No Country for Old Men (Vintage International) by Cormac McCarthy Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of No Country for Old Men (Vintage International)
Book Review: Strong Stuff
Summary: 5 Stars
Absolutely amazing! Some of McCarthy's books are slow burning, but this one will grip you (probably by the throat)immediately. Two hours after picking it up, it was after midnight, I was a third of the way through it and I think my hands were shaking. Powerful drama with typically economic writing, but don't look for a nice tidy ending. Book Review: No country for old men
Summary: 5 Stars
A very taut atmospheric novel.McCarthy's prose creates a brilliant sense of tension that keeps you gripped to the end . At the same time, the bleakness of the story conveys a sense of despair at the depths to which men can sink. A great read and essential for all Cormac McCarthy fansBook Review: A 'starless and bible-black' vision
Summary: 5 Stars
Having ploughed through the McCarthy back catalogue, I was saving the newest for last (The Road's a Xmas Prezzie for 06). Took it to Spain for a holiday, expecting a deep, rich narrative a la The Crossing etc.
Boy was I wrong. A pageturning rollercoaster ride that you just know is going to end badly. Eventually I took to the drink to get me through the last fifty pages and felt positively unhinged by the time I put it down.
That said, I fully intend to read it again ...soon. McC at his best.
Book Review: Hmmm ... where to begin?
Summary: 2 Stars
Hmmmm ... where to begin? Not a book I'd normally buy, and I certainly won't be buying any more of his stuff as the writing style is really very annoying. Here's an example of it from page 6: "Then he picked up his airtank and the stungun and walked out the door and got into the deputy's car and started the engine and backed around and pulled out and headed up the road." It's a free-ish world, but even so, using "and" seven times in one sentence (and not even a very long one) is a bit too much even for the most liberal of us... The story is completely straightforward, and seems to be about the increasing levels of violence in rural America, as seen through the eyes of a local sheriff.
Desperate to find something to talk about at our Book Reading Club (we weren't impressed, by the way) I started to wonder precisely which country it is that's No Country for Old Men? In fact, the only people left standing in the story are the old men - the young ones have a habit of getting shot. So on the internal evidence, it's the Country of the Dead that's no place for the old-timers, and modern rural America contains nothing else...
Book Review: The cold hard facts
Summary: 5 Stars
I came to this having 1st read McArthy's latest book 'The road'. This is in many ways similar even though the subject matter is totally different.
A man finds some cars in the desert, the occupants have all been shot and in the back of one vehicle he finds an awful lot of money. His decision to make off with the cash sets in motion a relentless and inevitable chain of events.
The similarities with 'the road' are a really driven narrative that simply ploughs ahead and drags the reader with it, a plain narrative style that mixes speech and description,( no quotation marks are used), so that you are forced to read each sentence more carefully and more impact is gained this way.
In a short space of time the author has you rooting for the hapless 'hero' but as the story twists and turns and peolple die and change it becomes impossible to not face the truth that it's the decisions that should be simple, when we know what will happen if we do something foolish but we do it anyway, that have the biggest and most disasterous consequences for both us and the people around us.
The law enforcers, hitmen, thief and his loved ones are all shaken up beyond redemption by what happens. McCarthy's excellent use of dialect and ability to paint a picture of southern American small town life in so few words is a testament to his writing prowess.
This is only the second book of his I have read but both have been like a car crash, you don't want to look, you know you shouldn't but you just have to and he leaves the reader numbed and breathless.
It's all in the detail and McArthy paints his landscapes with a fine brush.
If you want an easily digested blockbuster look elsewhere but if your brain is in gear and you want it exercised then this is easily recommended.