Monday, June 26, 2023

Books read in 2023: No. 21 -- No Country For Old Men

by Cormac McCarthy

Started: June 22
Finished: June 26

Notes: I've been meaning to read more from this author, and his recent passing has prompted me to delve into this novel. Yes, I've seen the movie, and yes, I remember the basics of the characters and the plot, but I don't think that will cause me too many problems in enjoying this one.

Mini review: Damn, but this was a good novel. No, correct that. This was a great novel. Better than the movie, even with as much fame as the movie has. And the story pretty much follows the movie almost line for line, though I've read McCarthy wrote this one as a screenplay before making it into a novel. Usually I don't care for novels which read somewhat like a screenplay, but here it work perfectly. I won't go into the plot or characters or details because most readers will already know from the movie. But this was worth reading, and I might even read it again at some point. This is the kind of novel that makes you want to write, and that's the best compliment I can give any literature.

I will add that this is not adventure fiction, though there is a fair amount of violence. This is a novel of ideas, of thoughts, of feelings, though I wouldn't necessarily say it's a novel of high ideals, though perhaps it is in some ways of thinking. It is a bit of a tale of nostalgia for simpler times and simpler people, but it also speaks frankly against such a notion, that simpler times and simpler people never really existed except perhaps in our memories.

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