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Cormac McCarthy's style is perfect for narrating any tale of moral misery, senselessness, barbarity. “No Country for Old Men” is such a story, marked by a sparse, precise writing that excludes any kind of linguistic refinement.
The “old men” of the title are embodied in the gaze and uniform of Sheriff Bell, a man of integrity, who began his career as a law enforcer long ago, with the idea of having a kind word for all citizens of his county, of taking their defense to heart (as long as their actions are defensible).
One of these, Llewellyn Moss, during a solitary antelope hunting trip, finds himself in a desert area, at the scene of a showdown between Mexican drug traffickers. Three bodies are scattered among the bullet-ridden cars; the last one, further away, still has a leather briefcase full of money in his hands. Dirty money, which will surely bring trouble. Moss knows this, but he doesn't see who more than him has the right to take it and keep all those bundles of dollars.
On his trail is Anton Chigurh, a psychopathic killer of the worst kind, who is not the owner of that briefcase but has his reasons to want to retrieve it.
Therefore, in this cascading chase, Sheriff Bell also joins in, with the intention of saving Llewellyn and his wife from Chigurh's ruthless and paranoid coldness.
Thirteen chapters, each opened by a monologue in italics by the sheriff, who recalls how things were when, as a twenty-year-old, he was elected county sheriff, and how quickly everything went to decay. A clever narrative device through which McCarthy can convey all the desolation of a reality where – in terms of values and human compassion – nothing remains.
No Country for Old Men. Because it takes physical strength and determination not to succumb to all the senseless violence that can descend upon a man in that area on the border between Texas and Mexico.
But that's not what the author primarily wants to say.
No Country for Old Men because, for those who have already lived most of their lives, it is hard to look at the world and see it disintegrating: “A while ago, I read that some teachers had found a survey sent in the 1930s to a number of schools across the country. A questionnaire about the problems of teaching in schools had been conducted. And they found the completed forms sent from all over the country, with the answers to their questions. And the biggest problems that emerged were things like students talking in class and running in the corridors. Or chewing gum. Or copying homework. Stuff like that. So, they took one of those blank forms, printed a few copies, and sent them to the same schools. After forty years. Well, here are the answers. Rapes, arson, murders. Drugs. Suicides. And I think about these things. Because most of the time, when I say the world is going to hell, and fast, people give me a half-smile and tell me I'm just getting old. And that that's one of the symptoms. But the way I see it, someone who can't tell the difference between raping and killing people and chewing gum in class is much worse than me. And forty years is not that long. Maybe in another forty years, people will have opened their eyes. Provided it's not too late”.
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