This week: 110 pages
Last week: 101 pages
Total Semester: 675
3 Favorite Sentences of the Week:
1) "That left the police, who must think that he thought that they thought that he thought they were very dumb."
No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
2) "Even if you went to him and gave him the money, he would still kill you, just for having inconvenienced him."
No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
3) "I'm goin to say that not only will she be able to have an abortion, she'll be able to have you put to sleep."
No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
I read sentence 1 over and over again, but I just get lost. Normally I can follow that kind of stuff, but that's just one too many I think. Sentence 2 doesn't really require explanation, it's just an intriguing description of the antagonist.
Sentence 3 must be put into context. Sheriff Bell is talking to an old woman from Austin, TX, a much bigger city than his country town. The woman talks to him about "right-wing this and right-wing that," and the Sheriff really doesn't care. He says his people are common folk. The woman continues on and says something along the lines of, "I want my grand-daughter to be able to have an abortion." Bell responds by saying, that it's very likely that abortion will be perfectly legal in the future, and in a successful attempt to get the woman to shut up, follows up with sentence 3.
Friday, September 30, 2011
No Country For Old Men Speculation
At this point in the story, Llewellyn's wife Carla Jean and her mother, who has cancer, are on their way to El Paso, Texas. Llewellyn instructed his wife to leave Odessa because Chigurh knew she was there. However, I'm fairly certain that it doesn't really matter where anybody goes in this book, Chigurh will always be able to find them. I can't wait to finish this book because I really have no idea where the ending will go. I'm not sure if McCarthy prefers the happily ever after ending, or the total death and destruction ending, or somewhere in between. I'm curious to find out. I'm guessing, with the way the novel has progressed thus far, that it will be closer to the total death and destruction ending. But I guess I'll find out soon enough.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Goodbye Wells
Well, 30 pages after my last post, the interesting new character that had been introduced, Wells, is now dead. Chigurh, the scary guy, killed him. Not only killed him, but shot his face off. Literally. I'm not all that surprised.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
The Plot Thickens
A new character has been introduced to the plot by the name of Wells. He seems to be a sort of hit man, or an unofficial detective, hired by a client to find his 2 million dollars, and perhaps to kill Chigurh, the scary guy. It's not quite clear at this point. Moss, the protagonist, is knocked out, and wakes up in a hospital, I believe, with Wells standing over him. Wells then tells Moss about Anton Chigurh, the man who has been chasing after him. This was one part of the story that really stood out to me. Wells's description of Chigurh is intriguing to say the least. "You can't make a deal with him. Let me say it again. Even if you gave him the money he'd still kill you. Just for having inconvenienced him." Incredulous and cocky, Moss denies that Chigurh could be that terrible, or that he would even be able to find him. Wells is persistent, and insists that men like Chigurh will stop at nothing to kill. He warns that Chigurh might go to Odessa to attempt to kill Moss's wife. Moss puts on a tough persona and continues to deny that any harm could come to him or his wife. "You might think you're cut out for this, but you're not," Wells says to Moss.
After this section of dialogue between Wells and Moss is over, another fascinating scene involving the character of Chigurh occurs. Chigurh had been shot in the leg, and drives away to a small town, spilling blood all over the car seats. When he gets there, he finds a store that sells basic supplies and he buys some cardboard, scissors, tape, and some cotton. He then proceeds to go to a drugstore in the same town, and, instead of going into the store and even just shoplifting, he decides to take the supplies he had just bought and use them as a means of lighting on fire the gastank of a random vehicle parked outside the drugstore. The car blows up as he limps in, and he is able to find a packet of syringes, a bottle of Hydrocodone tablets, and some other pain killers. No one payed him any mind, or even saw him, because of the flames outside and at the front of the building. I just really thought that characterized him perfectly as a sick, heartless killer who feels no guilt whatsoever over the destruction and death that he causes.
After this section of dialogue between Wells and Moss is over, another fascinating scene involving the character of Chigurh occurs. Chigurh had been shot in the leg, and drives away to a small town, spilling blood all over the car seats. When he gets there, he finds a store that sells basic supplies and he buys some cardboard, scissors, tape, and some cotton. He then proceeds to go to a drugstore in the same town, and, instead of going into the store and even just shoplifting, he decides to take the supplies he had just bought and use them as a means of lighting on fire the gastank of a random vehicle parked outside the drugstore. The car blows up as he limps in, and he is able to find a packet of syringes, a bottle of Hydrocodone tablets, and some other pain killers. No one payed him any mind, or even saw him, because of the flames outside and at the front of the building. I just really thought that characterized him perfectly as a sick, heartless killer who feels no guilt whatsoever over the destruction and death that he causes.
Friday, September 23, 2011
Currently
Pages this week: 101
Pages last week: 100
Pages this semester: 565
3 Favorite Sentences of the Month
1) "The first rule about fight club is you don't talk about fight club."
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
2) "There are no clean getaways."
No Country For Old Men movie poster
3) "I dated a guy once who was a split personality."
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
4) "We both use the same body, just at different times."
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
The way I knew that these were my favorite sentences was I didn't even have to go back and look for them. They've just been sitting in my head ever since I read them. All very interesting.
Pages last week: 100
Pages this semester: 565
3 Favorite Sentences of the Month
1) "The first rule about fight club is you don't talk about fight club."
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
2) "There are no clean getaways."
No Country For Old Men movie poster
3) "I dated a guy once who was a split personality."
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
4) "We both use the same body, just at different times."
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
The way I knew that these were my favorite sentences was I didn't even have to go back and look for them. They've just been sitting in my head ever since I read them. All very interesting.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
If No Country For Old Men was a Picture Book
If No Country For Old Men was a picture book, there would be a lot of red color. Everything is bloody in this book. Also, if this book were full of pictures, what would the characters look like? Well, I just looked up the characters from this book on google images, just to see how the picture I had in my head compared with the actors cast for the extremely popular movie based on this book. I've seen previews and movie posters for the movie and one of the characters always looked sort of scary to me. So, I guessed which one he would be based on the characters in the book, and I was right. Anton Chigurh is definitely the scary-looking guy played by Javier Bardem.
Anyways, on to a real response to the reading. The plot has definitely picked up now, and I will say that it's not quite as fun to read about action scenes with a lot of gunshots as it is to watch them in a movie or something. That's really one of the only aspects about reading that I can think of that isn't better than watching the movie. Not all the action sequences really make sense to me while I'm reading them, but maybe they're not supposed to make sense. Who knows. Regardless, I'm definitely going to watch the movie after I'm done reading this.
Although the plot itself hasn't made all that much sense to me thus far, the book has kept my attention, but more importantly, some interesting themes/statements have been presented. The main character, Moss, is running from everyone and everything at this point, trying to hold onto his life and his new found fortune. He thinks to himself that at some point, he's going to run out of luck. And he doesn't know what he's gonna do then. I think that the sheriff is turning into my favorite character. He says things like, "I think that when the lies are all told and forgot, the truth will be there yet." He also realizes the hopelessness of being the only symbol of law and order in his part of the country, but has some sort of sick drive to continue on with his job. He's to the point where unheard of violence no longer surprises him in any way. As things get worse and worse around him, all he can do is sigh and keep doing his job the same way that he's always done it.
Anyways, on to a real response to the reading. The plot has definitely picked up now, and I will say that it's not quite as fun to read about action scenes with a lot of gunshots as it is to watch them in a movie or something. That's really one of the only aspects about reading that I can think of that isn't better than watching the movie. Not all the action sequences really make sense to me while I'm reading them, but maybe they're not supposed to make sense. Who knows. Regardless, I'm definitely going to watch the movie after I'm done reading this.
Although the plot itself hasn't made all that much sense to me thus far, the book has kept my attention, but more importantly, some interesting themes/statements have been presented. The main character, Moss, is running from everyone and everything at this point, trying to hold onto his life and his new found fortune. He thinks to himself that at some point, he's going to run out of luck. And he doesn't know what he's gonna do then. I think that the sheriff is turning into my favorite character. He says things like, "I think that when the lies are all told and forgot, the truth will be there yet." He also realizes the hopelessness of being the only symbol of law and order in his part of the country, but has some sort of sick drive to continue on with his job. He's to the point where unheard of violence no longer surprises him in any way. As things get worse and worse around him, all he can do is sigh and keep doing his job the same way that he's always done it.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
No Country For Old Men Thoughts
At this point, I'm about 100 pages into No Country For Old Men. The plot has picked up quite a bit, and a lot of new characters have been introduced. Something I've found that I'm not sure if I really like is that McCarthy doesn't use a lot of conventional punctuation. I get the feeling that maybe this is just a contemporary authors thing, Chuck Palahniuk had a very similar style. There are no quote marks for the dialogue. This makes it hard to follow at some points. It takes me a while to get used to his style when I pick up the book for a sitting, but after a few minutes, I don't really notice the absence of certain conventions, and the book goes a lot faster.
One thing I've really liked about the book so far is the first person narrations by the sherriff at the beginning of each chapter. A lot of the themes of the novel are presented here, I think. He talks about how there is true evil in the world, especially the part of the world that this novel takes place in. There's no point in trying to govern bad people, it's impossible. Anybody who belongs on death row will never get there. I thought that these themes were all thought-provoking, or at the least, they made me want to read on.
One thing I've really liked about the book so far is the first person narrations by the sherriff at the beginning of each chapter. A lot of the themes of the novel are presented here, I think. He talks about how there is true evil in the world, especially the part of the world that this novel takes place in. There's no point in trying to govern bad people, it's impossible. Anybody who belongs on death row will never get there. I thought that these themes were all thought-provoking, or at the least, they made me want to read on.
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