No Country for Old Men

No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy is fast-paced with lots of guns, bullets and blood everywhere... It’s a man’s novel. And it can be disturbing too (but I can handle that).

Them grammar dont exist here. It’s a style you just have to get used to when reading this novel. It is mainly dialogue throughout. There’s not much indication of who said what but if you follow closely, you’d know.

Llewelyn Moss’ life changed when he stumbled upon a field of dead bodies and machine-gunned trucks when hunting antelopes in west Texas. Further from the horrible scene, somewhere uphill, he found another dead body with a bag of cash—a whopping 2.4 million dollars. He took the money and he knew his life will never be the same again.

Hot on his trail is Anton Chigurh, a psychopathic killer; a fast and sharp shooter. Anyone who comes into contact with Chigurh (pronounced something like ‘sugar’) had very short lifespan. Consider yourself ‘expired’. Hotel clerks, storekeepers, drug dealers, anybody—no life is spared. He had a distinct style and that is to shoot his victims on the head, between the eyes. Dead man tells no tale.

In all these bro-ha-ha, there is a sheriff by the name of Bell who concerned himself with what’s happening, and also has a dark secret of his own. There were other characters too like Moss and Bell’s wives, the teenage girl who hitchhiked Moss’ truck ended up dead (not surprising, but it’s sad), and others. You draw your own conclusion to the ending. If you don’t mind the language (in a grammatical context) and the violence, it’s a book with a great story.

How does a man decide in what order to abandon his life?