1 post tagged “redemption through violence”
Cormac McCarthy's Miltonian humdinger, No Country for Old Men. is a novel tuned to the key of poetry. McCarthy spares us no violent detail, but each incident brings closes in on an America that nightmares down every private rage. In this book, Anton Chigur is McCarthy's villain-prophet -- an Iago with a sawed-off shotgun.
As the book's hypnosis lulls the reader from one blood bath to another, we come to learn that the border we walk is not as simple as immigrant-citizen, criminal-cop, innocent-perpetrator, young-old. Instead, McCarthy gives us a world that devastates. His endless death moments respark the realization that impermanence lingers in every shadow.
In one section, Chigur offers life or death based upon the results of a coin toss. We learn, in these frightening moments, that he is the most honest character because he is true to the human condition. Things change in a fashion unknown. And, McCarthy might be reminding us, the unknown is the death-fear's cruelest parent.
As the book's hypnosis lulls the reader from one blood bath to another, we come to learn that the border we walk is not as simple as immigrant-citizen, criminal-cop, innocent-perpetrator, young-old. Instead, McCarthy gives us a world that devastates. His endless death moments respark the realization that impermanence lingers in every shadow.
In one section, Chigur offers life or death based upon the results of a coin toss. We learn, in these frightening moments, that he is the most honest character because he is true to the human condition. Things change in a fashion unknown. And, McCarthy might be reminding us, the unknown is the death-fear's cruelest parent.
