Hey, everyone. I have been on a Cormac McCarthy run lately and have read several of his books. He has such an odd style! In The Road, which I reviewed, he didn't give any of the characters a name. In No Country For Old Men, he doesn't use any quotation marks. As picky as editors are it is a miracle that his novels even were accorded a passing glance, yet the dude has won a Pulitzer Prize. Anyway, he is a terrific writer.
This book closely follows the excellent movie by the same name so you are probably thinking, "Why should I read this?" That's what I thought, although I've seen plenty of movies that did not follow the book at all closely. Well, I liked the movie and I enjoyed the book. Here's the recipe.
A guy named Moss, who lives in Texas, is out hunting on the plains and sees a group of vehicles in the distance. When he goes down to investigate he finds a drug deal gone bad. There are numerous dead guys, guns and a satchel of money. We are talking significant money. On the order of 2.4 million dollars. Moss does what many of us would do. He took the money and headed home.
That's all the good news for Moss, for many a page. The bad news is that the money has a transponder in it. Some unsavory gentlemen are soon on Moss's trail. Moss, however, is no pilgrim. He is a Vietnam vet and I don't mean he worked on dogs and cats. He is a dangerous man in his own right. He certainly has the financial wherewithal to flee effectively as well. If his pursuers had all been ordinary bad guys Moss would have done okay. But there was this one psycho called Chigurh, a character that gave me the willies in the movie. He is a hit man and a more twisted and ruthless character has never crawled forth from the mire of a fiction writer's brain than this guy. He carries around an air tank and a pneumatic gun like they use to slaughter cattle. The cops find dead people with wounds that appear to be bullet wounds but there are no bullets.
This is where the third significant character emerges, a Sheriff named Ed Tom Bell. The Sheriff is probably a better philosopher than Sheriff and he's a pretty good Sheriff. He gets on Chigurh's trail and perseveres even though he is genuinely afraid of the guy, as he should be. I remember in the movie that Tommy Lee Jones absolutely nails the role of the Sheriff. He is the man who is too old for that rough country and I dang sure know the feeling. (That's southern for a strong affirmation.)
It's funny to review a book when most of my readers have already seen the movie by the same name. The thing is, there are people from all over that read the blog and I don't know if they are familiar with the book or the movie. For example, I have no idea what the folks in Spain like to read or the movies which Russian people watch. I do know that many of them, like you, are bored enough to read this blog. Let me wrap up this post by saying that I recommend the movie and the book. I will say that it is more likely to be pleasing to guys than it is to ladies. Cormac's novels are not exactly fodder to brighten your mood. They deal with the harsh side of life and he doesn't pull many punches. 3 stars out of 4.
From the author's green retreat, I'm CE Wills.
This book closely follows the excellent movie by the same name so you are probably thinking, "Why should I read this?" That's what I thought, although I've seen plenty of movies that did not follow the book at all closely. Well, I liked the movie and I enjoyed the book. Here's the recipe.
A guy named Moss, who lives in Texas, is out hunting on the plains and sees a group of vehicles in the distance. When he goes down to investigate he finds a drug deal gone bad. There are numerous dead guys, guns and a satchel of money. We are talking significant money. On the order of 2.4 million dollars. Moss does what many of us would do. He took the money and headed home.
That's all the good news for Moss, for many a page. The bad news is that the money has a transponder in it. Some unsavory gentlemen are soon on Moss's trail. Moss, however, is no pilgrim. He is a Vietnam vet and I don't mean he worked on dogs and cats. He is a dangerous man in his own right. He certainly has the financial wherewithal to flee effectively as well. If his pursuers had all been ordinary bad guys Moss would have done okay. But there was this one psycho called Chigurh, a character that gave me the willies in the movie. He is a hit man and a more twisted and ruthless character has never crawled forth from the mire of a fiction writer's brain than this guy. He carries around an air tank and a pneumatic gun like they use to slaughter cattle. The cops find dead people with wounds that appear to be bullet wounds but there are no bullets.
This is where the third significant character emerges, a Sheriff named Ed Tom Bell. The Sheriff is probably a better philosopher than Sheriff and he's a pretty good Sheriff. He gets on Chigurh's trail and perseveres even though he is genuinely afraid of the guy, as he should be. I remember in the movie that Tommy Lee Jones absolutely nails the role of the Sheriff. He is the man who is too old for that rough country and I dang sure know the feeling. (That's southern for a strong affirmation.)
It's funny to review a book when most of my readers have already seen the movie by the same name. The thing is, there are people from all over that read the blog and I don't know if they are familiar with the book or the movie. For example, I have no idea what the folks in Spain like to read or the movies which Russian people watch. I do know that many of them, like you, are bored enough to read this blog. Let me wrap up this post by saying that I recommend the movie and the book. I will say that it is more likely to be pleasing to guys than it is to ladies. Cormac's novels are not exactly fodder to brighten your mood. They deal with the harsh side of life and he doesn't pull many punches. 3 stars out of 4.
From the author's green retreat, I'm CE Wills.
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