No Country for Old Men

If you liked...Suggestions for further reading

 No Country for Old Men

• Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian (1985)
  Considered to be one of McCarthy’s most accomplished works, Blood Meridian tells the violent story of a group of conscripted men who travel to the Southwest to deal with Apache bandits.
• James Carlos Blake, Borderlands: Short Fictions (1999)
  Blake depicts life along the Texas-Mexico border in this grim but uplifting collection of short stories. Blake is the recipient of the L.A. Times Book Prize for his novel In the Rogue Blood.
• William Faulkner, Light in August (1932)
  McCarthy is often compared to William Faulkner for his masterly, uniquely American writing style. In this classic book, Faulkner explores the intersection of race, class and the history of the South through the interrelated stories of the three main characters.
• Larry McMurtry, Dead Man’s Walk (2006)
  McMurtry’s prequel to his enormous bestseller Lonesome Dove tells the story of the adventures of Woodrow Call and Gus McCrae as young Texas Rangers in 19th century Texas.
• Flannery O’Connor, Wise blood (1952)
  In this wry, disturbing novel Hazel Motes, a discharged serviceman, abandons his faith to establish an “anti-church” in the American South.

Major Character List

No Country for Old Men

• Llewelyn Moss- Vietnam veteran who now works as welder; he stumbles upon a large amount of money in the aftermath of a drug deal gone bad.
• Carla Jean Moss- Llewelyn’s young wife
• Sheriff Bell- sheriff of Terrell County in East Texas where Llewelyn lives; he spends most of novel trying to track down Llewelyn
• Anton Chigurh- hired assassin sent to track down the money; he is a methodical and psychopathic killer
• Carson Wells- another man hired to track down Llewelyn and the money.
• Anonymous businessman- wealthy businessman in Houston who hires Wells to recover the money
• Loretta Bell- Sheriff Bell’s wife
• Ellis- Sheriff Bell’s uncle
• Hitchhiker- young girl hitchhiking to California that Llewelyn picks up on his way to El Paso

Discussion Questions

No Country for Old Men

1. How is McCarthy’s spare writing style and use of colloquial language particularly well suited to communicating the story he tells in No Country for Old Men? Is his unique method of writing dialogue without using quotation marks a help or a hindrance to telling the story?
2. Did you agree with Llewelyn’s fateful decision at the beginning of the novel to return to the scene of the crime? Do you think you would have made the same decision?
3. What do you think motivates Anton Chigurh’s behavior?
4. What message do you think McCarthy is trying to convey with Chigurh’s unusual choice of a weapon? Is the cattle gun in some ways more sinister than a conventional gun?
5. Why do think that towards the end of the novel Llewelyn decides to pick a hitchhiker? Are his actions motivated by kindness even though his decision to pick up the girl places her in great danger?
6. McCarthy takes the title of his book from W.B. Yeats’s poem “Sailing to Byzantium”. “That is no country for old men, the young/ In one another’s arms, birds in the trees,/ -Those dying generations- at their song.” Yeats also writes “An aged man is but a paltry thing,/A tattered coat upon a stick, / Unless soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing/ For every tatter in its mortal dress”. Why do you think McCarthy chose a line from this poem for his title?
7. Throughout the novel in the italicized interludes Sheriff Bell discusses what he considers to be the moral corruption of the world around him. Do you agree with Sheriff Bell’s view that society in undergoing a moral decline?
8. Why do you think Sheriff Bell felt the need to tell his uncle the real story behind his WW II military medal?
9. On page 303, Bell says “I think I know where we’re headed. We’re being bought with our own money. And it ain’t just the drugs”. Where does Bell think the country is headed? Do you agree with his vision?
10. According to book reviewer Jeffrey Lent writing in the Washington Post Book World, No Country for Old Men is “profoundly disturbing”. Would you agree with the reviewer?