So, keeping Simon May's idea of love in mind, let's take a look at McCarthy's novel. Such a love is worth dying for, since we want so much to be rooted in the world with a feeling of being fully alive. According to May, love isn't what philosophers like Plato say it is, that is, love being a longing for the Good and Beautiful rather, May argues love has a wider range: we fall in love inspired by an anchoring for our life, an anchoring giving us a home in the world. My observations are in light of what contemporary British philosopher Simon May has to say about the nature of love. Since there are many reviews posted, in the spirit of freshness, I'd like to share a few reflections of a philosophical nature. Stechschute's reading is spot-on, particularly his portrayal of one of the main characters, a good old boy by the name of Sheriff Bell. This fascinating discussion motivated me not only to read the book but listen to the audiobook read by Tom Stechschulte. My first contact with this work of fiction was listening to a 'Partially Examined Life' podcast with three young philosophers and Eric Petrie, a university professor who has made a study of Cormac McCarthy's dark novel set in Texas in 1980. ― Cormac McCarthy, No Country For Old Men “How does a man decide in what order to abandon his life?”

She got up quietly so as not to wake him and checked the door was locked. They lay there for a while until she heard he was asleep. I dont think this conversation is goin noplace, he said. Maybe he aint no more than what he looks like. I bin lying here thinkin and I caint rightly say. A symbol of somethin.Īnd his duel with Llewelyn. Carla Jean and Loretta and Carson and the hitchhiker. Sheriff Bell and Llewelyn and Chigurh and even the minor ones. He's got a mighty fine ear, that's for sure. He's got the best ear for dialect this side of Mark Twain. Then we gotta do it like McCarthy, he said. So are we gonna talk about No Country For Old Men, he said. In 2009, Cormac McCarthy won the PEN/Saul Bellow Award, a lifetime achievement award given by the PEN American Center. He is frequently compared by modern reviewers to William Faulkner. Literary critic Harold Bloom named him one of the four major American novelists of his time, along with Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, and Philip Roth. His earlier Blood Meridian (1985) was among Time Magazine's poll of 100 best English-language books published between 19, and he placed joint runner-up for a similar title in a poll taken in 2006 by The New York Times of the best American fiction published in the last 25 years. He received the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for The Road, and his 2005 novel No Country for Old Men was adapted as a 2007 film of the same name, which won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. He has written twelve novels in the Southern Gothic, western, and post-apocalyptic genres and has also written plays and screenplays. Cormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright.

No country for old men book review