No Country for Old Men

 

I heard about "Blood Meridian" by Cormac McCarthy, from Jocko on a Tim Ferriss

podcast, years back. Two weeks ago, I finally decided to read the author and it

was because the DVD "No Country for Old Men" from the library didn't play on my

old laptop.

 

It's only 300 pages and has no lengthy descriptions of the looks and

shapes of people and settings. Had the author spent more ink on rendering scenes

and sketching characters like Elizabeth George or Tana French did in the their

British and Irish (repsectively) crime novels, the book could've easily doubled

in size.

 

Moss, a Vietnam veteran lived in a trailer park with his wife near the

Texas-Mexico border. One day, antelope-hunting, he ran into the aftermath of a

shootout of three vehicles, half a dozen dead people, narcotics, and a satchel

of $2.4 million cash. His trouble began when he brought water back for one

survivor on the scene. He was since hunted down by law enforcement as well as

killers from drug-dealers.

 

Throughout the book and the last few chapters were narratives from the POV of

Sheriff Bell, who admitted bitter defeat in not being able to even identify the

murderer of many. His reflections on his personal guilt, not just from the case

but back from WWII, his career, and the decay of society including its drug

problems make one think.

 

McCarthy has a unique style. Dialogues, at least in this work, do not come

between quotation marks and are delivered in a dialect with creative spellings,

'drug' for 'drag,' for example. Most characters speak in the same vernacular but

their speeches are unique.

 

I think the title comes from the hitman Chigurh talking about his own profession

on page 253

        What happened to the old people?

        They've moved on to other things. Not everyone is suited to this line of

    work. The prospect of outsized profits leads people to exaggerate their own

    abilities. In their minds. They pretend to themselves that they are in

    control of events where perhaps they are not. And it is always one's stance

    upon uncertain ground that invites the attentions of one's enemies. Or

    discourages it.

It might also be a metaphor for Sheriff Bell's decision to quit the force.

 

It was a gripping but nonetheless easy read, and that's another reason to love

the book. It didn't challenge my vocabulary or idiomatic knowledge of the

English tongue as much as the two female authors above did and yet delivered

an authentic and action-packed tale. "No skill to understand it, mastery to write

it," as the Arabian proverb goes, and I finished reading in two days.