Cormac McCarthy - No Country for Old Men (2005)
** spoiler alert ** No Country for Old Men is a great book at two levels - style and content. You have to engage with the laconic vernacular of the US Southwestern border country and observe how McCarthy uses it to show how a few words in the right context can get you far deeper into the emotions (or lack of them) of the main protagonists than any long-winded description of feelings. In forty years McCarthy has honed his art far from the excessive literariness of The Orchard Keeper to create a linguistic realism that is great literature. He manages the rare feat of showing how a basic decency, a sentimental decency, triumphs morally over cunning and intellect. He reminds us that 'sentiment', that is feeling one's values as givens without too much analysis, is not to be despised by those whose default mode is knowing irony. There is nothing post-modern about this book. As for the content, this is a deeply political book, without once mentioning politics as most re