No Country For Old Men

AUTHOR & GENERAL BACKGROUND

What can I say about this book – it is fantastic.

Most people who enjoy reading, writing, and literature or spending their time in academia or in English departments have probably heard of the author Cormac McCarthy. I never met or knew him, but McCarthy moved in this weird circle of familiarity. Many of his books dealt with the South, but some of his books, particularly the one we are discussing now, No Country For Old Men, dealt with the land of God, football, and oil—and in that order. This little part of the world is known as West Texas. The town names and descriptions fit into what I grew up with. I grew up in Midland and the outskirt towns surrounding it. It is the kind of place that is so dry that the dirt isn’t brown but more of white caliche rock.

Many of McCarthy’s works are shaped by violence, and he weirdly uses punction—in fact, he uses it sparingly. Sometimes, this can make his text hard to follow—I had to restart Blood Meridian, another one of his books, three separate times before I could get a handle on the Kid.

In No Country For Old Men, we get a lot of signature McCarthy style—violence, human psychology, and unapologetic use of dialogue.

It was cool to have something written about a place and culture of where I grew up.

WHAT DID I LEARN FROM THIS BOOK?

Keep in mind that the book differs from the movie. In my opinion, the book is better than the movie. The movie is excellent, and hats off to the Cohen brothers (the movie directors), but the book really gets to the heart of some of life’s questions.

• • Lesson #1: Sometimes you cannot control things that impact your life.

The big thing I learned or took away from this book was the idea of chance, luck, or fate. In my intro philosophy class, we debated whether humans have free will or if our lives have already been pre-planned. We also discussed why certain things happen to us and not others—are we in control of our destiny/fate/future, or is how much of that left to chance, luck, or fate? Those thoughts have stayed with me my entire life. 

In the book, just like the movie, there is a scene where our “antagonist,” or the “bad guy,” Anton Chigurh, meets an old man who works as a gas station clerk. Chigurh tells the old man to pick heads or tails, and Chigurh tosses a coin in the air. The old cashier calls it, and Chigurh reveals that the old man called it correctly. Chigurh ends up doing nothing to the old man. But had the old man picked the wrong side, Chigurh would have killed him.

Chigurh also does this with Carla Jean, one of the main character’s wife. He asks her to “call it” and flips a coin. Carla Jean does not make the right call this time, and Chigurh kills her.

It makes you wonder or question if life is pre-destined or if we can control our own destiny. You may think you control your life, but you still cannot predict what other people will do and, more importantly, how their actions will impact your life.

Think of Chigurh’s interactions… The gas station attendant and Carla Jean did nothing to bring Chigurh into their lives. He just appeared and decided that he would kill or not kill based on a coin toss. So, no matter if the gas station attendant and Carla Jean lived a good or awful life, they were not ultimately in control of their fates or destiny.

It just makes you wonder about chance. A few quotes in the book point to my theory on chance, luck, and fate. When Chigurh is about to kill Wells (the other hitman chasing the main character Moss), Chigurh asks him, “If the rule you followed led you to this of what use was the rule?” (175). For me, this means that if you have lived your life a certain way (good, righteous, evilly, etc.), what does it matter? Ultimately, the “rule(s)” you followed to live your life are pointless when encountering someone like Chigurh. 

Then, at the novel’s end, Chigurh kills Carla Jean and gets t-boned by a car on the way out of town. Chigurh survives, but the idea remains: life happens even to people who think they are in complete control.

• • Lesson #2: The “good” guys do not always “win.”

The story is also great because it gives a real ending. At the end of the story, the only one we know who “got away” is Chigurh. Bell, the Sheriff, ends up retiring, unable to handle or face this world and all its violence. Moss and Carla Jean are dead.

The reality is that sometimes, no one “wins.” That’s life. The book does a great job of bringing in some life questions and makes me really analyze life.

I recommend reading the book and watching the movie; comparing the stories is cool.