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There aren’t many books that I can sit down and read in one sitting, and No Country for Old Men is one of them. I’ve read this book three times now. I’ll start with some background on the author, give a summary of the book, break down key themes, the movie vs the book, and finish with my personal takeaways.
Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy was born in 1933 in Providence, Rhode Island, but spent most of his earlier life in Tennessee. He’s a well accomplished American author and playwright, who specialized in Southern Gothic, Western, and post-apocalyptic genres. He’s widely regarded as one of the greatest writers of the 20th and 21st centuries. He started college at the University of Tennessee but didn’t graduate, reason being he decided to focus his time exclusively on writing.
With great authors, it’s interesting to learn about their influences and the environment around them. Like grapes undergoing a process of terroir and being able to taste the unique flavor of wine they give, the same goes for authors and their writing. I’ve written a blog of the process of terroir as a metaphor for people that you can read here. If McCarthy’s ideas and talent are grapes, his literature is the wine it produces. The influences around him, authors, and environment act like mint, vegetation, and the elevation that give a rich fusion of flavor to that wine. Let’s unpack those elements now.
McCarthy was influenced by philosophies from Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Schopenhauer promoted philosophies regarding a godless universe, predetermination, and pessimism. Nietzschean themes in McCarthy’s writings are moral relativism and will to power.
After reading Blood Meridian, and No Country for Old Men you can see these themes explicitly. For example, Judge Holden in Blood Meridian or Anton Chigurh the professional hitman and antagonist in “No Country for Old Men” are the “Ubermensch,” which translates to super men. Not the super man that we love and adore, this type of super man is a terrifying and fierce person who is resilient and is willing to transcend cultural and societal norms in order to pursue their own vision. They define the rules of the world they live without remorse. That being said, you can see these philosophical themes peppered in McCarthy’s writing.
Literary influences for McCarthy included Southern Gothic writers such as William Faulkner who he once described as one“greatest authors of the last century,” and James Joyce. Traces of Faulkner and Joyce found in McCarthy’s writing are found in the use of long sentences, modern techniques, minimal punctuation, mythic tones, morally ambiguous characters, and themes centered around emotional burdens such as guilt and the trauma from the past. McCarthy’s writing has a lot of shared elements with the King James Bible for its language and rhythm. There’s similar dictation, sentence structure, and build up of mythic and epic characters and moments.
Overlapping themes found in McCarthy’s novels and the King James Bible include the apocalypse (different interpretations), violence, redemption, and judgement. Other writers that have been key influences for McCarthy are Herman Melville and Joseph Conrad for their existential questions, human savagery, and dark themes. Melville wrote Moby Dick and characters such as Captain Ahab and Judge Holden are similar, in that they both are antagonists that raise philosophical questions. Joseph Conrad’s most famous novel Heart of Darkness highlights the darkness and capacity for evil that men inflict on one another.
The last major influence is history and the American Frontier mythology. Specifically The Indian Wars with the Comanches, the Mexican American War, and the violent chaos of frontier life.
McCarthy published his first novel, The Orchard Keeper, in 1965 and would continue to release famous works such as Blood Meridian, All the Pretty Horses, No Country for Old Men, and The Road. He was famous for being reclusive and rarely making appearances for interviews. He lived the majority of his life in El Paso, Texas and in New Mexico. A shocking detail about McCarthy is despite his fame and achievements he spent his early career in poverty.
On June 13, 2023, at age 89 McCarthy passed away leaving behind a rich literary legacy.
Summary
Now for a summary of the masterpiece No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy. This novel takes place in 1980s Texas near the U.S.–Mexico border. WhatI love about this book is it feels like a fusion of a crime thriller and a modern western cowboy story. The story alternates every chapter between a third and first-person narrative from Sheriff Ed Tom Bell. Otherwise, this story is a bloody Tom and Jerry, a game of cat and mouse.
Let’s talk about our key characters. First, we have Llewelyn Moss, who is Jerry, a veteran and welder, who discovers the scene of a drug deal gone bad while hunting antelope. In the bloody aftermath, he discovers a suitcase containing $2 million. Llewelyn takes the money and leaves, but his return to bring water back to a wounded man who was barely alive draws the attention of the Cartel who are tracking down the cash.
Now for Tom, our hunter, Anton Chigurh. A terrifying, unrelenting philosophical hitman who is hired to recover the money. He’s a psychopath who kills without hesitation, often giving victims a coin toss to “decide” their fate. Something interesting to note, this character is considered the most realistic dramatization of a psychopath ever created in film and literature. Let’s take a brief detour and talk about this.
Anton Chigurh is regarded as the most clinically accurate depiction of a psychopath ever put on screen. This is backed by psychiatric evaluations by his behavior throughout film criticism and popular culture. Forensic psychiatrists Samuel Leistedt and Paul Linkowski did a study, analyzing 400 movies from 1915-2010 to identify characters that fit the clinical criteria of a psychopath. From 126 candidates, Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men was the most accurate depiction. They describe him as a classic psychopath, with traits such as his incapacity for love, absence of shame or remorse, cold-blooded ruthlessness, lack of empathy, his inability to learn from past experiences, his extreme total determination.
Chigurh is able to pursue Llewelyn because of a tracker in the suitcase, and throughout the pursuit murders anyone who may be a “loose end.” That could be a witness who could give a description or anyone that is a potential threat to Chigurh’s mission. Throughout No Country for Old Men our characters go in and out of cheap motels. Llewelyn consitently stays ahead of Chigurh and the Mexican Cartel, but that’s not without a lot of collateral damage. Llewelyn tries to arrange for his wife, Carla Jean, to be kept safe while he’s on the run, but despite his skills, he’s outmatched by Chigurh who SPOILER ALERT finds Llewelyn was killed by the cartel and stays true to his promise to kill his wife, but not without offering a coin toss. Almost immediately afterward, Chigurh falls victim to a random car accident and narrowly escapes before police arrive.
I mentioned earlier that the story alternates between the chase and Sheriff Ed Tom Bell’s perspective on the world. He’s the lawman investigating the drug deal massacre and Llewelyn. His monologues open most chapters with a lament about the rise of a more senseless and ruthless violence. Bell represents the theme from the title of the book, the “old country” or “old men.” These are the honorable law enforcement who are in awe of a modern world where evil is becoming more rampant and unstoppable.
The novel ends with Sheriff Bell retiring. He’s haunted by a dream of his father riding towards a light in the darkness. The poetic and haunting ending is a representation of hope and moral order despite the Sheriff’s feelings of despair.
Key Themes
Now for key themes. Similar to other Cormac McCarthy books, Fate vs. Free Will is abundant in this novel. Chigurh’s intense coin tosses with unsuspecting characters is where the line between chance and fate collide into a blur.
Evolution of Violence and the moral decay of the old west. Sherriff Bell views modern violence as something that’s morphing into something more chaotic and more senseless, much more different than what we witnessed in his youth. I think many people relate to this, and it raises the question of is that the case? Are we just becoming more aware of our surroundings? Does it seem to be that way because the world is becoming more connected? Or maybe it’s because what’s shocking is what gets more attention in the news?
Evil as a Natural Force. Chigurh is the personification of chaos. It’s interesting to juxtapose Judge Holden from Blood Meridian and Chigurh. Both use violence as weapons, and they both seem supernatural. Judge Holden and Chigurh are unstoppable forces, like a micro cataclysmic event, such as the plague or a destructive hurricane. Judge Holden uses violence to put order into chaos, and Chigurh uses violence to create chaos out of order.
Movie vs the Book
Now for an analysis of the movie and book. They’re exactly the same, and there’s very little and when I mean little, I mean extremely little changes. That’s not the case with most adaptations, and I think that’s out of respect to how incredible of a story this is. The dialogue, the plot development, the characters, and story telling is 5 stars. That’s why the movie does not deviate from the book.
I highly recommend both, on Rotten Tomatoes it has a 93% and I wouldn’t expect anything less. It has a rock star cast, Javier Bardem, Woody Harrelson, Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones, and Kelly MacDonald.
Takeaways
Now for my hot takes. This is one of the few books that I’ve read in one sitting and in less than 24 hours. You’ll be glued to the book. It’s intense, and there are many stories like this that blend into a gritty western thriller. The dialogue feels authentic, and you’ll read some of the most intense scenes I’ve seen in a book. I’ll end with a haunting quote from the book on fate, chaos, and randomness. It comes from the Chigurgh the cold psychopath. He says,
In the toss of a coin, in the silence of an empty room,
fate waits without mercy,
and the only choice left to us
is how we walk toward it.
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