Was this a requiem for the good old days in West Texas? Was it a tribute to the men of that time? Was it a study of evil? (Frankly I have the same questions in respect to his fascination with evil in the only other McCarthy books I have read – The Road and Blood Horizon ) Was sit a Jeremiad against the hippie generation? The narcotics trade? Or was it just a good story interspersed with a lot of philosophy, giving Melville a run for his money? I guess it was all of these things.

Listen to Sheriff Ed Tom Bell talk to his uncle Ellis and you are in the room with them. Read a page of McCarthy describing Llewellyn Moss’s first view of the scene of four burned shot-up trucks surrounded by three dead bodies and one wounded man in the Texas desert and you are right there. Nor can anyone writing today bring the reader into the picture as well as McCarthy nor sketch a character as well nor write conversation so well that you can almost hear the Texas twang, the rural patois of a good old boy Texas lawman. Would I recommend it to you? Depends.Ībout McCarthy as a writer: No one writing today can say so much or describe so much on one page as McCarthy – and in words of few syllables. To the extent that once again McCarthy was showing off his superb writing skills – particularly his ability to give us a dystopian story, to write doom drenched fiction it was a success. So to the extent that McCarthy was writing for a knowing audience the book is a flop. But I need to get this review off my mind. And now I have gone back once again to clear some things up and think about what McCarthy was really trying to say, if anything. Then I saw the movie and it cleared up a lot of it but there were still things I didn’t understand – locations, time lines, identities., who if anyone has the money at the end of the book Above all you need a map of West Texas to follow the story and you need to consult it often. Then I read it again with some care and when I put it down that second time it bothered me that I still didn’t know what the book was really about. I read the book once-not carefully – and knew I didn’t get it. Review #1 No Country for Old Men audiobook free

Cormac mccarthy no country for old man