Cormac McCarthy - No Country For Old Men

Pros: Readability, depth of character
Cons: Sparser than his normal style

The style of No Country For Old Men is a significant departure from the other McCarthy novels I have read. For Delillo fans, it is like the shift from Underworld to The Hand Artist or Cosmopolis. In both cases, the author's brilliance is evident, but ...

Pros: Usually the prose. Characters.
Cons: Monologues. Monologues. Monologues. Occasional prose missteps.

It can be dangerous for an author to know his own strengths. Most of Cormac McCarthy's works feature the same fragmented, naturally epic prose, saturated with broken phrases and run-on sentences. Generally speaking, McCarthy has honed his technique to a ...

Pros: Plot, storylines, complexity of characters.
Cons: Can be confusing at times.

Kevin’s Corner “Yeah, Wendell said. I guess you ought to be careful cussin the dead. I would say at the least there probably aint no luck in it. It’s just a bunch of Mexican drugrunners. They were. They aint now. I aint sure what you’re saying. ...

Pros: Gripping and suspenseful.
Cons: McCarthy's creative use of punctuation may strike some as pretentious.

First off, I'll say that I found 'No Country for Old Men' to be an interesting and satisfying novel -- and well worth anyone's investment of time and/or money. It's very violent -- shockingly so at times, and action-driven. But in terms of ideas, you can ...