Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Review: No Country for Old Men
On the one hand, it's a cry for help. One can't help but take to heart the politics of the book characterized by a good degree of nihilism along with dashes of straight biblical fatalism, i.e. that which God creates man destroys. The world and the word has always been so. The nihilism seems a bit darker and more well-wrought. There's less baggage in the nihilism and I can think of no better setting for it than Texas (though perhaps Alaska could give them a run for their money).I haven't read Blood Meridian or All the Pretty Horses and can't put this in author's context. So I'm inclined to look at it from a number of other angles foremost of which is the style. It's writerly, which to me means "Hey reader, I'll give you the broad strokes, now you do the rest."
I think you said the story is compelling because it provides no context. I like that. I'm an optimist, so I bring to the story a certain optimism. Not for the character's sake (any ready can tell they're doomed form the beginning. Even the characters themselves are cognizant of their futility.) I'm talking about the kind of optimism that comes from the interaction with people. There's an inherent optimism in the act of publishing, no?
Bell is at the heart of darkness, for lack of a better literary reference. That much is true. And it's the fault of war and men, God and country. That's Bell's point of view.
Then there's Chigurh's point of view. His is more absolutist deriving its power from a complete lack of faith. His power comes from the fact that he relies on rules and logic to make the decisions for him. In other words, his morality is not decided by himself. He take orders and executes (sic) them. Choices are made for Chigurh, not by him. Each of their points of view of course represents two paths and each of them chooses to found his belief based on some appeal that path has for him.
Still though, this is not a morality tale. I think what McCarthy is after isn't "we are not worthy of redemption." I think he's just saying that we've reached this bizarre unraveling of human-futility. That we live long, long lives, only to discover that by the 80th year of our lives the world around us has changed so much and not a damn bit of it for the better, that it would be better to have died when the dieing was most imminent.
The more we extend our lives, and the more tightly that our vitality is coupled with mortality, the less our psyche can cope with all of the above. It's a reconciliation story, with old men on the porch saying to themselves my life lasted a little too long for my own good. Without context (and that's what any living soul really is: a life without context of previous or next lives) that's the conclusion any rational soul might make. However putting our lives in the context of history, literature, and so on, we start hoping in the better nature of fatalism and investing our efforts into faith, country, community, etc. Though we acknowledge mortality we struggle to live anyway. Just long enough and treading as lightly as possible.
I'm in the habit of turning books into movies as I read them. I don't see Tarantino directing this movie. His style is much too glib. Same with Rodriguez; too many archetypes and not enough character-building. I'm seeing Michael Mann here. Not the Michael Mann whose characters get redemption and the girl, but a darker one. The darker the better. That way you can see the light the characters carry with them into the sunset on horseback. That's where the hope is; in the hands of the dead.
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