Possible Sequel

From the beginning of the novel there has been lots of description, and now that the story is over I am starting to wonder will there be a part two.  The last couple of chapters of this novel were very scarcely described which leaves me thinking that the author is trying to set the mood for  a second novel.  Another reason i believe this will happen is the fact that Chigurh walked free at the end, yes he was hurt but the reader does not get to see the final leg of what exactly happens to him. 
I personally hope there will be a part two because this book had my attention from the first to the last word.
If i could talk to Cormac McCarthy I would personally thank him for writing this book, and telling such a riveting story.

teaching points from the novel

In my mind Cormac McCarthy, the author, is trying to teach the readers some key points about life.  Starting at the beginning of the novel all the way to the end there are little points that spark the readers mind making them think of how they could do better. 

Starting in the beginning of the novel, McCarthy shows how not to underestimate the determination of a person.  When Chigurh was arrested he did not want to go without a fight, he blind sided the deputy and killed him, all so he could once again walk the streets.  The lesson here is not to turn a blind eye to a potential dangerous situation, and to always pay attention to your surroundings. 

Lesson number two was when Llewelyn was first pursued by Chigurh, and the way it changed his life forever.  The lesson that I noticed was that of greed, not to be greedy and that doing the right thing although it doesn't sound as good as the wrong thing is usually the correct decision. If Llewelyn had done the right thing he would still be alive, his life would not have been cut short by the gun of Chigurh. Another part to this lesson is that money cannot by you happiness, Llewelyn became rich after taking the money but he was not a happy person. 

Finally, live every day to the fullest, because you never know when your life could be cut short.  Look at Llewelyn, he had most of his life still ahead of him, but it was tragically ended by Chigurh and his gun.  Llewelyn's last days sadly were not the best of his life, and those were his last memories.

Novels are full of lessons and this novel is no exception.

Riveting parts

This novel has been amazing to read, there has been suspense, human emotion and most of all violence.  Violence in this novel is actually overwhelming, from the first scene to the last there is constantly someone being hurt, or even killed and that is what kept me reading.  From one point to another people have been getting injured and the connection that the reader has to the characters makes that fact hit home.  For me I was most shocked when Llewelyn died at the end, the person that is portrayed as the main character gets slaughtered by the so call bad man.  For McCarthy to do this is a big unsuspecting point, most of the time when you read a novel the main character pulls through the tough times and becomes better for it, where as Llewelyn paid the ultimate price for his greed earlier in the book.  Finally the way the author finished the book is quite interesting, once again the so called bad guy "wins", yes he is injured in a brutal car crash but he walks away, once again avoiding the authorities.  What a way to end a novel, with the reader hanging, not knowing if there was justice done for Llewelyn, not knowing if this monster is still walking the streets. 

The Movie, and how it relates

After i finished the book, I decided to watch the movie and see what the resemblance/differences are. 

Starting with the plot, the plot of the novel and the movie are identical, the director of the movie did a very good job of following the novel.  From the hunting at the beginning to the death of Llewelyn.

Secondly the characters and the setting, in the novel the Cormac McCarthy (Author) tried very hard to make the characters come alive in the readers mind. The director of the movie must have tried very hard to duplicate what what coming to light in his mind because the characters in the movie looked the same as they did in my mind when i was reading the novel.  Next comes the setting, McCarthy made a point of describing every small detail of the characters surroundings and the movie met those descriptions to a tee. 

Now that I have read the novel and watched the movie I am happy that I read the novel first.  The movie yes was almost identical to the novel but it left nothing to the imagination.

Questions for the Author

The novel No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy has left me with a head full of questions, and if i could have a chance to sit back with the author and discuss these questions i would.  The first question being what happens to Chigurh, all we find out is that he gets in a car accident and get severely injured but we do not hear if he gets caught or if he continues to live and terrorize others.  As for question number two i want to know why McCarthy had the gang war in the middle of the desert, and why he leaves some of the group alive and some dead? What is the dramatic reasoning for this is it all to show the brutality of the skirmish or is it just because that is how he wanted to write it.  Finally I would like to know how the sheriff dealt with his grief of not being able to save Llewelyn does he continue with his life as it is, or does he slip into oblivion?  McCarthy never really described what happened to this man, a person that the reader is forced to feel remorse for.

Ending, how it differed

Unlike the rest of the story, the ending of this novel was not very explained.   When Llewelyn died the story took a dramatic down turn the description became vague and the style of writing became completely different.  For the most part the entire book was written in first person but after the death of Llewelyn the writing style flip flopped and became a third person view.  Finally the amount of description at the end fell very short, the descriptive points became very broad and they became few and far between.   By ending the novel in this manner the author leaves a lot to the imagination, I have the thought that there could be a sequel to the novel, possibly describing the life of Chigurh, or possibly his capture.  All said and done the ending left me confused and stuck guessing what is yet to come, in a way a very good tactic to get people to read further.

Tools of violence

Death, killing, and weapons all things that are apparent in the novel.  Killing, and conflict is the main part of the novel, they are a key symbol of what the author is trying to teach.  McCarthy is showing the reader that guns, and tools of death are a key part of life,  they are not good but they are always there, killing is happening every day and the use of these weapons makes life a constant struggle.  Every time these tools are mentioned something else happens in the story, either someone dies, or someone gets hurt.  These tools bring a dark side to the story that makes all readers think, they give the novel the background meaning the author wanted to show. 

Titles: The most important part

Every novel in the world has a title, and that title is the first thing the possible reader sees.  The moment a good reader picks up a book and reads they are making assumptions of what they believe the story will be about.  When I heard the title No Country For Old Men, i instantly thought about the way older people act.  The fact that their ways are nothing like those of today, they are not into electronics and they know how to live without assistance.  I then thought about their ways of dealing with problems, even from looking at my father I see that he would rather deal with a problem his own way, instead of using the authorities.  He is independent and he likes to deal with things his own way.  Knowing those few facts i made the prediction that the story would be about a problem (the money being stolen as i later learned) and the way that problem would be solved without authorities.  As i look back now this prediction is some what right, but I do not picture the characters as being old, they all seem to have a young way about them that makes the novel have a more technologically advanced way of dealing with the problem, but still using no authorities.

Real to life lessons

Throughout this novel the author has done a very good job of not just entertaining the reader but teaching the reader.  McCarthy notices the fact that not every person is taught everything by their parents and he decides to teach the reader instead.  One of the biggest lessons that McCarthy has is that of consequences, no matter what the decission is there is always a consequence after.  Not all consequences are bad but they do change the way everything happens afterward.  Things like don`t take something that is not yours because there will always be a consequence that will follow.  Another way to look at it is that of everything good someone does they will usually be repaid in a good way.  Life is all about these decisions and consequences and every human being must live their life with this lesson in the back of their mind.

Significance of quotes

Quotes are what makes novels what they are, quotes make novels very believable. Quotes bring forward depth, things that the reader would normally just surpass comes to light, whether it is talking about the way a person looks, or the way a person speaks they are very important.  A good reader will see these quotes and go back to them in order to think about them more, or they will read past the quote but have it continuously in the back of their mind cross referencing to it as much as possible. In this novel i have noticed many of these quotes and they have made the story jump off the page, things like arguments, and phone calls between Chigurh and Llewellyn or just thoughts that characters have makes this story 3d.  The reader literally gets immersed in the story. I have gotten a much better understanding of what is happening, just by investigating the quotes of the novel. 

Money: The symbol of all

Money in this story has been a very obvious symbol of many things, every time it is mentioned there are underlying things that also happen. 

Money, as normally thought of:
-Wealth
- Always needed


When money is talked of:
-Death
-Harm
-Stealing
-Murder
-Mental Anguish

How it effects the story:
- Without money no story
-No life without money
-No real plot line

Emotions:
-Pain
-Sadness
-Happiness

The normal thought with money is the more you have the happier you will be, this is by far wrong.  From a young age everyone is taught that money can not buy happiness and this was proved in this story when Llewellyn took the money, it literally ruined his life. 

Life or Death

In this novel the battle of life is key, whether it is Llewellyn running for his life, or Chigurh threatening innocent peoples lives.  A key reference to this is the technique of the life gamble that Chigurh uses... the coin toss.  He uses this for the first time with the gas station/convenience store employee, saying if one side ends up he will live but if the other ends up he will die.  This technique completely shocked me, the fact that he has no regard for life and that he has no problem ruining someones life for his enjoyment, and small personal gain.  McCarthy has his very deep way of making the reader think and he is very skilled at evoking the readers emotions.  This book has kept me hooked from the time i started all for the reason that it is very unpredictable.  Life or death your choice, it all depends on how the author feels that day.

The mysterious contractor

For the most part in this novel characters have all been lead in very well and described in great detail, but the character that appears in the begining of the fifth chapter does not fit these characteristics.  Wells, the contractor that is a highly skilled man that is contracted to help people get out of bad situations, for example $2 million dollars going missing.  In this novel the man that hires Wells is the rightful owner of the money, he hires Wells to find his money and do it in a quiet way.  Well takes the job and goes out to get the money but that is all the reader really knows about the character.  The author leaves it to the readers imagination as to what Wells looks like and how he acts.   This technique is one of the quirks that makes this novel enjoyable. 

Deep Discription

Throughout the novel thus far the author has been very skilled at describing all aspects that effect the story line.   Starting with the description of the land, the heat, the flatness, and how unforgiving the landscape seems.  Moving on through the story the author describes the brutality of the massacre in the middle of the desert.  He describes how much blood was present and the amount of rounds that would have been fired.  Later on in the novel the author describes the scene where Llewellyn stumbles upon the money, he uses words that make the reader picture the look of the money in the case, being as precise as possible about the case and the money within.

Up till now the descriptive style has been amazing and the story seems as though this descriptive style will continue.  

Response Chart

Greed, Reader Response

After reading the first two paragraphs I have noticed a lesson begin to appear, that lesson being not to be greedy.  In the first chapter the main character by the name of Llewellyn finds a brief case with 1 Million dollars inside.  Instead of doing what he should do and leave it where it is he decided to take it for himself.  This was Llewellyn's biggest mistake, he at that exact moment began a wild goose chase around the country, with him trying to survive, all because he took a brief case full of money that he thought would make his life better. 

Paragraph One Summary

The first paragraph of the novel No Country For Old Men, starts like most other novels of this kind.   The narrator is talking about the crimes, and travesties that are going to be committed in the novel.  After the small introduction the story starts, you learn about the first main character Llewellyn, laying prone in the desert somewhere near the US/Mexico boarder.  Llewellyn is glassing the area with his binoculars looking for a buck that he could shoot.  At this point he notices a circle of vehicles in the middle of the desert like skyline, Llewellyn at that point decides to move in closer to take a look.  As Llewellyn moves closer to the circle he glasses it with his binoculars once again and sees that there is no movement. At this point Llewellyn enters the circle and finds everyone dead, all shot by a machine gun.  After further investigation Llewellyn decides it is time to leave, but as he left the circle a blood marked trail catches his eye.  After following the trail for a while he notices a dead man leaning against a tree and a black brief case beside the body, when Llewellyn opened the case he sees something that will start all of his problems, the case was full of money, 1 million dollars worth. 

At this point the story jumped to a new location, and you see Chigurh in the police station with handcuffs on, the deputy is sitting in front of him in an office chair.  The deputy is describing to the sheriff what Chigurh had in his possession, "He had some kind of oxygen tank" he said.  While the deputy was talking on the phone Chigurh starts to move around, bringing his handcuffed hands in front of his body just waiting for the deputy to put down the phone.  To my amazement the deputy put down the phone and stood, and Chigurh made his move; hurling himself behind the deputy and chocking him with his handcuffs, after a short struggle the deputy was dead, and Chigurh took the keys for his cuffs, along with the deputies gun and car keys. 

Now that I have completed the first chapter I see how this book is, I am very interested and hope this interest continues for the remainder of the the book. 

Blog Post 1, The Book, and my reasoning

No Country for old Men by Cormac McCarthy, a compelling adult novel about a regular, everyday man named Llewelyn Moss.  Moss was out in the desert hunting when he came across a large group of dead men, a large load of heroine and more than $2 Million cash.  Moss decides to haul the money out of the desert but this decision puts him and his young wife in instant danger.  Now Moss is on the run from a gun for hire (an ex special forces commando) trying to keep his life in line and having to deal with the tough decision of what in his life is most important. 

The copy of the book I have is 134 pages that actually is equal to the 309 page paper back version of the novel.  This means i will need to read  13.4 (30) pages per week.  This rate will have me done 3.5 weeks early and that extra time will allow for a little lee way, and will allow me to do better blog posts and write ups.

I like the idea of a western style, action book and this book sounds like it is that. I have also watched the movie and highly enjoyed it, now I want to see what the movie was based off of, and see how the author really wanted the story to go.