Because I really liked the Coen brothers movie of Mc Carthy's novel, I decided to try the book, bored by a couple of others that I tried. And, bang, for some reason, I was into it, the opening murder of a deputy in his office and the interior monologues of the sheriff, where McCarthy allows his thinking to surface. Most of this was left out of the film, obviously, though Tommy Lee Jones, who played the sheriff, Ed Tom Bell, conveyed Mc Carthy's sense of a man, tired and discouraged by what the world he now lives in has become. And Anton Chigurh, a psychotic killer, the devil incarnate, haunts Ed Tom and this book. The story begins with a newly married welder, one Llewellyn Moss, who accidentally, while out hunting in the Texas panhandle, happens upon a drug deal gone bad. Seven men are dead, three cars shot up and a bag with two and a half million dollars in it. Thus, begins Llewelyn's odyssey, which takes him to various towns, into Mexico and back, motels, hotels, and eventually his death at the hands of Chigurh.
We follow, in the third person, Llewellyn's path, his attempt to meet with his wife and, at the same time, we follow the sheriff, Ed Tom Bell, as he gets drawn into the trouble, finding first the seven dead men, the cars, then realizing that one of the young men who live in his town most likely has taken off with the drug money. He fellows the trail of Llewellyn out of a sense of duty and to save him from Chigurh. But most interestingly, almost every other chapter, we are let into Ed Tom's thinking, in a first person interior monologue, as he thinks back upon his life, how he survived Vietnam, decided to be a sheriff, married a wonderful women, but as the years as sheriff piled up, he has become more and more discouraged and despairing, mostly at the changes in the world, in the United States in particularly, where drugs, violence, and money have irrevocably changed the America he knew as a young boy growing up in Texas.
Chigurh kills other bad and good guys on his way to finding the motel where Llewellyn is staying, violenlyt murders him, then finds the Texas businessman who wanted Chigurh dead, kills him on the 17th floor of a skyscraper, and finally, the coup de grace. He goes back and murders Llewellyn's wife, for no reason other than there is no reason not to kill her. That gives the reader some idea of the mindset of Mc Carthy, who seems inured to the violence out there, making him a perfect match for a film by the Coen brothers, who also seem to revel in violence---think the of the films, FARGO, and BLOOD SIMPLE.
Despite the violence, I did like this book, sympathized with Ed Tom, who gives up, retires, without getting his man, Chigurh. We assume he lives on, the devil personified, to kill again, not just with a gun but with a gas powered stun gun, used in cattle yards. Yuk. Mc Carthy's apocalyptic vision will not appeal to most but I have to admit I found it both profound and humorous, like good dark comedy.
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