Status
Available
Call number
Library's review
USA, Texas, 1990
Llewellyn Moss er lidt over 40 og gift med Carla Jean Moss på 19. Han var pletskytte i Vietnam og en morgen er han taget ud i Lozier Canyon for at skyde en antilope med sin riffel med kikkertsigte. Som sidegevinst finder han et sted i ørkenen, hvor en narkohandel er gået helt
Bortset fra det fortæller han hende ikke så meget.
På vej ind over familien Moss og deres skæbne er en meget ildevarslende person ved navn Anton Chigurh. Han har utallige drab på samvittigheden og dræber både en vicesherif Haskins og en tilfældig bilist på vej ned for at kigge på massakren i ørkenen og finde de forsvundne penge. Da han kommer frem til scenen, mødes han med tre mænd, der også har med jagten på pengene at gøre. Efter at have fået lidt oplysninger fra dem, skyder han dem. Og tager en kasse med et pejleapparat i for mappen med penge har en lille sender.
Sherif Ed Tom Bell er gift med Loretta og tæt på pensionsalderen og hans trætte øjne har set meget lort. Og nu også denne flerlags mordscene i ørkenen fordi drab på hans vicesherif og en tilfældig bilist. Han synes at verden går ad helvede til med raske skridt. Ude i ørkenen er både penge og narko væk. Llewellyn er taget til et motel i Del Rio og Chigurh er allerede i hælene på ham. Llewellyn har skjult mappen i ventilationsskakten mellem to værelser. Han lejer værelset overfor og trækker mappen næsten derover. Næste dag dukker Chigurh op og massakrerer de mexicanere, der har taget værelset.
Imens har Bell kigget på rapporterne og gættet at Chigurh bruger en slagtepistol. Hans betjent Torbert ønsker at han ikke havde fået den oplysning.
Chigurh følger senderen til det næste hotel. Men Llewellyn overrasker ham og flygter. Chigurh er en god skytte, så Llewellyn bliver ramt af pistolskud på lidt lang afstand. Han får sig transporteret hen over grænsen til Mexico efter at have skjult mappen som nu heller ikke længere har en sender. Chigurh er også blevet såret og nogle flere blander sig i skyderiet, men Chigurh ender med at slå dem alle ihjel. Med de 10 fra ørkenen, nærmer dødstallet sig hastigt de 20. Sherif Bell kører en tur til Odessa og snakker med Carla Jean og forklarer hende at meget, meget skræmmende banditter er i hælene på hendes mand. Hun stoler dog på at Llewellyn kan passe på sig selv.
Bagmændene, der har mistet både penge og varer, er ikke begejstrede for Chigurh's nedskydning af deres mænd og hyrer en anden lejemorder, Carson Wells, til at stoppe Chigurh. Han er ret smart og finder hurtigt Llewellyn på et hospital i Mexico. Han kan fortælle Llewellyn at han var usandsynligt heldig at Acosta's folk blandede sig i skyderiet (og døde fra en side af). Til gengæld kan Llewellyn fortælle at han ramte Chigurh med en ladning dyrehagl. Wells efterlader sit visitkort ved Llewellyn efter at have fortalt ham at det her ikke ender godt medmindre Llewellyn afleverer pengene. Det med dyrehaglene er helt rigtigt og Chigurh bruger nogle dage på først at pille dem ud af sit ben og så komme sig oven på det. Da han er klar igen, sætter han sig til at vente i hotellets vestibule og da Carson kommer forbi, bliver han hentet ind til en kammeratlig samtale i Chigurhs værelse, hvilket ender med at Chigurh skyder Carson. Chigurh gider ikke engang høre hvor mappen er for han regner med at den vil blive bragt til ham. Carsons telefon ringer og Chigurh tager den. Det er Llewellyn, der er blevet skræmt nok til at ringe til Carson. Det hjælper ikke på skrækken at det er Chigurh, der tager telefonen. Chigurh fatter ret hurtigt, så han fortæller Llewellyn at den bedste handel, han kan få, er at aflevere pengene og selv dø. Så vil Chigurh lade Carla Jean være i fred. Hvis Llewellyn afslår den handel, så er Carla Jean også med i pakken. Llewellyn afslår og truer Chigurh med at komme efter ham. Samtalen slutter.
Llewellyn flygter i hospitalstøj fra det mexicanske hospital i Piedras Negras, kommer over grænsen, får købt tøj og hentet mappen.
Sherif Bell er kommet frem til hotellet, hvor Chigurh har dræbt adskillige i flere omgange. Heriblandt to receptionister, så stillingen er indtil videre ubesat og hotellet er de facto lukket. Politiet har identificeret Carson Wells, der var oberstløjtnant i marinekorpset med 24 års tjeneste bag sig, før han blev freelance. Bell synes at landet er gået i hundene.
Chigurh har gættet hvem der havde pudset Carson på ham, så det regnskab gør han også lige op. Elevatoren er sikret med koder, men trappen virker stadig selv om Chigurh må halte op. Han bruger boltpistolen til at komme ind med og skyder manden med en fuglepatron for ikke at knuse ruderne bagved. De er på 17. etage, så det er jo meget hensynsfuldt. Det kan manden tænke over mens han forbløder på gulvet. Chigurh fjerner patronhylster og rydder lidt op inden han går igen.
Llewellyn har ringet til Carla Jean og hendes bedstemor og fortalt at de skal flygte. Bedstemoderen har altid brokket over Llewellyn, så det gør hun nu i en lind strøm. De tager til El Paso. Kort efter dukker Chigurh op i bedstemoderens hus, så det var på høje tid. Desværre kan han nu rode i alle deres papirer og fx kigge deres telefonregning igennem og se opkald til El Paso. Carla Jean er også skræmt og ringer til sherif Bell. Hun fortæller hvor Llewellyn er henne. Imens har Llewellyn køber en bil og kører mod El Paso. Han samler en 15-årig ung pige op på vejen og de snakker sammen en del uden at sige navne og den slags. Det ender skidt. Både hun og Llewellyn bliver skudt af en lejemorder.
Sherif Bell er også kørt mod El Paso og kommer forbi motellet, hvor de to er blevet skudt. Imens har Chigurh været forbi og hentet mappen med pengene. Bell gætter næsten rigtigt på hvad der er sket, men får stadig ikke fat i Chigurh. Han får dog overbragt Carla Jean budskabet inden hun kan læse det i aviserne. Carla Jeans bedstemor dør af kræft og efter begravelsen går hun hjem med en følelse af at nogen iagttager hende. Indenfor venter Chigurh på hende. Han forklarer at Llewellyn kunne have reddet hende, men valgte ikke at gøre det. Hun får dog lov at vælge mellem plat og krone, men hun valgte forkert, så dødstallet stiger med en. På vej væk bliver Chigurh helt tilfældigt påkørt af tre unge knægte i en bil. De to af drengene dør og Chigurh får et par ribbensbrud og en brækket arm, men slipper alligevel væk.
To drenge på cykel hjælper ham, får en stor seddel som tak og den ene stikker efterfølgende hans pistol til sig, da den jo bare ligger og flyder i bilvraget.
Chigurh afleverer mappen med penge til rette ejermand. Det bliver påskønnet og Chigurh bliver sikkert fremover et tandhjul i den organisation.
Det er bog med mange dybder, narko som fandens værk, men det er jo endnu værre at folk faktisk tager narko. Livsanskuelser med penge som det vigtigste, eller er det at opføre sig ordentligt, eller at leve med at livet er tilfældigt, eller måske endnu værre: forudbestemt.
Bogen er lavet til en fremragende film instrueret af Coen-brødrene (Joel og Ethan Coen) med Tommy Lee Jones som træt sherif, Javier Bardem som stjernepsykopat og Josh Brolin som chanceløs vietnamveteran. Handlingen i filmen er en lille smule anderledes, men kun lidt.
Jeg kan godt lide at Carson Wells bemærker at der mangler en etage i bygningen, hvor han bliver hyret. Senere kommer Chigurh på besøg og han tager trappen op i stedet for at tage den supersikrede elevator. Sikkerhedsspørgsmål er interessante, men som Chigurh siger: hvis dine regler har bragt dig i denne situation, hvad siger det så om dine regler?
Llewellyn Moss er lidt over 40 og gift med Carla Jean Moss på 19. Han var pletskytte i Vietnam og en morgen er han taget ud i Lozier Canyon for at skyde en antilope med sin riffel med kikkertsigte. Som sidegevinst finder han et sted i ørkenen, hvor en narkohandel er gået helt
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galt. Tre gennemhullede biler, masser af lig, en pickup-truck med morfinbase for mange millioner og en enkelt overlevende mexicaner, der er skudt i maven og beder om vand. I stedet for at tilkalde politiet, går han videre i terrænet og finder en død gangster mere. Han har taget en attachetaske fyldt med penge med sig og den tager Llewellyn med sig. Han tager den med hjem og skjuler den og senere på aftenen eller natten snarere er han dum nok til at tage tilbage med vand til mexicaneren. Da er denne blevet fundet af nogle andre, der heller ikke er politi. De har skudt mexicaneren og de opdager Llewellyn og han undslipper kun lige akkurat. Desværre for ham har han måttet efterlade sin bil og han kan sagtens regne ud at gangsterne vil have hans navn ca fem minutter efter at motorkontoret åbner næste formiddag. Han tager afsked med sit hidtidige liv og flygter efter at have sat konen på bussen hjem til hendes bedstemor og fortalt hende at hun ikke skal regne med at se noget som helst igen, som hun ikke tager med derfra.Bortset fra det fortæller han hende ikke så meget.
På vej ind over familien Moss og deres skæbne er en meget ildevarslende person ved navn Anton Chigurh. Han har utallige drab på samvittigheden og dræber både en vicesherif Haskins og en tilfældig bilist på vej ned for at kigge på massakren i ørkenen og finde de forsvundne penge. Da han kommer frem til scenen, mødes han med tre mænd, der også har med jagten på pengene at gøre. Efter at have fået lidt oplysninger fra dem, skyder han dem. Og tager en kasse med et pejleapparat i for mappen med penge har en lille sender.
Sherif Ed Tom Bell er gift med Loretta og tæt på pensionsalderen og hans trætte øjne har set meget lort. Og nu også denne flerlags mordscene i ørkenen fordi drab på hans vicesherif og en tilfældig bilist. Han synes at verden går ad helvede til med raske skridt. Ude i ørkenen er både penge og narko væk. Llewellyn er taget til et motel i Del Rio og Chigurh er allerede i hælene på ham. Llewellyn har skjult mappen i ventilationsskakten mellem to værelser. Han lejer værelset overfor og trækker mappen næsten derover. Næste dag dukker Chigurh op og massakrerer de mexicanere, der har taget værelset.
Imens har Bell kigget på rapporterne og gættet at Chigurh bruger en slagtepistol. Hans betjent Torbert ønsker at han ikke havde fået den oplysning.
Chigurh følger senderen til det næste hotel. Men Llewellyn overrasker ham og flygter. Chigurh er en god skytte, så Llewellyn bliver ramt af pistolskud på lidt lang afstand. Han får sig transporteret hen over grænsen til Mexico efter at have skjult mappen som nu heller ikke længere har en sender. Chigurh er også blevet såret og nogle flere blander sig i skyderiet, men Chigurh ender med at slå dem alle ihjel. Med de 10 fra ørkenen, nærmer dødstallet sig hastigt de 20. Sherif Bell kører en tur til Odessa og snakker med Carla Jean og forklarer hende at meget, meget skræmmende banditter er i hælene på hendes mand. Hun stoler dog på at Llewellyn kan passe på sig selv.
Bagmændene, der har mistet både penge og varer, er ikke begejstrede for Chigurh's nedskydning af deres mænd og hyrer en anden lejemorder, Carson Wells, til at stoppe Chigurh. Han er ret smart og finder hurtigt Llewellyn på et hospital i Mexico. Han kan fortælle Llewellyn at han var usandsynligt heldig at Acosta's folk blandede sig i skyderiet (og døde fra en side af). Til gengæld kan Llewellyn fortælle at han ramte Chigurh med en ladning dyrehagl. Wells efterlader sit visitkort ved Llewellyn efter at have fortalt ham at det her ikke ender godt medmindre Llewellyn afleverer pengene. Det med dyrehaglene er helt rigtigt og Chigurh bruger nogle dage på først at pille dem ud af sit ben og så komme sig oven på det. Da han er klar igen, sætter han sig til at vente i hotellets vestibule og da Carson kommer forbi, bliver han hentet ind til en kammeratlig samtale i Chigurhs værelse, hvilket ender med at Chigurh skyder Carson. Chigurh gider ikke engang høre hvor mappen er for han regner med at den vil blive bragt til ham. Carsons telefon ringer og Chigurh tager den. Det er Llewellyn, der er blevet skræmt nok til at ringe til Carson. Det hjælper ikke på skrækken at det er Chigurh, der tager telefonen. Chigurh fatter ret hurtigt, så han fortæller Llewellyn at den bedste handel, han kan få, er at aflevere pengene og selv dø. Så vil Chigurh lade Carla Jean være i fred. Hvis Llewellyn afslår den handel, så er Carla Jean også med i pakken. Llewellyn afslår og truer Chigurh med at komme efter ham. Samtalen slutter.
Llewellyn flygter i hospitalstøj fra det mexicanske hospital i Piedras Negras, kommer over grænsen, får købt tøj og hentet mappen.
Sherif Bell er kommet frem til hotellet, hvor Chigurh har dræbt adskillige i flere omgange. Heriblandt to receptionister, så stillingen er indtil videre ubesat og hotellet er de facto lukket. Politiet har identificeret Carson Wells, der var oberstløjtnant i marinekorpset med 24 års tjeneste bag sig, før han blev freelance. Bell synes at landet er gået i hundene.
Chigurh har gættet hvem der havde pudset Carson på ham, så det regnskab gør han også lige op. Elevatoren er sikret med koder, men trappen virker stadig selv om Chigurh må halte op. Han bruger boltpistolen til at komme ind med og skyder manden med en fuglepatron for ikke at knuse ruderne bagved. De er på 17. etage, så det er jo meget hensynsfuldt. Det kan manden tænke over mens han forbløder på gulvet. Chigurh fjerner patronhylster og rydder lidt op inden han går igen.
Llewellyn har ringet til Carla Jean og hendes bedstemor og fortalt at de skal flygte. Bedstemoderen har altid brokket over Llewellyn, så det gør hun nu i en lind strøm. De tager til El Paso. Kort efter dukker Chigurh op i bedstemoderens hus, så det var på høje tid. Desværre kan han nu rode i alle deres papirer og fx kigge deres telefonregning igennem og se opkald til El Paso. Carla Jean er også skræmt og ringer til sherif Bell. Hun fortæller hvor Llewellyn er henne. Imens har Llewellyn køber en bil og kører mod El Paso. Han samler en 15-årig ung pige op på vejen og de snakker sammen en del uden at sige navne og den slags. Det ender skidt. Både hun og Llewellyn bliver skudt af en lejemorder.
Sherif Bell er også kørt mod El Paso og kommer forbi motellet, hvor de to er blevet skudt. Imens har Chigurh været forbi og hentet mappen med pengene. Bell gætter næsten rigtigt på hvad der er sket, men får stadig ikke fat i Chigurh. Han får dog overbragt Carla Jean budskabet inden hun kan læse det i aviserne. Carla Jeans bedstemor dør af kræft og efter begravelsen går hun hjem med en følelse af at nogen iagttager hende. Indenfor venter Chigurh på hende. Han forklarer at Llewellyn kunne have reddet hende, men valgte ikke at gøre det. Hun får dog lov at vælge mellem plat og krone, men hun valgte forkert, så dødstallet stiger med en. På vej væk bliver Chigurh helt tilfældigt påkørt af tre unge knægte i en bil. De to af drengene dør og Chigurh får et par ribbensbrud og en brækket arm, men slipper alligevel væk.
To drenge på cykel hjælper ham, får en stor seddel som tak og den ene stikker efterfølgende hans pistol til sig, da den jo bare ligger og flyder i bilvraget.
Chigurh afleverer mappen med penge til rette ejermand. Det bliver påskønnet og Chigurh bliver sikkert fremover et tandhjul i den organisation.
Det er bog med mange dybder, narko som fandens værk, men det er jo endnu værre at folk faktisk tager narko. Livsanskuelser med penge som det vigtigste, eller er det at opføre sig ordentligt, eller at leve med at livet er tilfældigt, eller måske endnu værre: forudbestemt.
Bogen er lavet til en fremragende film instrueret af Coen-brødrene (Joel og Ethan Coen) med Tommy Lee Jones som træt sherif, Javier Bardem som stjernepsykopat og Josh Brolin som chanceløs vietnamveteran. Handlingen i filmen er en lille smule anderledes, men kun lidt.
Jeg kan godt lide at Carson Wells bemærker at der mangler en etage i bygningen, hvor han bliver hyret. Senere kommer Chigurh på besøg og han tager trappen op i stedet for at tage den supersikrede elevator. Sikkerhedsspørgsmål er interessante, men som Chigurh siger: hvis dine regler har bragt dig i denne situation, hvad siger det så om dine regler?
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Publication
[Kbh.] : [Gyldendal], 2008.
Description
Llewelyn Moss is hunting antelope near the Texas/Mexico border when he stumbles upon several dead men, a big stash of heroin, and more than two million dollars in cash. He takes off with the money--and the hunter becomes the hunted. A drug cartel hires a former Special Forces agent to track down the loot, and a ruthless killer joins the chase as well. Also looking for Moss is the aging Sheriff Bell, a World War II veteran who may be Moss' only hope for survival.
Media reviews
All that keeps No Country for Old Men from being a deftly executed but meretricious thriller is the presence, increasingly confused and ineffectual as the novel proceeds, of the sheriff of Comanche County, one of the "old men" alluded to in the title.
"No Country for Old Men" is an unholy mess of a novel, which one could speculate will be a bitter disappointment to many of those eager fans. It is an unwieldy klutz that pretends to be beach reading while dressed in the garments of serious literature (not that those are necessarily mutually
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exclusive concepts). It is a thriller that is barely thrilling and a tepid effort to reclaim some of the focus and possibly the audience of McCarthy's most reader-friendly novel, "All the Pretty Horses." Worst of all, it reads like a story you wished Elmore Leonard had written -- or rather, in this case, rewritten. Show Less
Mr. McCarthy turns the elaborate cat-and-mouse game played by Moss and Chigurh and Bell into harrowing, propulsive drama, cutting from one frightening, violent set piece to another with cinematic economy and precision. In fact, ''No Country for Old Men'' would easily translate to the big screen so
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long as Bell's tedious, long-winded monologues were left on the cutting room floor -- a move that would also have made this a considerably more persuasive novel. Show Less
In the literary world the appearance of a new Cormac McCarthy novel is a cause for celebration. It has been seven years since his Cities of the Plain, and McCarthy has made the wait worthwhile. With a title that makes a statement about Texas itself, McCarthy offers up a vision of awful power and
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waning glory, like a tale told by a hermit emerging from the desert, a biblical Western from a cactus-pricked Ancient Mariner. Show Less
Cormac McCarthy's ''No Country for Old Men'' is as bracing a variation on these noir orthodoxies as any fan of the genre could expect, although his admirers may not be sure at first about quite how to take the book, which doesn't bend its genre or transcend it but determinedly straightens it back
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out. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member Polaris-
I'm wary of 'reviewing' a book that already has clocked some hundreds of such entries. The excellent and gripping film adaptation directed by the Coen brothers received a rightly deserved amount of attention as well. So a lot of people know this one already. Nevertheless, this was my first read of
This is set in the year 1980. Before the triumphalist era of Reagan sets in and at a time when the USA was perhaps beginning to sense itself a nation that had passed something. An America when the Vietnam war was a very fresh wound on the national psyche.
Texan Llewelyn Moss is a veteran of that war. He is hunting alone in the Rio Grande hinterland, and happens upon a very bloody drug smuggling denouement - which includes a shot-up vehicle, a dying occupant, and a file case full of cash. Millions. He makes a decision that will change his own life and the lives of several others.
(SPOILER AHEAD!)
"It had already occurred to him that he would probably never be safe again in his life and he wondered if that was something that you got used to. And if you did?"
A second man has made it his business to find the case of money and return it to whom it belongs. Anyone interfering with this endeavour will be mercilessly eliminated. There follows a fast-paced and intensely described series of episodes as we see how life indeed changes very immediately for Moss and his family, and how the second man, Chigurh, sets about retrieving the case.
McCarthy's story is told narrated in the third person, except that a third principle character - that of the investigating local Sheriff Ed Tom Bell - reflects back on this time with a first person narrative which intersperses each chapter. The effect is one that is somehow cinematic, as we the reader experience the story in rotation from one perspective to the next. The good, the bad, and the fearful. The language used by the author is as spartan as the surrounding terrain.
"...Where he crested out the country lay dead flat, stretching away to the south and the east. Red dirt and creosote. Mountains in the far and middle distance. Nothing out there. Heatshimmer. He stuck the pistol in his belt and looked down at the river one more time and then set out east."
The characters are drawn with a similar economy but are all too believable. The character of Chigurh alone is one of the most terrifying and coldly calculating psychopaths I've ever read. Sheriff Bell is an aging and somewhat disillusioned cop, on the eve of his retirement. Bell's 'tale' as told to us is one as much about a sense of a declining morality, a changing American civilisation, and even life itself, as it is one about a drugs deal gone bad, a case of money, and a trail of dead bodies.
This is no ordinary crime tale, but rather a comment on something much larger than that, something that I couldn't quite grasp exactly. Possibly that there is a creeping decay of sorts at work, which colonises and changes society as we know it. The criminals and the cops alike, and maybe an honest welder like Moss as well. Not the most uplifting read, but a very affecting one that is well written and should have you turning the pages. Definitely going back for more McCarthy.
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McCarthy's work, (picked up for a quid in a bank of all places!) so I'll attempt to convey my impressions having just finished the book.This is set in the year 1980. Before the triumphalist era of Reagan sets in and at a time when the USA was perhaps beginning to sense itself a nation that had passed something. An America when the Vietnam war was a very fresh wound on the national psyche.
Texan Llewelyn Moss is a veteran of that war. He is hunting alone in the Rio Grande hinterland, and happens upon a very bloody drug smuggling denouement - which includes a shot-up vehicle, a dying occupant, and a file case full of cash. Millions. He makes a decision that will change his own life and the lives of several others.
(SPOILER AHEAD!)
"It had already occurred to him that he would probably never be safe again in his life and he wondered if that was something that you got used to. And if you did?"
A second man has made it his business to find the case of money and return it to whom it belongs. Anyone interfering with this endeavour will be mercilessly eliminated. There follows a fast-paced and intensely described series of episodes as we see how life indeed changes very immediately for Moss and his family, and how the second man, Chigurh, sets about retrieving the case.
McCarthy's story is told narrated in the third person, except that a third principle character - that of the investigating local Sheriff Ed Tom Bell - reflects back on this time with a first person narrative which intersperses each chapter. The effect is one that is somehow cinematic, as we the reader experience the story in rotation from one perspective to the next. The good, the bad, and the fearful. The language used by the author is as spartan as the surrounding terrain.
"...Where he crested out the country lay dead flat, stretching away to the south and the east. Red dirt and creosote. Mountains in the far and middle distance. Nothing out there. Heatshimmer. He stuck the pistol in his belt and looked down at the river one more time and then set out east."
The characters are drawn with a similar economy but are all too believable. The character of Chigurh alone is one of the most terrifying and coldly calculating psychopaths I've ever read. Sheriff Bell is an aging and somewhat disillusioned cop, on the eve of his retirement. Bell's 'tale' as told to us is one as much about a sense of a declining morality, a changing American civilisation, and even life itself, as it is one about a drugs deal gone bad, a case of money, and a trail of dead bodies.
This is no ordinary crime tale, but rather a comment on something much larger than that, something that I couldn't quite grasp exactly. Possibly that there is a creeping decay of sorts at work, which colonises and changes society as we know it. The criminals and the cops alike, and maybe an honest welder like Moss as well. Not the most uplifting read, but a very affecting one that is well written and should have you turning the pages. Definitely going back for more McCarthy.
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LibraryThing member wortklauberlein
A modern morality tale that sucks the reader in and doesn't let him go. Several veterans of foreign wars, each a very different man, are ensnared in a new war in southern Texas. The questionable morality of their own wartime experiences pales in comparison with the amoral hunter-stalker bent on not
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only retrieving a stolen shipment of heroin and the $2.2 million meant to pay for it but also on keeping his own balance sheet of lives taken and lives saved at the flip of a coin. Do the decisions small and large that we make along the way inexorably shape our fates? Show Less
LibraryThing member bragan
Llewelyn Moss is hunting in the desert one day when he comes across the bloody aftermath of a drug deal gone wrong. He comes away from the encounter with a suitcase full of money and the realization that now both parties involved are after him, as well as the local sheriff. This initially seems
Ultimately, though, the plot isn't what the novel is about at all, and in the end it all but abandons it in order to become what it really is: a meditation about the deterioration of American society. Which is a little disconcerting, perhaps, but it works better than you might expect. I am particularly impressed by the fact that the perspective it's told from, a conservative point of view I normally have very little sympathy for, elicited very real feelings of empathy and understanding in me.
The one thing about MCarthy's writing that doesn't thrill me is his apparent hatred for any form of punctuation other than the period. I think this sort of worked in The Road. I remember commenting after reading that one that it gave the impression that all the apostrophes had been destroyed in the apocalypse, and it's possible I wasn't entirely joking; perhaps it did help to enhance that novel's particular sense of bleakness. In this one, though it mainly struck me as irritating and a little pretentious. (Not that this one isn't also bleak, mind you, but it's bleak in a different way.) Worse, there were a couple of places where the lack of a comma or an appropriate set of italics led to enough ambiguity that I found myself confused for a paragraph or several. And this, folks, is the reason why these conventions exist in the first place! Fortunately, it's a good enough book in all other respects that I was able to get past that. Mostly.
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like a completely standard action thriller plot, although McCarthy's sparse, literary writing elevates it many notches above standard thriller quality without sacrificing any of the tension. Among other things, I have to admire the way he manages to effectively portray the main bad guy as really, really scary using just a few very simple brushstrokes.Ultimately, though, the plot isn't what the novel is about at all, and in the end it all but abandons it in order to become what it really is: a meditation about the deterioration of American society. Which is a little disconcerting, perhaps, but it works better than you might expect. I am particularly impressed by the fact that the perspective it's told from, a conservative point of view I normally have very little sympathy for, elicited very real feelings of empathy and understanding in me.
The one thing about MCarthy's writing that doesn't thrill me is his apparent hatred for any form of punctuation other than the period. I think this sort of worked in The Road. I remember commenting after reading that one that it gave the impression that all the apostrophes had been destroyed in the apocalypse, and it's possible I wasn't entirely joking; perhaps it did help to enhance that novel's particular sense of bleakness. In this one, though it mainly struck me as irritating and a little pretentious. (Not that this one isn't also bleak, mind you, but it's bleak in a different way.) Worse, there were a couple of places where the lack of a comma or an appropriate set of italics led to enough ambiguity that I found myself confused for a paragraph or several. And this, folks, is the reason why these conventions exist in the first place! Fortunately, it's a good enough book in all other respects that I was able to get past that. Mostly.
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LibraryThing member LovingLit
Oh-la-la. I saved this book so that I would have something to look forward to reading. And it turns out I had a lot to look forward to.
The violence that I knew was in this story had been off-putting to me. There are a lot of people getting shot in the head, it seems. But the simplicity in which the
The story starts in the chance discovery of a crime scene. A lot of money, drugs, guns and dead people. Moss, the man who chanced upon this scene and is very tempted by the money, makes a decision. This decision starts off a string of events that results in the deaths of many and a cat and mouse type situation involving the man who has the money, the men who want the money and the sheriff who wants the whole mess over and done with.
As usual, for me, the story is secondary to the way it is told. I love McCarthy's writing, I love the way his dialogue flows without the use of speech marks or "he said/she said" type fillers. The story itself, also happens to be quick, gripping is cast with people we can see ourselves talking to. People who are struggling with past decisions, and the repercussions these have on their current situation.
The violence that I knew was in this story had been off-putting to me. There are a lot of people getting shot in the head, it seems. But the simplicity in which the
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events are described allow the coldness of the killers characters to come through, and also let us off the hook in terms of being on the receiving end of graphic descriptions of it all. There is not a lot of mercy shown by the main perpetrator, he is a man who sets very high standards for himself in being thorough in his retribution. The story starts in the chance discovery of a crime scene. A lot of money, drugs, guns and dead people. Moss, the man who chanced upon this scene and is very tempted by the money, makes a decision. This decision starts off a string of events that results in the deaths of many and a cat and mouse type situation involving the man who has the money, the men who want the money and the sheriff who wants the whole mess over and done with.
As usual, for me, the story is secondary to the way it is told. I love McCarthy's writing, I love the way his dialogue flows without the use of speech marks or "he said/she said" type fillers. The story itself, also happens to be quick, gripping is cast with people we can see ourselves talking to. People who are struggling with past decisions, and the repercussions these have on their current situation.
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LibraryThing member mrstreme
I didn’t realize it at the time, but the themes of my recent selection, No Country for Old Men, was amazingly timely. At the surface, it’s October, and I’ve already read a ghost story – why not throw a story about a sociopath to the mix? But at a deeper level, it’s a story about what’s
No Country for Old Men is a complex story. At one level, it’s the story of Llewellyn Moss, a 36-year old Vietnam veteran who stumbled into a drug bust gone wrong and managed to snag millions of dollars in drug money. The Mexican drug lords are chasing Moss, but his biggest concern is that of Anton Chigurh – a clever, cold-hearted killer whose methods of execution are startling and gut wrenching.
On another level, it’s the story of Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, who policed his county without issue for a number of years, until the bad drug bust and the arrival Chigurh to his county. Bell carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, stemming back from his service during the Second World War. He desperately wanted to close this case, bring Moss to safety and retire without incident.
If you saw the movie, you picked up on the excellent characterization and spine-tingling plot. However, you missed McCarthy’s gift of writing – of presenting a story on the page that will leave you wanting more. McCarthy does not use quotation marks and other punctuation marks, which will drive the traditionalists nuts, but there’s something about the way he presents his stories that’s simple and superior. It’s like eating a delicious vegetable without the butter, sauce or salt – just the raw deliciousness that God created.
With recent comments made by Nobel judges that Americans lack talented writers, I sneer. Cormac McCarthy is among the best. It’s too bad these judges are overlooking such talent – because he’s among the best our country offers the literary world.
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happening to our country with each passing generation – how things are getting more obtuse, more complicated and less hopeful. With our presidential election right around the corner, I could not have stumbled upon a timelier theme.No Country for Old Men is a complex story. At one level, it’s the story of Llewellyn Moss, a 36-year old Vietnam veteran who stumbled into a drug bust gone wrong and managed to snag millions of dollars in drug money. The Mexican drug lords are chasing Moss, but his biggest concern is that of Anton Chigurh – a clever, cold-hearted killer whose methods of execution are startling and gut wrenching.
On another level, it’s the story of Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, who policed his county without issue for a number of years, until the bad drug bust and the arrival Chigurh to his county. Bell carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, stemming back from his service during the Second World War. He desperately wanted to close this case, bring Moss to safety and retire without incident.
If you saw the movie, you picked up on the excellent characterization and spine-tingling plot. However, you missed McCarthy’s gift of writing – of presenting a story on the page that will leave you wanting more. McCarthy does not use quotation marks and other punctuation marks, which will drive the traditionalists nuts, but there’s something about the way he presents his stories that’s simple and superior. It’s like eating a delicious vegetable without the butter, sauce or salt – just the raw deliciousness that God created.
With recent comments made by Nobel judges that Americans lack talented writers, I sneer. Cormac McCarthy is among the best. It’s too bad these judges are overlooking such talent – because he’s among the best our country offers the literary world.
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LibraryThing member jjtyler
Wow.
I think you can sum up the entire review with the word above. This book is a lean juicy steak with zero fat. That is the most important thing about this story, that there is zero fluff, because if there was any unneeded junk put into the story, it wouldn't work at all.
I love that McCarthy isn't
Seeing the movie before the book did not hamper my joy in reading this one bit. What is great about the book is that you get much more of Sheriff Tom Bell, and you get to see his view of things in panorama.
Moss's demise is explained in greater detail, and although it is still not satisfactory for most, it is the way McCarthy intended the book to be, without a tidy ending and without any sense of justice.
There is quite a bit more of Anton Chigurh as well, and he gives out some of his philosophy and world views, especially right before he kills someone. I'm not sure why he is obsessed with the people knowing why he is killing them before he does it, but this is part of his M.O., showing the victims that their life is hopeless if it led to this point.
This book is a fast read, and that is mostly because a good portion of it is dialogue. I'm a sucker for good southern dialogue, and McCarthy's use of the language and dialect is unmatched in this generation.
This is a highly recommended read, despite if you have seen the movie or not, and go into knowing that this is more than a story, but McCarthy's view on civilization and the culture of violence. If you missed his point in the movie, the book won't leave you guessing as to what this all means. We're all in a basket, and we're all heading down south.
I'm going out of my way here to say that I can't remember enjoying a book this much, despite the depression that lingers after reading it. It has jumped up to my top five books of all times list, and may be close to the first. I know that means something to you.
I think you can sum up the entire review with the word above. This book is a lean juicy steak with zero fat. That is the most important thing about this story, that there is zero fluff, because if there was any unneeded junk put into the story, it wouldn't work at all.
I love that McCarthy isn't
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some literary aficionado somewhere at some university but he is somewhere living in a truck out in West Texas or East New Mexico, writing.Seeing the movie before the book did not hamper my joy in reading this one bit. What is great about the book is that you get much more of Sheriff Tom Bell, and you get to see his view of things in panorama.
Moss's demise is explained in greater detail, and although it is still not satisfactory for most, it is the way McCarthy intended the book to be, without a tidy ending and without any sense of justice.
There is quite a bit more of Anton Chigurh as well, and he gives out some of his philosophy and world views, especially right before he kills someone. I'm not sure why he is obsessed with the people knowing why he is killing them before he does it, but this is part of his M.O., showing the victims that their life is hopeless if it led to this point.
This book is a fast read, and that is mostly because a good portion of it is dialogue. I'm a sucker for good southern dialogue, and McCarthy's use of the language and dialect is unmatched in this generation.
This is a highly recommended read, despite if you have seen the movie or not, and go into knowing that this is more than a story, but McCarthy's view on civilization and the culture of violence. If you missed his point in the movie, the book won't leave you guessing as to what this all means. We're all in a basket, and we're all heading down south.
I'm going out of my way here to say that I can't remember enjoying a book this much, despite the depression that lingers after reading it. It has jumped up to my top five books of all times list, and may be close to the first. I know that means something to you.
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LibraryThing member scofer
The story kicks off with Moss, who accidentally stumbles upon the scene of a drug deal gone bad while out hunting, and discovers bodies everywhere as well as a case containing $2.4 million. Moss takes off with the case, setting off a pursuit by Bell, an old sheriff who is trying to catch the bad
I am conflicted about this book and struggling to explain why. Just coming off reading The Road (which I loved) and anticipating the movie made by the Coen Brothers, my expectations were high. Perhaps too high. While I loved the sparse, bullet fire narrative style, I grew weary of Bell’s reflections. I found parts of the book to be brilliant and riveting, while others bored me. Portions of the book were well developed, while others dropped me flat with little to no explanation as to what just happened. I might need to go back and re-read the book, perhaps skipping Bell’s prose which dragged on for pages. Chigurh is certainly fascinating, if not blood chilling. I will never look at a coin toss in the same way. Did I like this book? I'm really not sure. It certainly is not for everyone.
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guys but also trying to keep Moss out of harms way, as well as by Chigurgh, a hit man who is relentlessly tracking Moss to get the money back and to enforce his own evil code of justice. I am conflicted about this book and struggling to explain why. Just coming off reading The Road (which I loved) and anticipating the movie made by the Coen Brothers, my expectations were high. Perhaps too high. While I loved the sparse, bullet fire narrative style, I grew weary of Bell’s reflections. I found parts of the book to be brilliant and riveting, while others bored me. Portions of the book were well developed, while others dropped me flat with little to no explanation as to what just happened. I might need to go back and re-read the book, perhaps skipping Bell’s prose which dragged on for pages. Chigurh is certainly fascinating, if not blood chilling. I will never look at a coin toss in the same way. Did I like this book? I'm really not sure. It certainly is not for everyone.
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LibraryThing member gbill
What I liked:
- McCarthy paints a picture of the country and the characters; the chapters early in the book are particularly good.
- The "voice" of the characters, both endearing and real.
- Musings on whether violence in man is "new", and other thoughs from the Sheriff directly in the chapters
- Stark and direct. McCarthy does not waste a single word and "brings it", but despite that is still able to develop interesting characters and philosophize.
What I disliked:
- It's certainly not a book for anyone who dislikes violence (or lack of punctuation :-)), the bodies quickly pile up as the story goes on.
- Inexplicable behavior; the first of which is admitted as idiotic by the character ("I'm fixin to go do somethin dumbern hell but I'm goin anyways" ... also "There is no description of a fool, he said, that you fail to satisfy"), but the second of which is just baffling.
Favorite quotes:
"I thought I'd never seen a person like that and it got me to wonderin if maybe he was some new kind."
"I dont even want to know. I dont even want to know what all you been up to.
He sipped the beer and nodded. That'll work, he said.
I think it's better just to not even know even.
You keep runnin that mouth and I'm going to take you back there and screw you.
Big talk.
Just keep it up.
That's what she said.
Just let me finish this beer. We'll see what she said and what she didnt say."
"Where's your truck at?
Gone the way of all flesh. Nothin's forever."
"You think about a job where you have pretty much the same authority as God and there is no requirements put upon you and you are charged with preservin nonexistent laws and you tell me if that's peculiar or not. Because I say that is. Does it work? Yes. Ninety percent of the time. It takes very little to govern good people. Very little. And bad people cant be governed at all. Or if they could I never heard of it."
"People complain about the bad things that happen to em that they dont deserve but they seldom mention the good. About what they done to deserve them things. I dont recall that I ever give the good Lord that much cause to smile on me. But he did."
"Nineteen is old enough to know that if you have got somethin that means the world to you it's all that more likely it'll get took away. Sixteen was, for that matter. I think about that.
Bell nodded. I aint a stranger to them thoughts, Carla Jean. Them thoughts is very familiar to me."
"The people I know are mostly just common people. Common as dirt, as the sayin goes. I told her that and she looked at me funny. She thought I was sayin somethin bad about em, but of course that's a high compliment in my part of the world."
"I think if you were Satan and you were settin around tryin to think up somethin that would ust bring the human race to its knees what you would probably come up with is narcotics."
"You think when you wake up in the mornin yesterday dont 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."
"I think by the time you've grown you're as happy as you're goin to be. You'll have good times and bad times, but in the end you'll be about as happy as you was before. Or as unhappy. I've knowed people that just never did get the hang of it."
"You can be patriotic and still believe that some things cost more than they're worth. Ask them Gold Star mothers what they paid and what they got for it. You always pay too much. Particularly for promises."
"You know that Gospel song? We'll understand it all by and by? That takes a lot of faith. You think about him goin over there and dyin in a ditch somewheres. Seventeen year old. You tell me. Because I damn sure dont know."
"This country will kill you in a heartbeat and still people love it."
- McCarthy paints a picture of the country and the characters; the chapters early in the book are particularly good.
- The "voice" of the characters, both endearing and real.
- Musings on whether violence in man is "new", and other thoughs from the Sheriff directly in the chapters
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written from his perspective that are interspersed throught the book. He is far from incompetent, but is simplly overwhelemd and outmatched. His conversations with his old uncle at the end is great.- Stark and direct. McCarthy does not waste a single word and "brings it", but despite that is still able to develop interesting characters and philosophize.
What I disliked:
- It's certainly not a book for anyone who dislikes violence (or lack of punctuation :-)), the bodies quickly pile up as the story goes on.
- Inexplicable behavior; the first of which is admitted as idiotic by the character ("I'm fixin to go do somethin dumbern hell but I'm goin anyways" ... also "There is no description of a fool, he said, that you fail to satisfy"), but the second of which is just baffling.
Favorite quotes:
"I thought I'd never seen a person like that and it got me to wonderin if maybe he was some new kind."
"I dont even want to know. I dont even want to know what all you been up to.
He sipped the beer and nodded. That'll work, he said.
I think it's better just to not even know even.
You keep runnin that mouth and I'm going to take you back there and screw you.
Big talk.
Just keep it up.
That's what she said.
Just let me finish this beer. We'll see what she said and what she didnt say."
"Where's your truck at?
Gone the way of all flesh. Nothin's forever."
"You think about a job where you have pretty much the same authority as God and there is no requirements put upon you and you are charged with preservin nonexistent laws and you tell me if that's peculiar or not. Because I say that is. Does it work? Yes. Ninety percent of the time. It takes very little to govern good people. Very little. And bad people cant be governed at all. Or if they could I never heard of it."
"People complain about the bad things that happen to em that they dont deserve but they seldom mention the good. About what they done to deserve them things. I dont recall that I ever give the good Lord that much cause to smile on me. But he did."
"Nineteen is old enough to know that if you have got somethin that means the world to you it's all that more likely it'll get took away. Sixteen was, for that matter. I think about that.
Bell nodded. I aint a stranger to them thoughts, Carla Jean. Them thoughts is very familiar to me."
"The people I know are mostly just common people. Common as dirt, as the sayin goes. I told her that and she looked at me funny. She thought I was sayin somethin bad about em, but of course that's a high compliment in my part of the world."
"I think if you were Satan and you were settin around tryin to think up somethin that would ust bring the human race to its knees what you would probably come up with is narcotics."
"You think when you wake up in the mornin yesterday dont 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."
"I think by the time you've grown you're as happy as you're goin to be. You'll have good times and bad times, but in the end you'll be about as happy as you was before. Or as unhappy. I've knowed people that just never did get the hang of it."
"You can be patriotic and still believe that some things cost more than they're worth. Ask them Gold Star mothers what they paid and what they got for it. You always pay too much. Particularly for promises."
"You know that Gospel song? We'll understand it all by and by? That takes a lot of faith. You think about him goin over there and dyin in a ditch somewheres. Seventeen year old. You tell me. Because I damn sure dont know."
"This country will kill you in a heartbeat and still people love it."
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LibraryThing member Periodista
Wow. Unputdownable, cinematic, violent, true and all the other accolades. You can see why the Coens grabbed it for a movie; there must have been quite a fight for the screen rights. Is there any physical description at all? The dialogue (and what a dialect!) carries everything.
I bet there was
But it's Sheriff Bell's thoughts that should be the center of any book discussion. That's where the meaning of it all coalesces. I wish online book discussions worked because this is a book I'd like to talk about.
I bet there was
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little debate: the sheriff had to be Tommy Lee Jones.But it's Sheriff Bell's thoughts that should be the center of any book discussion. That's where the meaning of it all coalesces. I wish online book discussions worked because this is a book I'd like to talk about.
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LibraryThing member writestuff
After reading Cormac McCarthy's book The Road in May, I knew I would read more of his novels. Like that novel, No Country For Old Men is filled with brutal violence and asks deep questions about the nature of evil, morality and the idea of fate vs. choosing our own path.
When Lewelyn Moss stumbles
McCarthy takes the reader for a wild ride through the first half of the book. I found myself unable to put the novel down. The scenes are nail bitters, written like a screenplay. It is not surprising that the movie based on the book will be released in November 2007.
But then, McCarthy slows things down midway, giving the reader more to think about than who will be the next victim. Do our choices seal our fate in life? Are our lives merely determined by the flip of a coin? Or do we have the power to control our lives through the moral decisions we make? McCarthy doesn't give the reader any easy answers, and perhaps that is because there are not any. In the end, we are left with the symbol of a fire being lit in the darkness - perhaps the suggestion that we may still shine our light on evil, and reveal it for what it is.
Recommended.
When Lewelyn Moss stumbles
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across a drug deal gone bad out in the desert and walks away with a briefcase filled with over two million dollars, he sets off a string of savage murders and places himself and his wife in harm's way. Ed Tom Bell, an old time sheriff on the brink of retirement, carries the novel with his dry sense of humor and musings on the philosophy of life and its moral decline. Chigurh (apparently pronounced 'sugar' ... although I thought this character could better be described as 'chigger') seems to be the embodiment of evil - a super human monster who appears to have no respect for human life.McCarthy takes the reader for a wild ride through the first half of the book. I found myself unable to put the novel down. The scenes are nail bitters, written like a screenplay. It is not surprising that the movie based on the book will be released in November 2007.
But then, McCarthy slows things down midway, giving the reader more to think about than who will be the next victim. Do our choices seal our fate in life? Are our lives merely determined by the flip of a coin? Or do we have the power to control our lives through the moral decisions we make? McCarthy doesn't give the reader any easy answers, and perhaps that is because there are not any. In the end, we are left with the symbol of a fire being lit in the darkness - perhaps the suggestion that we may still shine our light on evil, and reveal it for what it is.
Recommended.
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LibraryThing member angrywayne
I feel like so many reviews of this book give a lot away about the plot, that out of context, doesn't lend well to the writer or the novel. The last time I set down a McCarthy book, was when I finished Suttree a few years ago. I took a deep breath then and I took a deep breath again with No Country
He's captured the humanity of it all again. For me his stories revisit the same theme again and again, and as he ges older, they just get better.
I kind of want to read it again.
Just today I clicked on a trailer for the movie, yes they've made a movie of it already, and the first thing I thought was "..what a shame for those who never read the book..."
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for Old Men. His adept use of dialect and imagery spurs my imaginaton back home to Texas. I think back to when I was a kid and the land stretched out before me and stories unfolded in the possibility and the plausibility of the harshness of the land and what it could do to man struggling within it. This book brought my heart back to those moments walking in the fields all alone, when you think you are alone. All of the sudden your heart lands in your throat as you are overcome with a feeling that something is not right, and you are afraid to look back. He's captured the humanity of it all again. For me his stories revisit the same theme again and again, and as he ges older, they just get better.
I kind of want to read it again.
Just today I clicked on a trailer for the movie, yes they've made a movie of it already, and the first thing I thought was "..what a shame for those who never read the book..."
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LibraryThing member bibliobibuli
Any synopsis of the plot is going to make the book look like pulp fiction. But what makes the book absolutely remarkable is the terse, spare writing, the crisp dialogue and the way that each page crackles with tension. It's so cinematographic that I can't think that the Coen brothers had to do too
Then there's the depth of characterisation, and the deeper questions about free will versus determinism, and the nature of good and evil.
Anton Moss, a welder and ex-Vietnam vet, is out hunting antelope in the arid scrub near Rio Grande when he stumbles into the aftermath of a gun battle in which the members of a drug convey have been slaughtered. And then he finds a suitcase with a cool $2.4 million inside.
Soon he is a fugitive fleeing from the hired gun, sent to retrieve the money, an icy-cold psychopath called Anton Chigurh (the name rhymes with "Sugar" ironically) who has a perverted sense of moral justice, a real angel of death who models himself on God. Chigurh decides the fate of his victims with a flick of a coin and calmly dispatches them with a stungun of the sort used in slaughter houses.
And then there's Bell, a small town sheriff struggling to do the duty he is entrusted with in a world that seems to be changing steadily for the worse. He is also doing his best to track Moss down before it's too late. The narrative of the novel alternates between omniscience and chapters where Bell is given free-reign to talk about his own history and philosophy of life in monologues that read like something from Studs Terkel's classic oral histories. Bell is a good man but he doesn't really have his finger on why the world is going to hell in a hand basket, even though he can see that it is.
To complicate matters, a special forces agent employed by a powerful cartel is also hot on Moss' trail. And there's Moss' young wife, who also needs to do a runner with her dying mother to avoid being picked off by Chigurh.
Although The Road was probably the most powerful novel I've read this year, I think this novel is far better from the technical point of view. And although McCarthy's use of punctuation is every bit as eccentric here, it seems to fit with the way the Texan dialect is written and doesn't grate as it does in The Road. (I did though sometimes get lost in dialogues, since there is no indication of who is speaking.) And thankfully, there are fewer choppy sentence fragments of the kind that had me gritting my teeth.
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much work to bring it to the screen. (Although they seem to have done a pretty good job!) Then there's the depth of characterisation, and the deeper questions about free will versus determinism, and the nature of good and evil.
Anton Moss, a welder and ex-Vietnam vet, is out hunting antelope in the arid scrub near Rio Grande when he stumbles into the aftermath of a gun battle in which the members of a drug convey have been slaughtered. And then he finds a suitcase with a cool $2.4 million inside.
Soon he is a fugitive fleeing from the hired gun, sent to retrieve the money, an icy-cold psychopath called Anton Chigurh (the name rhymes with "Sugar" ironically) who has a perverted sense of moral justice, a real angel of death who models himself on God. Chigurh decides the fate of his victims with a flick of a coin and calmly dispatches them with a stungun of the sort used in slaughter houses.
And then there's Bell, a small town sheriff struggling to do the duty he is entrusted with in a world that seems to be changing steadily for the worse. He is also doing his best to track Moss down before it's too late. The narrative of the novel alternates between omniscience and chapters where Bell is given free-reign to talk about his own history and philosophy of life in monologues that read like something from Studs Terkel's classic oral histories. Bell is a good man but he doesn't really have his finger on why the world is going to hell in a hand basket, even though he can see that it is.
To complicate matters, a special forces agent employed by a powerful cartel is also hot on Moss' trail. And there's Moss' young wife, who also needs to do a runner with her dying mother to avoid being picked off by Chigurh.
Although The Road was probably the most powerful novel I've read this year, I think this novel is far better from the technical point of view. And although McCarthy's use of punctuation is every bit as eccentric here, it seems to fit with the way the Texan dialect is written and doesn't grate as it does in The Road. (I did though sometimes get lost in dialogues, since there is no indication of who is speaking.) And thankfully, there are fewer choppy sentence fragments of the kind that had me gritting my teeth.
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LibraryThing member BrianDewey
Yikes! The bad guys win! This wasn't the ending -- or really the story -- that I was expecting. I guess I expected the typical crime thriller, where the good guys somehow manage to outwit the bad, and the thrill of the story is trying to figure out how that will happen before the narrator tells
Well. No Country for Old Men turns out not to follow that formula. (McCarthy cleverly sets up at least three different plot formulas and torpedoes all of them.) Every sympathetic character is either dead or existentially defeated by the end of the novel. Several unsympathetic characters meet the same fate. Everybody falls prey to a mythic "most invincible man," and at the end this novel says a lot about how our lives are shaped by the cruel hand of chance. You wouldn't be too far off thinking of this novel as a modern, bloody retelling of Boethius's The Consolation of Philosophy.
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you. Even when the "good guys" are morally ambiguous, as in Miller's Crossing, there's an undeniable appeal to this formula.Well. No Country for Old Men turns out not to follow that formula. (McCarthy cleverly sets up at least three different plot formulas and torpedoes all of them.) Every sympathetic character is either dead or existentially defeated by the end of the novel. Several unsympathetic characters meet the same fate. Everybody falls prey to a mythic "most invincible man," and at the end this novel says a lot about how our lives are shaped by the cruel hand of chance. You wouldn't be too far off thinking of this novel as a modern, bloody retelling of Boethius's The Consolation of Philosophy.
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LibraryThing member Nandakishore_Varma
This is started as a one-star book, then progressed to four slowly as the story unfolded. The novel grows on you.
No Country for Old Men starts out in a thoroughly disjointed way. Multiple POVs, total lack of punctuation, dialogue rendered exactly as the characters speak it... the reader is utterly
It could be about one Llewlyn Moss who stumbles upon a fortune while hunting antelope near the Rio Grande. A transaction between drug dealers has gone wrong, leaving a number of bodies, a huge stash of heroin, and a case full of cash. Moss takes the cash and runs, knowing fully well that his life is changed for ever.
Or then, it could be about Anton Chigurh, hired gun and cold-blooded killing machine. He is entrusted with the task of finding the money taken by Moss. On the way, Chigurh leaves a trail of dead bodies, sometimes philosophising to his victims.
Or it could be about Sheriff Bell, bent on doing his job of keeping law and order and protecting the citizens of his county to the best of his ability-even though most of the time, he fails.
The story moves at a roller-coaster pace. The scenes are short and mostly disjointed: the author sometimes leaves a major piece of the action behind the scenes. Characters come and go without any introduction. The sentences hit you like machine-gun fire.
If you stick with the novel, after some time, you get accustomed to the style; it loses its annoyance potential, and the real story starts coming through.
For this is not the story of Moss, or of Anton Chigurh; but of Sheriff Bell, and the country he is a symbol of. This is the country of Daniel Boone and Wyatt Earp and Billy the Kidd and Jesse James: the country of "The Man With No Name", and a hundred Spaghetti Westerns we have seen and forgotten. This country is absolutely heartless but imbued with a certain terrible beauty. This country sends forth its sons to die in Vietnam and Iraq.
It is, indeed, not a country for old men.
Anton Chigurh is a masterly creation: one of the most frightening villains I have come across, because he is not "evil" in the traditional sense. Chigurh is a philosopher, a believer in the karma of what he is doing, the karma which is unstoppable and which will find you out no matter what. The scenes of him philosophising with Carson Wells and Carla Jean before he shoots them are terrifying for the lack of emotion in them. It is also ironical that an out-of-control car driven by three junkies, an entirely chance event, ultimately proves to be his undoing.
But as I said earlier, this is the story of Sheriff Bell, who is atoning for a single act of cowardice during the second world war (rather like Lord Jim). We get to know this only towards the very end, after the whole affair of Moss and Chigurh is over and done with: then the story suddenly falls into focus, and the philosophical interludes of the sheriff interspersed throughout the novel with the main narrative starts to make perfect sense. The killers, the chase and the shootouts are all just window dressing for the story of this one man as he tries to make sense of the conundrum of the meaning of life. And he does find his answer, though maybe not the one he expected.
The image of this man, standing alone in the midst of the desert, shoulders slumped in defeat against an increasingly violent and unjust world, is a touching one: and somehow heartening. Because we know that he is the real spirit of the desert, the gunslinger of American myth who rides off into the sunset after taking care of the baddies. And because we know that finally at the end of the trail, his dad will be waiting for him with the fire burning in the dark as he saw in his dream.
Ride on, Sheriff Bell.
No Country for Old Men starts out in a thoroughly disjointed way. Multiple POVs, total lack of punctuation, dialogue rendered exactly as the characters speak it... the reader is utterly
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confused as to where the focus is, who the protagonist is, and what the story is about. It could be about one Llewlyn Moss who stumbles upon a fortune while hunting antelope near the Rio Grande. A transaction between drug dealers has gone wrong, leaving a number of bodies, a huge stash of heroin, and a case full of cash. Moss takes the cash and runs, knowing fully well that his life is changed for ever.
Or then, it could be about Anton Chigurh, hired gun and cold-blooded killing machine. He is entrusted with the task of finding the money taken by Moss. On the way, Chigurh leaves a trail of dead bodies, sometimes philosophising to his victims.
Or it could be about Sheriff Bell, bent on doing his job of keeping law and order and protecting the citizens of his county to the best of his ability-even though most of the time, he fails.
The story moves at a roller-coaster pace. The scenes are short and mostly disjointed: the author sometimes leaves a major piece of the action behind the scenes. Characters come and go without any introduction. The sentences hit you like machine-gun fire.
If you stick with the novel, after some time, you get accustomed to the style; it loses its annoyance potential, and the real story starts coming through.
For this is not the story of Moss, or of Anton Chigurh; but of Sheriff Bell, and the country he is a symbol of. This is the country of Daniel Boone and Wyatt Earp and Billy the Kidd and Jesse James: the country of "The Man With No Name", and a hundred Spaghetti Westerns we have seen and forgotten. This country is absolutely heartless but imbued with a certain terrible beauty. This country sends forth its sons to die in Vietnam and Iraq.
It is, indeed, not a country for old men.
Anton Chigurh is a masterly creation: one of the most frightening villains I have come across, because he is not "evil" in the traditional sense. Chigurh is a philosopher, a believer in the karma of what he is doing, the karma which is unstoppable and which will find you out no matter what. The scenes of him philosophising with Carson Wells and Carla Jean before he shoots them are terrifying for the lack of emotion in them. It is also ironical that an out-of-control car driven by three junkies, an entirely chance event, ultimately proves to be his undoing.
But as I said earlier, this is the story of Sheriff Bell, who is atoning for a single act of cowardice during the second world war (rather like Lord Jim). We get to know this only towards the very end, after the whole affair of Moss and Chigurh is over and done with: then the story suddenly falls into focus, and the philosophical interludes of the sheriff interspersed throughout the novel with the main narrative starts to make perfect sense. The killers, the chase and the shootouts are all just window dressing for the story of this one man as he tries to make sense of the conundrum of the meaning of life. And he does find his answer, though maybe not the one he expected.
The image of this man, standing alone in the midst of the desert, shoulders slumped in defeat against an increasingly violent and unjust world, is a touching one: and somehow heartening. Because we know that he is the real spirit of the desert, the gunslinger of American myth who rides off into the sunset after taking care of the baddies. And because we know that finally at the end of the trail, his dad will be waiting for him with the fire burning in the dark as he saw in his dream.
Ride on, Sheriff Bell.
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LibraryThing member jawalter
I haven't read a lot of Cormac McCarthy, but from what little I've encountered, the man sure does like to paint a bleak picture of the world. I'm just not sure that I care.
McCarthy reminds me of one of the "old men" referred to in the title, vainly attempting to remember a past in which the world
That's not to say I didn't like the story, in which a basically decent man makes a decision, for which he is doomed to be pursued by an unrelenting spectre of death, all the while being watched over by the benevolent, but impotent, figurehead of the law. It becomes apparent very early on that Moss was a dead man from the minute he picked up the case of money, and after that, the reader can only count the pages remaining until he dies.
It's an entertaining story; it just feels like you've finished reading it before you're even halfway through.
I was surprised by how faithful the Coen brothers were in their adaptation, but it's easy to forget that when they're not indulging in the quirkiness that suffuses most of their comedic work, they seem to share McCarthy's cynical outlook.
Also, the refusal to use quotation marks is just plain distracting, a constant reminder that the author wants you to know you're reading something important. Punctuation isn't a style. Writing without it is like cooking without heat.
McCarthy reminds me of one of the "old men" referred to in the title, vainly attempting to remember a past in which the world
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and the people in it made some sort of sense. What I think he misses is that the universes he imagines, whether it be the post-apocalyptic world of The Road or the pre-apocalyptic world of this book, are no country for any kind of man, old or otherwise. His characters might as well give up by page 2.That's not to say I didn't like the story, in which a basically decent man makes a decision, for which he is doomed to be pursued by an unrelenting spectre of death, all the while being watched over by the benevolent, but impotent, figurehead of the law. It becomes apparent very early on that Moss was a dead man from the minute he picked up the case of money, and after that, the reader can only count the pages remaining until he dies.
It's an entertaining story; it just feels like you've finished reading it before you're even halfway through.
I was surprised by how faithful the Coen brothers were in their adaptation, but it's easy to forget that when they're not indulging in the quirkiness that suffuses most of their comedic work, they seem to share McCarthy's cynical outlook.
Also, the refusal to use quotation marks is just plain distracting, a constant reminder that the author wants you to know you're reading something important. Punctuation isn't a style. Writing without it is like cooking without heat.
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LibraryThing member squeakjones
Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men is deceptive. On the surface a bare bones, ruthless narrative about a man on the run from a cold-blooded killer and the sheriff who tries to figure out the puzzle of what went down, it's also a meditation on the nature of the country as we see it now, as
The plot is almost an afterthought - quiet vet Llewelyn Moss, hunting in the plains on the Texas-Mexico border comes across a couple trucks, several dead men, blocks of heroin, and 2.4 million in cash. Moss takes the money, and from there it is a bloody chase across Texas and Mexico as psycho-killers, Mexican drug dealers, and a determined sheriff follow Moss for their own reasons. McCarthy's writing is brief but poetic - it takes a few pages to get used to his unique writing style but once you're there the story moves at break-neck speed until its all-too-abrupt conclusion. Sheriff Bell, the narrator/voice of reason in the book contemplates that this new world he's seeing is indeed No Country for Old Men, and perhaps the evil apparent in killer Anton Chigurh is an evil we may all be destined for if the world continues to dip and sway on the tip of its own modernity.
For anyone who has not yet read McCarthy, this is supposedly his most accessible book ,and might serve as a great starting place before dipping into heavier fare such as All the Pretty Horses, Suttree, or Blood Meridian. The Coen Brothers are also currently adapting this book to be their next feature film, which sounds fantastic, since in many ways the themes here echo FARGO and, to a lesser extent, BLOOD SIMPLE. Great book, A-.
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opposed to how we viewed it in the past. It's a book about how our perception of evil has become more grand and black with every passing generation, and where we seek to identify ourselves within that framework. It's also a story of responsibilities, to family, to community, to one's self.The plot is almost an afterthought - quiet vet Llewelyn Moss, hunting in the plains on the Texas-Mexico border comes across a couple trucks, several dead men, blocks of heroin, and 2.4 million in cash. Moss takes the money, and from there it is a bloody chase across Texas and Mexico as psycho-killers, Mexican drug dealers, and a determined sheriff follow Moss for their own reasons. McCarthy's writing is brief but poetic - it takes a few pages to get used to his unique writing style but once you're there the story moves at break-neck speed until its all-too-abrupt conclusion. Sheriff Bell, the narrator/voice of reason in the book contemplates that this new world he's seeing is indeed No Country for Old Men, and perhaps the evil apparent in killer Anton Chigurh is an evil we may all be destined for if the world continues to dip and sway on the tip of its own modernity.
For anyone who has not yet read McCarthy, this is supposedly his most accessible book ,and might serve as a great starting place before dipping into heavier fare such as All the Pretty Horses, Suttree, or Blood Meridian. The Coen Brothers are also currently adapting this book to be their next feature film, which sounds fantastic, since in many ways the themes here echo FARGO and, to a lesser extent, BLOOD SIMPLE. Great book, A-.
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LibraryThing member mtnbiker1
I wanted to read this before I saw the movie. Since I like the Coen brothers, I knew I would like the movie, but I wanted to read the book first and see what the original story was like. The story moves right along, not at a blistering pace, but pretty quickly. I was saddened by the way the story
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ended, but it seemed to be an appropriate ending for the story. I wished Moss could have made it as even after his death, there seemed several points where he could have been still alive. Holding Chigurh up as a nearly superhuman villain in the story seemed like an odd way to portray a bad guy, but I did not feel it was the worst way to portray him or like it was a mistake to have him belike that. Having Bell as the narrator makes him the main character I guess, so I can't really feel too bad when I discover that Moss has been killed still I was saddened by his loss, even though you sort of knew he would have a hard time making it out of there in one piece the way the pieces were laid out throughout the story. All in all a great read! Show Less
LibraryThing member francescadefreitas
Violent, beautiful, compelling. I had to put this down a few times to calm down, I was so tense.
Terrible events are described in simple and sparse prose, it almost acted as a buffer, like watching the action through the eyes of a child - who doesn't entirely understand what's happening. This made
Terrible events are described in simple and sparse prose, it almost acted as a buffer, like watching the action through the eyes of a child - who doesn't entirely understand what's happening. This made
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me feel such empathy for several of the characters that I turned each page nearly dreading what I would read next. Show Less
LibraryThing member mrtall
Spare, relentless and bleak. Even Faulkner had more of a sense of humor than Cormac McCarthy. This is not the book for those seeking uplift or encouragement, but it's a powerful work for those willing to contemplate the depths of human nature. But it's a hard read; it's like forcing yourself to
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take in the details at a murder scene. You must hold your gaze without flinching . . . . Show Less
LibraryThing member raggedprince
A very well executed thriller but not my favourite Cormac McCarthy. I didn't like having my nose rubbed in so much death. And I missed the presence of the landscape which is so strong in his other novels.
LibraryThing member wordygirl39
I read this book in under 24 hours because it absolutely gripped me--and not as a lesser thriller might, though I did want to know what happened next. This book is a modern classic. And those who compare McCarthy to Faulkner and Steinbeck are on target except that their language was of their time
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and McCarthy's is of his. I don't know if he's our greatest living writer, but he's one of them. Show Less
LibraryThing member lmichet
When I recommend this book to people, the first thing they say to me always concerns the degree to which they liked or hated the movie.
The movie is EXTREMELY faithful too the book. However, the way in which the source material hampers the movie is the way in which it enables the book to excel. Yes,
Should you read this book before watching the movie? Definitely. There's no question. The plot is simultaneously straightforward and convoluted; watching the movie will probably ruin a lot of the surprises for you. However, the movie itself is a very different beast. It works or doesn't work on different terms than the book does. The book has a different symbolic impact than the movie; the form and organization of the book sees to that. The sherrif's monologues spotted among the third-person chapters help to create an effect which is less-clearly articulated in the movie.
So. Read this. I have not read all of Cormac McCarthy but if you read any of his at all I'm willing to suggest that you'll adore this one.
The movie is EXTREMELY faithful too the book. However, the way in which the source material hampers the movie is the way in which it enables the book to excel. Yes,
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the ending is ambiguous and odd and perplexing. Cormac McCarthy does ambiguous, odd, and perplexing better than any other living American writer.Should you read this book before watching the movie? Definitely. There's no question. The plot is simultaneously straightforward and convoluted; watching the movie will probably ruin a lot of the surprises for you. However, the movie itself is a very different beast. It works or doesn't work on different terms than the book does. The book has a different symbolic impact than the movie; the form and organization of the book sees to that. The sherrif's monologues spotted among the third-person chapters help to create an effect which is less-clearly articulated in the movie.
So. Read this. I have not read all of Cormac McCarthy but if you read any of his at all I'm willing to suggest that you'll adore this one.
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LibraryThing member John
No Country for Old Men is, on the surface, a murder-thriller that unfolds when, Llewelyn Moss, out hunting antelope, stumbles across shot-up vehicles and a number of bodies in a drug deal gone bad in the desert, and he also finds a bag with a couple of million dollars in it. He completely changes
The novel is about much more than just the violence. It is about those decisions in life that do alter a lifepath, and not always huge ones like whether or not to keep a couple of million dollars of obviously illegal money. As Chigurh himself says, "Every moment in your life is a turning and every one a choosing. Somewhere you made a choice. All followed to this. The accounting is scrupulous. The shape is drawn. No line can be erased....A person's path through the world seldom changes and even more seldom will it change abruptly. And the shape of your path was visible from the beginning." Chigurh uses this reasoning to excuse himself as a tool of pre-ordained destiny in killing people. Certainly, every moment is a turning and a choosing, and looking back one cannot erase lines, but paths are not predetermined, they only seem to be in hindsight and the straight-line projection of history when one forgets the forks that were faced. This, in a sense, is the realization that Sheriff Bell comes to as he considers his life, his past actions, and his desire to change where he is in life.
This is also a novel about changes in society that lead to an unraveling of cohesion, of shared values, of broadly shared goals, of increasing division socially and politically, about vastly increased scopes for violence. Chigurh is the extreme model: a man who kills with no more compassion that one would have for swatting a mosquito, but who is even more dangerous for having constructed what he believes is a valid belief system. Moss is essentially a good man and a tough and resourceful guy, but he makes a serious mistake in taking the money and in thinking that he can deal with the subsequent pressures, not even being aware of the ripple effects on the lives of others. Sheriff Bell is a man who harbours guilt because people believe him to be better than he thinks he has been, and who realizes that he is simply not up to the task, that this world of ultra and gratuitous violence and death is way beyond him. Bell is the only character who actually changes; all the others remain as they were, or die; but Bell, strongly supported by the love and companionship of his wife, does finally take that fork that will let him live a quieter and more peaceful life.
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his lifepath, and those of several other people, when he takes the money and thus becomes the target of drug lords and a psychopathic killer named Anton Chigurh, as well as Bell, the small town sheriff in whose territory the murders took place. The chase, with a growing pile of bodies bloodily and often gratuitously murdered by Chigurh, ranges across Texas and just over the border into Mexico. McCarthy is unsparing in his descriptions of violence and brains splattering and arteries pumping through blasted throats. The novel also does not have the relief of the lush descriptions of countryside that lighten, somewhat, the violence in Blood Meridian. Here the action, and to some extent the thinking of some of the characters, is very much at the centre of the narrative.The novel is about much more than just the violence. It is about those decisions in life that do alter a lifepath, and not always huge ones like whether or not to keep a couple of million dollars of obviously illegal money. As Chigurh himself says, "Every moment in your life is a turning and every one a choosing. Somewhere you made a choice. All followed to this. The accounting is scrupulous. The shape is drawn. No line can be erased....A person's path through the world seldom changes and even more seldom will it change abruptly. And the shape of your path was visible from the beginning." Chigurh uses this reasoning to excuse himself as a tool of pre-ordained destiny in killing people. Certainly, every moment is a turning and a choosing, and looking back one cannot erase lines, but paths are not predetermined, they only seem to be in hindsight and the straight-line projection of history when one forgets the forks that were faced. This, in a sense, is the realization that Sheriff Bell comes to as he considers his life, his past actions, and his desire to change where he is in life.
This is also a novel about changes in society that lead to an unraveling of cohesion, of shared values, of broadly shared goals, of increasing division socially and politically, about vastly increased scopes for violence. Chigurh is the extreme model: a man who kills with no more compassion that one would have for swatting a mosquito, but who is even more dangerous for having constructed what he believes is a valid belief system. Moss is essentially a good man and a tough and resourceful guy, but he makes a serious mistake in taking the money and in thinking that he can deal with the subsequent pressures, not even being aware of the ripple effects on the lives of others. Sheriff Bell is a man who harbours guilt because people believe him to be better than he thinks he has been, and who realizes that he is simply not up to the task, that this world of ultra and gratuitous violence and death is way beyond him. Bell is the only character who actually changes; all the others remain as they were, or die; but Bell, strongly supported by the love and companionship of his wife, does finally take that fork that will let him live a quieter and more peaceful life.
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LibraryThing member Ruby_Barnes
Chigurh - an intelligent psychopath.
Third person narrator alternating with Sheriff Bell's first person reflections in italics. McCarthy's style throws dialogue and prose together without punctuation. This removes the need for speech tags and gives an immediacy to the story. The voices of the three
Third person narrator alternating with Sheriff Bell's first person reflections in italics. McCarthy's style throws dialogue and prose together without punctuation. This removes the need for speech tags and gives an immediacy to the story. The voices of the three
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protagonists are clearly distinguishable and the psychopathic villain Chigurh is worrying enough to keep the reader awake at night. Even though I knew the plot from the film, I was still stunned by McCarthy's summary and effective dismissal of two key characters. The horror and pressure tails off a bit at the end, which loses the fifth star for me, but in another way I was glad that cooling off phase was there to bring me down from the horror of Chigurh. Show Less
LibraryThing member Talbin
In No Country for Old Men, Lewellyn Moss discovers a grisly crime scene while hunting in the west Texas desert. All except one drug runner is dead, the last survivor barely alive, and there is a case full of wrapped $100 bills in a truck. Moss takes the money, which sets off a murderous chain of
McCarthy's book is a morality tale - or a tale about the loss of morality in the world. Throughout No Country for Old Men, McCarthy weaves Sheriff Bell's internal monologue throughout a strict third-party telling of events. Bell firmly believes that society has turned a corner and that evil has been loosed on the world. In many ways, Chirugh is the embodiment of this evil - which is made even more sinister by the fact that Chirugh has no emotional investment in the killing he does: he does it because it's part of what he believes is the inevitability of the actions of the universe. As Chirugh tells Clara Jane, Moss's young wife, just before killing her, "I had no say in the matter. Every moment in your life is a turning and everyone a choosing. Somewhere you made a choice. All followed to this. The accounting is scrupulous. The shape is drawn. No line can be erased." Each person in the novel deals with a choice he or she made which inevitably, eventually leads them to the place they are in the novel.
McCarthy has written a spare, bloody and ultimately moral novel - one that makes the reader think about choices made and the way life plays itself out. At the same time, the reader is also forced to think about evil in today's world and it's role in our everyday lives.
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events. Anton Chirugh, a sociopath who lives by his own strict code of morals, sets out to find Moss and the money leaving a wide trail of bloodshed in his wake. Meanwhile, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, the sometime narrator of the story, tries to figure out what happened, not only at this crime scene, but in his own life and in the world.McCarthy's book is a morality tale - or a tale about the loss of morality in the world. Throughout No Country for Old Men, McCarthy weaves Sheriff Bell's internal monologue throughout a strict third-party telling of events. Bell firmly believes that society has turned a corner and that evil has been loosed on the world. In many ways, Chirugh is the embodiment of this evil - which is made even more sinister by the fact that Chirugh has no emotional investment in the killing he does: he does it because it's part of what he believes is the inevitability of the actions of the universe. As Chirugh tells Clara Jane, Moss's young wife, just before killing her, "I had no say in the matter. Every moment in your life is a turning and everyone a choosing. Somewhere you made a choice. All followed to this. The accounting is scrupulous. The shape is drawn. No line can be erased." Each person in the novel deals with a choice he or she made which inevitably, eventually leads them to the place they are in the novel.
McCarthy has written a spare, bloody and ultimately moral novel - one that makes the reader think about choices made and the way life plays itself out. At the same time, the reader is also forced to think about evil in today's world and it's role in our everyday lives.
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Awards
Dublin Literary Award (Shortlist — 2007)
Audie Award (Finalist — 2011)
The Morning News Tournament of Books (Quarterfinalist — 2006)
Hammett Prize (Nominee — 2005)
Exclusive Books Boeke Prize (Shortlist — 2007)
Falcon Award (2008)
Writers Guild of America Award (Winner — Best Adapted Screenplay — 2007)
San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year (Fiction — 2005)
Notable Books List (2006)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2005
Physical description
249 p.; 17.7 cm
ISBN
9788702067910
Local notes
Omslag: Legalizer med filmplakat
Omslaget viser en mand, der flygter og hele baggrunde af billedet er den øverste del af skurkens ansigt
Indskannet omslag - N650U - 150 dpi
Oversat fra engelsk "No Country for Old Men" af Jan Hansen
Side 25: Der findes sgu ikke den beskrivelse af en idiot, som ikke passer på dig.
Side 115: I sammenligning med hvad? En pestepidemi? Han er slem nok til at De har tilkaldt mig. Han er en psykopatisk morder, men hvad så? Dem er der nogle stykker af.
Side 122: Han er ikke et menneske man ville bryde sig om at kende. De mennesker han møder har som regel en meget kort fremtid. Faktisk nærmest ikkeeksisterende.
Side 122: Den mand holder ikke op med at lede efter dig. Ikke engang selv om han får pengene tilbage. Det vil ikke gøre nogen forskel for ham. Selv om du så opsøgte ham og selv afleverede pengene til ham ville han alligevel dræbe dig. Bare for den ulejlighed du havde forvoldt ham.
Side 142: Når de regler du har fulgt har bragt dig i denne situation, hvad siger det så om reglerne.
Side 142: Jeg sidder her og du sidder dér. Og om et par minutter vil jeg stadig være her.
Side 143: Jeg ved noget, der er endnu mere værd.
Side 143: Jeg ved hvor den vil være.
Side 143: Den vil blive bragt til mig og blive anbragt foran mine fødder.
Side 143: Du tror at jeg er ligesom dig. At det skyldes pengebegær. Men jeg er ikke ligesom dig. Jeg lever et enkelt liv nu.
Side 158: Her i landet er to generationer lang tid. I taler om de første nybyggere. Jeg plejede at påpege over for folk at det har en tendens til at gøre mænd vrantne når de ser deres koner og børn blive dræbt og skalperet og få indvoldene taget ud som fisk, men de forstod ikke hvad jeg mente.
Side 188: Nu skal jeg sige dig én ting, søster. Hvis der er noget her i verden som du ikke ser ud som, så er det som én der vil have heldet med sig meget snart.
Side 203: Jeg har ingen fjender. Det ville jeg aldrig tillade.
Omslaget viser en mand, der flygter og hele baggrunde af billedet er den øverste del af skurkens ansigt
Indskannet omslag - N650U - 150 dpi
Oversat fra engelsk "No Country for Old Men" af Jan Hansen
Side 25: Der findes sgu ikke den beskrivelse af en idiot, som ikke passer på dig.
Side 115: I sammenligning med hvad? En pestepidemi? Han er slem nok til at De har tilkaldt mig. Han er en psykopatisk morder, men hvad så? Dem er der nogle stykker af.
Side 122: Han er ikke et menneske man ville bryde sig om at kende. De mennesker han møder har som regel en meget kort fremtid. Faktisk nærmest ikkeeksisterende.
Side 122: Den mand holder ikke op med at lede efter dig. Ikke engang selv om han får pengene tilbage. Det vil ikke gøre nogen forskel for ham. Selv om du så opsøgte ham og selv afleverede pengene til ham ville han alligevel dræbe dig. Bare for den ulejlighed du havde forvoldt ham.
Side 142: Når de regler du har fulgt har bragt dig i denne situation, hvad siger det så om reglerne.
Side 142: Jeg sidder her og du sidder dér. Og om et par minutter vil jeg stadig være her.
Side 143: Jeg ved noget, der er endnu mere værd.
Side 143: Jeg ved hvor den vil være.
Side 143: Den vil blive bragt til mig og blive anbragt foran mine fødder.
Side 143: Du tror at jeg er ligesom dig. At det skyldes pengebegær. Men jeg er ikke ligesom dig. Jeg lever et enkelt liv nu.
Side 158: Her i landet er to generationer lang tid. I taler om de første nybyggere. Jeg plejede at påpege over for folk at det har en tendens til at gøre mænd vrantne når de ser deres koner og børn blive dræbt og skalperet og få indvoldene taget ud som fisk, men de forstod ikke hvad jeg mente.
Side 188: Nu skal jeg sige dig én ting, søster. Hvis der er noget her i verden som du ikke ser ud som, så er det som én der vil have heldet med sig meget snart.
Side 203: Jeg har ingen fjender. Det ville jeg aldrig tillade.
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Pages
249
DDC/MDS
| 813.54 |