Book 28 "No Country For Old Men"

No Country For Old Men By Cormac McCarthy

A man goes antelope hunting in Western Texas and discovers the remains of a drug deal. As he approaches shot up vehicles and dead bodies, he makes a startling discovery. A black leather case containing a few million dollars.

The rest of the story revolves around the hunter becoming the hunted as he runs from both the law and criminals who want their money back.

My View

I expected more from McCarthy on this one. Maybe my anticipation was highlighted by the fact that No Country For Old Men was made into a major motion picture.

My first expectation was for the story to follow the main character of "Moss". (The man who discovered the drug money). Instead, he more or less followed the story of the Sheriff. Interesting enough he followed the story of Moss for a little bit and completely abandoned him. In fact, McCarthy gave us detail accounts on each violent encounter that Moss encountered. However, he couldn't give us one single sentence on his fate.

My second expectation was for a resolution. An ending that brought the book to a close. Instead, McCarthy chose to leave the reader stranded and waiting for an ending that made sense. In conclusion of the book, the reader sits in silence wondering why they wasted their time in trying to follow the story line of a single character in his book. There was no ending. I can say with 100% certainty that he left me stranded. I hated the ending with all my inner-being. It was like reading Snow White, where the reader waits for the climatic ending of the prince finding Snow White and waking her slumber with a kiss. However, if McCarthy would have wrote the ending the prince would have developed amnesia and forgot to kiss Snow White.

I'll never understand authors who develop such a good story, bring his/her readers for a wonderful ride within the pages of a good book, only to ruin the entire adventure with a bad ending.