No Country for Old Men

No Country for Old Men
by Cormac McCarthy
read: 2010
Guardian 1000 Novels

I could not disagree more with Cormac McCarthy's world view.  I've read three of his novels, and each is a dive into the worst that humanity has to offer: violence, cruelty, murder, and an almost casual psychopathology.  This is epitomized in No Country for Old Men's villain Anton Chigurh, who thinks nothing of killing innocent people.  He accepts no higher power but chance, and frequently flips a coin to decide whether others will live or die.  Bizarrely, he has an ethical code, going to great lengths to honor his word, and abiding by the results of the coin flip.  This only makes him more frightening and sinister; his ethics are in the service of nothing.  He is an apex predator in a completely nihilistic world.

What makes No Country for Old Men (and McCarthy's other books) so disturbing is that Chigurh is not seen as an aberration; he's seen as the herald of a new kind of man, a new breed that will define the future of humanity.  Humanity is always on the downswing in McCarthy's works.  The worst elements among us will prevail in a dark future with no room for innocence, mercy, love, or hope.

I don't agree with any of that ... but McCarthy is a heck of a writer, and No Country for Old Men is a gripping read.