No Country For Old Men - Hardcover

McCarthy, Cormac

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0375406778 ISBN 13: 9780375406775

Publisher: Alfred a Knopf Inc, 2005

Synopsis

Stumbling upon a bloody massacre, a cache of heroin, and more than $2 million in cash during a hunting trip near the Rio Grande, Llewelynn Moss removes the money, a decision that draws him and his young wife into the middle of a violent confrontation in which their only hope of survival is local sheriff Ed Tom Bell. 250,000 first printing.

About this title

Review:

This week I travelled hopefully through Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men and Audrey Niffenegger's Her Fearful Symmetry. Both made excellent audiobook journeys, possibly the better for being abridged. Like James Joyce, McCarthy is best appreciated when heard aloud rather than merely read, and the narrator, Sean Barrett, does his laconic, lapidary prose full justice. We are in the Big Country: Texas in 1980, with drug barons pumping slugs every which way. When Llewellyn Moss happens on a massacre and purloins a satchel containing $4.5 million, he appears doomed. But isn't he our hero? Surely he can outwit a psychotic hit man who enjoys macabre rituals of death? Don't hold your breath. --Christina Hardyment, The Times

It's difficult to imagine a better narrator for No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy than Sean Barrett, (after hearing this short novel performed), although (knowing his work) I'm sure that Tom Stechschulte is also superb in his version. What makes Barrett a great choice to speak the killer's words here is oddly similar to what made Javier Bardem a great choice for the character of Anton Chigurh in the Coen brothers movie version. Barrett has an understated, calm, but not quite laid-back air about his delivery, with vocal characteristics to match. There's an element of tension present that the mirror surface can't quite hide. You expect the worst to happen, and it does. As for the story, if you're unfamiliar with it, it's about a escaped killer tracking a man who found a bag of money related to a failed drug buy. Tommy Lee Jones plays the sheriff in the movie, and he's trying to find both men before they find each other. Sounds simple enough. But as this morality tale plays out against the stark backdrop of west Texas it also expands its reach past mere entertainment into the realm of literature by extending its scope beyond three men in the desert to the bigger questions that have plagued man from the beginning. Hearing this audio movie version will be instructive for Coen brothers fans and screenwriters too, since you can compare, as I did, the dialogue between the book and the movie, and so see what choices the Coen brothers made in editing. Surprisingly, they stayed pretty much with the story, (except for one major scene), and were true to the dialogue too, but there are other subtle differences. (Some scenes were tightened, others emphasized by the Coens. Little extra dialogue was added, but some was subtracted.) By comparing, you will be able to figure out why (and which) things work better on the screen or on the page. As reader, Sean Barrett is an appropriate guide to this very original story, with spot-on west Texas accents and believable female characters, too. Speaking in the voice of the killer, though, he's chillingly real and a minimalist just like Chigurh himself a man of few emotions, attuned to destiny, accepting of fate, just telling it like it is, whether you like what truths are revealed about the world or not. --Jonathan Lowe, audiobookstoday.blogspot.com

Barrett delivers a standout performance in an artful abridgement that captures the essence of McCarthy's classic. Set along the border between the U.S. and Mexico, the story follows the tragic and bloody adventures of Llewelyn Moss, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, and the sociopathic killer Anton Chigurh. When Moss makes off with millions of dollars of drug money, his life changes forever as both Bell and Chigurh pursue him, the latter leaving a trail of dead bodies in his wake. Barrett's portrayal of Moss, Bell, and Chigurh are pitch perfect as are his renditions of the secondary characters and of the sheriff s first-person reminiscences interspersed throughout the novel. This audio book is a rare gem and a mandatory listening for McCarthy fans. --Publishers Weekly Best Books 2009

Book Description:

Set along a bloody frontier in our own time, this is Cormac McCarthy’s first novel since Cities of the Plain completed his acclaimed, bestselling Border Trilogy.

‘No Country for Old Men is a compelling, harrowing, disturbing, sad, endlessly surprising and resonant novel’ Robert Edric, Spectator

About this edition

• Publisher: Alfred a Knopf Inc
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0375406778
• ISBN 13: 9780375406775
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352