Writing lesson in Borders

I read the first 99 pages of No Country for Old Men in Borders yesterday while waiting for Lee for a movie we never watched. The book was a little hard to get into at first because I couldn't visualize what was happening very well. I think it has to do with the description of action being inexact or vague or it could be a case of me not understand certain vocabularies, but once I can visualize the whole landscape, and once dialogue begins, it was just so riveting.

McCarthy has a way of crafting these amazing scenes. It is the landscape. It is the way people talk. It is the grit, the sparseness, the blood and the gore.

It cuts to the bone of language and storytelling. And he has these jump scenes in his story that goes from one character in place to another without confusing the readers.

The book is also framed by a kind of internal monologue by the voice of a Texan sheriff. Italicized, readers hear the thoughts and voice of a law enforcer. I was wondering why McCarthy did it. It seemed a little sentimental at times. But it also seems to me that it grounds the book emotionally. So that readers are placed on the side of the average man who abides by law watching the voilent and at times horrific scenes of saveage butchery occur. It speaks to me as a reader, and I guess it makes some of the violence tolerable and even gives it some kind of meaning.

But that is just my guess. And I will have to finish the book to conclude. Besides, I will need to read it a second time. But more on that later. For now, work.