I read Cormac McCarthy’s “No Country for Old Men” a couple of years ago, then saw the movie when it came out. Most movies do a lousy job of putting a first rate novel on screen (witness Wolfe’s “The Bonfire of the Vanities” fiasco), but I was pleasantly surprised by it, finding the movie version actually better than the book, yet keeping probably ninety-five percent of visual contexts and stark dialog. The movie was a tighter version of the novel, free of some of the extraneous scenes that didn’t work well to begin with. A few months ago I read McCarthy’s “The Road” and was held in suspense throughout. Excellent novel about the mother of all survival tales. Judging by the movie trailer it too could be better than the book. And yesserie Bob, I do believe this is the way civilization will end, in a big heap from an asteroid hit, with survivors living on fast food cannibalism, brandishing Anglo Saxon weapons of the 1000AD kind, and quickly forgetting what the internet age was all about. (Personally I can’t wait; I’m going to turn my Toyota pick-up into a Somali warlord wagon.)
