No Country for Old Men
Decide its fate
The record
Time
An eveningA season304 pages, about 6 hours: about the length of a typical book on the shelf.
Getting in
Walk right inSteep climbTwo readers report friction early on, one bored by chapter five and another finding the style hard to follow at first.
What it gives
Plot and actionIdeas to live byIn 14 reviews from critics and book blogs, 7 credit the plot and 8 credit the ideas or a change in how they live.
One of a kind
Others do thisNothing else doesFour reviews, Kirkus among them, measure it against McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, on the shelf at 353 pages.
The case for it
on Sheriff Bell
“Sheriff Bell meditate on his own life, you realize that heaven is other people”
Alan Cheuse · NPR, 2005 on the prose
“seethes with a rhetorical thrust that likens to Dickens’ anger at the poverty of England”
William J. Cobb · Houston Chronicle, 2005 on Anton Chigurh
“whose scariness is borne out by his plainness”
a book blog on the dialogue
“this book contains some of the best dialogue I’ve ever read”
a book blog
The case against
on Bell’s monologues
“the author gives too much page space to cranky old man Sheriff Bell”
a book blog on the narrative
“stunningly written scenes that don’t quite cohere into a fully satisfying narrative”
Kirkus Reviews, 2005 on Wells and Chigurh
“Wells and Chigurh mixed up since they were kind of doing the same thing”
a book blog on the style
“this style made the book difficult to read at first”
a book blog
