac McCarthy

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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12497.No_Country_for_Old_Men?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="No Country for Old Men" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1166503883m/12497.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12497.No_Country_for_Old_Men?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">No Country for Old Men</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4178.Cormac_McCarthy">Cormac McCarthy</a> 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/19833334?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
 rating: 5 of 5 stars It's really difficult for me to explain why this book feels so incredibly important to me. There's something of an Old Testament, Ecclesiastical feel to it with its paradoxes of violence and downward spiral. Were the old days better than these? Bell recalls that old surveys showed chewing gum and talking in class as major school problems; now they're rape and murder. At the same time, his own past is far from a happy one, filled with death in foreign war, ancestors killed outside their houses, family rifts and personal guilt. On the one hand, he blames drug-pushers for the downfall of law, people who bleed children for their money and can buy people, police, even whole countries. On the other hand, they have customers; people, even children, want to be doped up. And then there are the youth, with their green hair and bones in their noses, lawless and disrespectful of their elders. Then again, their elders walk around in a daze, unsure of themselves or anything else; do they command any respect at all? 
 
 Moss's own part is that of a hero in a thriller, but stepping back from the excitement of it all, his plight is almost absurd. Why is he doing this? He knows that at no point will someone stop looking for his two million dollars. Why does he cling so tight to something he will never enjoy, a thing that only puts himself and his family in constant danger and promises to make him a hunted man for the rest of his life? When his wife begs Moss to give up the money, calling it "a false god," she reaches the truth of the matter. The pursuit of the money is utterly futile and meaningless.
 
 And in the midst of all this uncertainty Chigurh makes his rounds like death personified, killing almost at random, but not, I think, without any direction. He completes his killings not with any conventional, mindless pleasure but a certain satisfaction, doing what must be done. Rich and poor, old and young, friended and friendless; no one can escape him when their own time comes. Some people seem to earn their demise; others have every reason to live. Some, like the man at the convenience store, are allowed to go on. Others are simply down on their luck. Then again, is it really luck? Chigurh's flipped coin presents another paradox: predestination or chance? The toss seems arbitrary enough, but what of the journey that brought the coin, the man, the victim together after years of each one's traveling? Who could know it would come to this? 
 
 McCormac's book brings up a lot of questions and few, if any, answers. But the questions themselves...that's where the vast importance lies.
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/97215?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Amber's review
rating:

It's really difficult for me to explain why this book feels so incredibly important to me. There's something of an Old Testament, Ecclesiastical feel to it with its paradoxes of violence and downward spiral. Were the old days better than these? Bell recalls that old surveys showed chewing gum and talking in class as major school problems; now they're rape and murder. At the same time, his own past is far from a happy one, filled with death in foreign war, ancestors killed outside their houses, family rifts and personal guilt. On the one hand, he blames drug-pushers for the downfall of law, people who bleed children for their money and can buy people, police, even whole countries. On the other hand, they have customers; people, even children, want to be doped up. And then there are the youth, with their green hair and bones in their noses, lawless and disrespectful of their elders. Then again, their elders walk around in a daze, unsure of themselves or anything else; do they com...more It's really difficult for me to explain why this book feels so incredibly important to me. There's something of an Old Testament, Ecclesiastical feel to it with its paradoxes of violence and downward spiral. Were the old days better than these? Bell recalls that old surveys showed chewing gum and talking in class as major school problems; now they're rape and murder. At the same time, his own past is far from a happy one, filled with death in foreign war, ancestors killed outside their houses, family rifts and personal guilt. On the one hand, he blames drug-pushers for the downfall of law, people who bleed children for their money and can buy people, police, even whole countries. On the other hand, they have customers; people, even children, want to be doped up. And then there are the youth, with their green hair and bones in their noses, lawless and disrespectful of their elders. Then again, their elders walk around in a daze, unsure of themselves or anything else; do they command any respect at all?

Moss's own part is that of a hero in a thriller, but stepping back from the excitement of it all, his plight is almost absurd. Why is he doing this? He knows that at no point will someone stop looking for his two million dollars. Why does he cling so tight to something he will never enjoy, a thing that only puts himself and his family in constant danger and promises to make him a hunted man for the rest of his life? When his wife begs Moss to give up the money, calling it "a false god," she reaches the truth of the matter. The pursuit of the money is utterly futile and meaningless.

And in the midst of all this uncertainty Chigurh makes his rounds like death personified, killing almost at random, but not, I think, without any direction. He completes his killings not with any conventional, mindless pleasure but a certain satisfaction, doing what must be done. Rich and poor, old and young, friended and friendless; no one can escape him when their own time comes. Some people seem to earn their demise; others have every reason to live. Some, like the man at the convenience store, are allowed to go on. Others are simply down on their luck. Then again, is it really luck? Chigurh's flipped coin presents another paradox: predestination or chance? The toss seems arbitrary enough, but what of the journey that brought the coin, the man, the victim together after years of each one's traveling? Who could know it would come to this?

McCormac's book brings up a lot of questions and few, if any, answers. But the questions themselves...that's where the vast importance lies....less

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