Cormac McCarthy - No Country For Old Men.
The movie based on this is one of my all time favorites, so it took me a surprising time to get around to reading the book. Just as good as the movie, neither is better, I’d say they are on an equal footing. The Coen Brothers said about adapting it that one of them read it out loud, and the other one typed what he heard. And that’s pretty much it, they just edited it a bit, the story is all there. And most of the dialogue is word for word.
My favorite scene in the movie is when Sheriff Ed Tom goes to see his uncle Ellis after deciding to quit his job. Early on in the conversation Ellis says: “All the time you spend tryin to get back what’s been took from you there’s more goin out the door. After a while you just try and get a tourniquet on it.” And that’s wisdom.
The one thing the Coens added to the movie is also said by Ellis, and I think it’s because they disagreed with McCarthy about what it’s about. Neither seem to think much good about mankind. McCarthy was always a pessimist, and I think tried to say things were bad before and getting worse. The Coens maybe tried to say with the movie that things were always bad, and always have been. And you should find comfort in that. “What you got ain’t nothin’ new. This country’s hard on people. You can’t stop what’s coming. It ain’t all waiting on you. That’s vanity.”
