No Country For Old Men

I haven't had the focus to read books the past couple of days, my eyes just stick on the page and I realize I haven't read anything after a while. But I still listen to audio books at work. Most recently, Cormac McCarthy's 'No Country For Old Men.' I'll be reading it in the near future, I tend to end up doing both with McCarthy, though usually I read it first.

There's a method to that: listening is passive,you get the story, but the narrator makes a contribution in 'delivery.' This is sometimes good: read by author is often awesome. Toni Morrison, Chuck Palahniuk, Steve Martin, there's a wide range of novelists who read their own work brilliantly. There's also Elmore Leonard, who does not narrate his audio books, and I think I know why: I listened to an interview with him and he's got the most worn out, squeaky old man voice you could imagine. If I had that voice, I might refuse a recorded interview. It definitely wouldn't be a voice for narrating a crime novel.

But even with the author-read audio books, you get their delivery and it's always different than your mental voice. My friend Jay is traumatized by the thought of Elliott Gould reading Raymond Chandler, but I think almost all of Chandler has been recorded by Gould on account of his acting in a Chandler adaptation for screen. It's one way to 'read' Chandler, but as you might imagine, Gould's delivery is conspicuously Gould. Deep, monotone, it comes off as a hard-boiled fog horn.

So it was a bit of a gamble, listening to Tom Stechschulte (do you think everyone in high school called him 'Tom Sexually?') read the book before I had explored the print version, but as I say, I'm in poor shape for print this week, needed some high-test distraction. And McCarthy delivers, he's out McCarthied himself, at least among what I've read of him, which is far from encyclopedic. I like his 'border trilogy' novels, though they're not a true trilogy, they just share a lot in terms of setting, the age and nature of the characters. All West Texas border coming of age stuff, a wiry kid throws himself into the gears of machines he doesn't even know the purpose of (much less the workings of or hazards of), and inevitably learns a lot the hard way.

There's an element of that to 'No Country For Old Men' but it's more of a crime novel in some respects, and comments on a later time. It's still West Texas, but it's no coming of age tale, or if it is, it's a coming of age for an old man, a country, a societal shift. It's intense, stuff. Good from a literary style standpoint as usual for McCarthy, good for thought provoking social commentary, also a strong suit for him, and chaotic, unpredictable, heart-breaking and hilarious. It's even therapeutic to gush about it.

I wonder of Cormac McCarthy listens to jazz. I doubt it, he seems more likely to listen to Lefty Frisell than Bill Frisell, but the title put me in mind of Hank Mobley's 'No Room for Squares.' Except there's nothing remotely West Texas about 'No Room for Squares' as a title.