No Country for Old Men

One of the few times that I’ve actually enjoyed the movie more then the book.

Seeing that the author died recently I thought maybe its time to read some of his work, this and The Road are the only ones I've heard of. Picked up for $3 in an op-shop, quickly readable, if gruesome and graphic as was the movie. He does capture the place and the people so well

Visceral stuff, very much the Wild West brought up to date and takes no prisoners. His narrative style takes a bit of getting used to and at times I was somewhat confused about the time frame and who was involved....

Mercifully brief until the painfully long, philosophizing denouement. I know it's silly to complain about the senseless violence, but it's called 'senseless' for a reason; I don't need it contextualized at length.

McCarthy's work, though never comfotable, is always captivating and thought-provoking, and No Country is no exception. A powerful book rich with themes of fate, destiny, and how even the smallest decisions affect our lives, all written in McCarthy's terse, almost hypnotic style.

I was pretty disappointed by this book. I found the story it tells to be overly simplistic and focussed on guns and blood at the expense of developing characters, places or motives. The action is taut enough that I could see the film being rather good, but the book feels too much like it was actually meant as a screenplay to stand up on its own.

I was pretty disappointed by this book. I found the story it tells to be overly simplistic and focussed on guns and blood at the expense of developing characters, places or motives. The action is taut enough that I could see the film being rather good, but the book feels too much like it was actually meant as a screenplay to stand up on its own.

I was impressed by how well the movie followed the book, and how well Tommy Lee Jones captured the character of Sheriff Bell. This is one of the first books I've read in a long time where I wanted to pull my car off the side of the road to finish reading it. It's a quick read, but it's not an easy one. It really makes you think about humanity and the road we're taking.

Another beautifully written Cormac McCarthy tale, however I cannot help but feel that the ending could have been stronger somehow. Mind you, I couldn't begin to say how. . .it just sort of petered out. But I do also wonder if that wasn't deliberate considering how a certain character was feeling by the time you reached the last page.

An interesting book. McCarthy doesn't truck with quotation marks and apostrophes, so his pages have a desert look - spare, harsh. So does the story, which involves a highly skilled sociopath killing a lot of people for money and because he enjoys the power of it. Nihilists of the Purple Sage. An old sheriff and a young welder who stumbles on a bunch of drug money aren't much of a match for him. Good writin but I dont rightly know what to think bout the endin.