No Country for Old Men

I've been pretty busy over the last few weeks, and all of my best ideas come when I'm running or riding the bus.

I finished Cormac McCarthy's new novel, No Country for Old Men, while in California with my girlfriend for a memorial service. The craftsmanship of his language is as masterful as ever, and the story was a little simpler than his other works.

I miss the long philosophical speeches found in his other novels, specifically The Crossing, and All the Pretty Horses. Even Blood Meridian gave the bald preacher some fantastic lines that helped explain his diabolical nature. This time around, the evil seems willing to talk, but no one wants to listen. Maybe that's why the good guys either die or run away. They won't learn from the evolving evil. They resist using old patterns, old ways, old morality. In the new era, the old ways aren't good enough, and the old time good guys are dying off.

At least whent he Border Trilogy wrapped up, Billy made it to the end, and we had a sense that he could survive in the new world, because he understood it and because he wanted to live. He also had the power to avenge John Grady's murder. We find no such solace here.

This surprises me some because the protagonist has some moral ambiguity about him. His acquisition of a suitcase full of drug money sets the novel's plot in motion, and his refusal to align with the law keeps it going. Make no mistake, he is a good man, however. Of that there is no doubt. He is steadfastly loyal to his wife, he is generous when appropriate, he goes to much trouble to take a dying man water, and he refrains from shooting a deadly adversary in the back.

When the accounts are settled, Moss's shining (but imperfect) morality leads almost directly to his demise. A more moral man would have left the money. A less moral man would not have returned with water (which led to the discovery of his identity), and would have killed the terminator sociopath when he had the chance a few hundred pages later. Perhaps that is McCarthy's lesson.