No Country for Old Men

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No Country for Old Man is a 2005 novel by American author Cormac McCarthy, who originally wrote the story as a scenario. The story took place around the US-Mexican border in 1980 and fears of an illegal drug deal becoming a mess at the back of the Texas desert. Thanks to the origin of this novel as a scenario, this novel has a simple writing style different from other Cormac McCarthy novels. The book is adapted into the 2007 No Country for Old Men movie which won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

Video No Country for Old Men

Title

The title of the novel comes from the first line of the 1926 poem "Sailing to Byzantium" by W. B. Yeats.

Maps No Country for Old Men

Character

• Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, the main protagonist, a World War II veteran who oversaw investigations and traces of murder even as he struggles to face the enormity of the crime he is trying to accomplish. His memories serve as part of the book's narrative.
• Anton Chigurh, the main antagonist, psychopathic assassin. He's in his thirties and has blue eyes like a layer... Like a wet rock. "A man with dark skin and very exotic.
• Llewelyn Moss, a veteran of war and veterans of the Vietnam War in his late thirties, who stumbled on a drug sales site, and - with disastrous consequences - earned the $ 2 million he found among the dead drug dealers.
• Carla Jean Moss, Llewelyn's nineteen-year-old wife.
• Carson Wells, another assassin, formerly a lieutenant colonel from the Vietnam War, was hired to withdraw money from Chigurh.

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Plot

The plot (from the book, not the film) follows a braid of three central characters (Llewelyn Moss, Anton Chigurh, and Ed Tom Bell) driven by events related to a bad drug deal near the Mexican-American border in the remote Terrell area in southwest Texas.

In 1980, Llewelyn Moss - while hunting deer - stumbled after the bankruptcy of drugs that had made everyone die, but a badly wounded Mexican who asked Moss for water. Moss replies that he does not own and search the rest of the vehicle, finds a truck full of heroin. He searched for the "last man standing" and found him dead under a tree with a bag containing $ 2.4 million in cash. He took the money and went home. Later, however, he felt remorse for leaving the wounded man and returned to the scene with a jug of water only to find that the wounded man had been shot and killed. When Moss looked back at his truck parked on the ridge overlooking the valley, there was another truck there. Once seen, he tries to run that triggers a tense pursuit through the desert valley. This is the beginning of the Moss hunt that stretches for most of the remaining novels. After fleeing from his pursuers, Moss sends his wife, Carla Jean, to his mother in Odessa, Texas, while he leaves his home with money.

Sheriff Ed Tom Bell investigated drug crimes while trying to protect Moss and his young wife, with the help of other law enforcement officials. Bell was haunted by his actions in World War II, leaving his unit to die, where he received the Bronze Star. Now in his 50s, Bell has spent most of his life to redeem the incident when he was a 21-year-old soldier. He makes his quest to solve the case and save Moss. The tricky thing is the arrival of Anton Chigurh; hired assassins to return the money. Chigurh uses a captive bolt gun (called a "stungun" in the text) to kill many of his victims (and to destroy several cylinder locks to open the door), as well as a silenced shotgun. Carson Wells, a rival mercenary and former Special Forces officer familiar with Chigurh, was also on the trail of stolen money. After a brutal shootout that hit the Mexican border and left Moss and Chigurh injured, Moss recovered in a Mexican hospital while Chigurh patched himself in a hotel room with stolen supplies. While recovering, Moss is approached by Wells, who offers to give him protection in exchange for a bag and tells him his current location and phone number, instructing him to call when he is "enough".

After recovering and leaving the hotel room, Chigurh finds Wells and kills him as Moss calls out to negotiate an exchange of money. After answering Wells's phone, Chigurh tells Moss that he will kill Carla Jean unless he hands over the bag. Moss remains challenging and soon afterwards, calls Carla Jean and tells him that she will meet him at a motel in El Paso. After much deliberation, Carla Jean decided to tell Sheriff Bell about the meeting and its location. Unfortunately for him and her husband, this call is tracked and gives Moss locations to some of his hunters. Later, Sheriff Bell went to the hospital to identify Moss's body, killed by a group of Mexicans, who also pursued cash. That night, Chigurh arrived at the scene and took the bag from the air duct in Moss's room. He returns it to its owner and then goes to Carla Jean's house. He pleads for his life and he offers him to throw a coin to decide his fate, but he loses and Chigurh shoots him. He left home afterwards. Soon after, he was hit by a car, which left him badly wounded but still alive. After bribing a pair of teenagers to keep quiet about the car accident, he hobbled down the street.

After a long investigation that failed to find Chigurh, Bell decided to retire and leave the local courthouse that felt oppressed and defeated. For the rest of the book, Bell describes two dreams he experienced after his father died. At one, he meets his father in town and borrows some money from him. In the second, Bell was riding his horse through snow-covered trails in the mountains. As he rode, he could see his father in front of him carrying a moon-colored horn burning with fire, and he knew that his father would ascend through the gap and fix fire in darkness and cold and it would be waiting for him when he arrived.

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Reception

The initial critical acceptance of the novel varied. William J. Cobb, in a review published in the Houston Chronicle (July 15, 2005), characterizes McCarthy as "our greatest living author" and describes the book as "a hot story that captivates the mind of the reader. burned by a heated knife over a fire fire ". On the other hand, in the July 24, 2005, edition of The New York Times Book Review, fictional critic and writer Walter Kirn stated that the novel plot is "high hysterical law", but writes in awe. from prose, describes the author as "a genius with a joystick, a master level gamer who changes the screen and situations every few pages".

In contrast, Harold Bloom's literary critic does not consider himself among the admirers of No Country for the Old Man, stating that he does not have McCarthy's best quality work, especially Blood Meridian, and compares it with William Faulkner A Fable . When comparing the lack of "moral argument" in Blood Meridian with high morality present at No Country for Old Men, he considers that "apocalyptic moral judgment" is made in No Country for Old Men represents "sort of falling off McCarthy's part".

This novel has received a large amount of important attention, for example, the collection of Lynnea Chapman King, Rick Wallach and Jim Welsh No Country for Old Man: From Novel to Movies or Raymond Malewitz "Anything Can Be an Instrument: Abuse Value and Rugged Consumerism at Cormac McCarthy No Country for Old Men . "

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Movie adaptation

In 2007, Joel and Ethan Coen adapted the book into a movie, also titled No Country for Old Men , which was met with critical acclaim and box office success. On January 27, 2008, the film won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Extraordinary Appearance by Cast in Moving Pictures. On February 24, 2008, she won four Academy Awards: Best Movie, Best Director (Joel and Ethan Coen), Best Adapted Scenario (Joel and Ethan Coen), and Best Supporting Actor (Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh).

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References

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Further reading

• McCarthy, Cormac (2005). No Country for Old Man . Random House. ISBNÃ, 0-375-70667-4.
• Cant, John (2008). Cormac McCarthy and the Myth of American Exceptionalism . Routledge. ISBN: 978-0-415-98142-2.
• "Vintage: No Country for Old Man". Random House.
• Nichols, Mary P. (Fall 2008). "Revisiting Heroes and Communities in Contemporary West: No Country for Old Man and 3:10 for Yuma". Perspectives on Political Science . 37 (4): 207-215. doi: 10.3200/PPSC.37.4.207-216.

Source of the article : Wikipedia