I heard about "Blood Meridian" by Cormac McCarthy, from Jocko on a Tim Ferriss
podcast, years back. Two weeks ago, I finally decided to read the author and it
was because the DVD "No Country for Old Men" from the library didn't play on my
old laptop.
It's only 300 pages and has no lengthy descriptions of the looks and
shapes of people and settings. Had the author spent more ink on rendering scenes
and sketching characters like Elizabeth George or Tana French did in the their
British and Irish (repsectively) crime novels, the book could've easily doubled
in size.
Moss, a Vietnam veteran lived in a trailer park with his wife near the
Texas-Mexico border. One day, antelope-hunting, he ran into the aftermath of a
shootout of three vehicles, half a dozen dead people, narcotics, and a satchel
of $2.4 million cash. His trouble began when he brought water back for one
survivor on the scene. He was since hunted down by law enforcement as well as
killers from drug-dealers.
Throughout the book and the last few chapters were narratives from the POV of
Sheriff Bell, who admitted bitter defeat in not being able to even identify the
murderer of many. His reflections on his personal guilt, not just from the case
but back from WWII, his career, and the decay of society including its drug
problems make one think.
McCarthy has a unique style. Dialogues, at least in this work, do not come
between quotation marks and are delivered in a dialect with creative spellings,
'drug' for 'drag,' for example. Most characters speak in the same vernacular but
their speeches are unique.
I think the title comes from the hitman Chigurh talking about his own profession
on page 253
What happened to the old people?
They've moved on to other things. Not everyone is suited to this line of
work. The prospect of outsized profits leads people to exaggerate their own
abilities. In their minds. They pretend to themselves that they are in
control of events where perhaps they are not. And it is always one's stance
upon uncertain ground that invites the attentions of one's enemies. Or
discourages it.
It might also be a metaphor for Sheriff Bell's decision to quit the force.
It was a gripping but nonetheless easy read, and that's another reason to love
the book. It didn't challenge my vocabulary or idiomatic knowledge of the
English tongue as much as the two female authors above did and yet delivered
an authentic and action-packed tale. "No skill to understand it, mastery to write
it," as the Arabian proverb goes, and I finished reading in two days.
