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Quarter Four Texts.
In Rotation: Selected 07-08 Highlights.
Justice, Mos Def, Murs, Seal, and as always, highlights from the following first-rate podcasts: Brooklyn Radio's "The Rub" & "Wake the Town and tell the People," KCRW's "Sounds Eclectic," and NPR's "All Songs Considered."
12 comments:
I was intrigued by the character of Chigurh that is revealed in this reading. He, in so many ways, is inhuman. For example, it’s as though he feels no pain or at least that pain just doesn’t register to him. Reading about him cleaning and fixing his own wounds made me cringe, and yet “other than a light beading of sweat on his forehead there was little evidence that his labors had cost him anything at all” (164). With ease, he gives himself shots and pours Betadine, which I assume to be a disinfecting agent, on his leg.
I think he displays an enormous ego, which I noticed whenver he intereacted with someone else. Before he kills Wells He says “You know that’s not going to happen. Don’t you?” just as he tells Moss later on “You know how this is going to turn out, don’t you?” (176, 184). He constantly assumes that he’s going to win and that he’s going to come out on top. I think that for this reason, Wells says to him “You think you’re outside of everything.” He thinks he’s invisible, better than society, and separate for society. For this reason, he kills without regret, shame, or without even considering the consequences of doing so. I’d like to agree with Wells’ statement, but so far in the novel Chigurh has been independent of society and it’s expectations. He kills and he gets away with it. He gets caught but is able to run away.
I question why he feels the need to kill Moss, even if he returns the money. It’s as if Chigurh feels entitled to the money, even though he isn’t. He is angry at Moss because he feels as though Moss has personally attacked him by taking the money. He thinks the world is against him, when really it is him that is against the world.
Kirsten Seeland
Journal Entry
No Country For Old Men
In my previous journal I have started developing a theory that the reason Chigurh is able to kill so mercilessly and without any remorse is because he thinks he is doing a good thing by ridding the world of sinful, worthless people. It seems to me that Chigurh is somewhat religious, or has a faith in some higher power (fate for example, hence the coin toss). I think he truly believe he is better than others, above them, different. This theory was confirmed in this chapter when Chigurh is in the hotel room with Wells, about to kill him. Chigurh says to Wells, “You think I’m like you. That it’s just greed. But I’m not like you. I live a simple life (177).” Then he says, “You wouldn’t understand. A man like you (177).” By “A man like you” he was clearly saying that Wells was beneath him. An example of how Chigurh is merciless in his killings, how it is clear he feels no guilt over doing it, is how he wants his victims to look him in the eye when he does kills them. On page 176 Chigurh says to Wells, “You think you can put it off with your eyes,” to which Wells asks, “What do you mean?”. “You think that as long as you keep looking at me you can put it off,” Chigurh replies. He thinks this because most people show mercy when they look into someone’s eyes, it scares them to look into their soul. Most people would develop pity for someone once they looked into their eyes, because they see their soul when they do. Chigurh doesn’t fall into this trap because he believes all their souls are bad. When Chigurh is about to kill a man in the street after the shooting with Moss he says to the man, “Don’t look away. I want you to look at me (122).” “Chigurh then shot him through the forehead and then stood watching. Watching the capillaries break up in his eyes. The light receding. Watching his own image degrade in that squandered world (122).” Light is a common theme throughout this book, maybe it represents the soul, because here it is like he is watching this man’s soul recede. It is almost as if the fact that he can do this, that he has the strength to look a man in the eye and shoot him is why he thinks he is invincible. Now that he has been wounded, it humanizes him, even to himself. “Getting hurt changed me, he [Chigurh] said. Changed my perspective. I’ve moved on, in a way. Some things have fallen into place that were not there before. I thought they were, but they weren’t. The best way I can put it s that I’ve sort of caught up with myself. That’s not a bad thing. It was overdue (173).” He now realizes that he has taken to many unnecessary risks, to prove his invincibility to himself. On page 174 he is talking about killing the sheriff: “I’m not sure why I did this but I think I wanted to see if I could extricate myself by an act of will. Because I believe that one can. That such a thing is possible. But it was a foolish thing to do. A vain thing to do.” This shows both that he has faith and no longer thinks of himself as invincible. His faith is also why he did show mercy to the bird. Because he does not think the bird deserves to die, it is innocent, unlike humans.
No Country For Old Men Log
Pg. 158-194
Samantha Butters
One passage that I found interesting in the reading was when Chrigurh is about to kill Wells. He says, “Getting hurt changed me. Changed my perspective. I’ve moved on, in a way. Some things have fallen into place that were not there before. I thought they were, but they weren’t. The best way I can put it is that I’ve sort of caught up with myself. That’s not a bad thing. It was overdue.” (173) I thought this passage was significant because Chirgurh is giving us some insight into who he is and what is going through his mind. When Chirgurh says that getting hurt changed his perspective I wonder if it made him realize that he is not invincible. When he says he’s moved on, what exactly is he moving past? What happened in his past that he is moving on from? When he says he’s caught up with himself does this mean that he has gained some kind of wisdom, and that he is maybe slowing down? The reason I found this passage so interesting is that Chrigurh says that he has a new perspective and is changed, but then he proceeds to kill Wells with little mercy just like we have seen him kill other men previously. Clearly his new perspective does not involve him stopping killing people. I also thought it was interesting how he talks about what happened to him before we see him in the first scene in the book when he describes getting caught by the police and going to jail just to see if he can get out of it. I saw some humanly characteristics in Chrigurh when he says, “it was a foolish thing to do. A vain thing to do.” (175) This was something I would not expect Chirgurh to say because up until now all of his actions have been for his own good, and he’s paid no attention to the feelings or well being of others. All of a sudden in this sentence you realize that he knows he’s actions were vain.
Another thing I found interesting in this section were the phones that ring. As Chrigurh is leaving the hotel room where the transponder is, the phone rings, and he stops and thinks about it without answering. Then immediately after Chirgurh kills Wells, Wells’ cell phone rings. This important scene is sandwiched in between two different phone rings. Is this significant at all? Because there is so little description in this book, I feel as if each thing mentioned does have some importance and for that reason we can assume that the phone rings were there for a reason. I’m not quite sure what the significance can be yet.
In this section of the reading, the grandmother’s letters to Oskar become more relevant to Oskar’s own story. She is telling Oskar advice, describing how she “regret[s] that it takes a life to learn how to live,” (184). I think here she is trying to tell him that he can’t spend his whole life learning how to cope with the death of his dad; that it is not unhealthy (as Oskar believes) to move on from death, moving on from something does not necessarily mean that you forget it. The grandmother spent so much of her time worrying about her marriage, not wanting to hurt others, and caring what others thought of her that she only now realizes in her old age that she missed out on truly living. She says, “If I were able to live my life again, I would do things different. I would change my life. I would kiss my piano teacher, even if he laughed at me. I would jump with Mary on the bed, even if I made a fool of myself I would send out ugly pho9tographs, thousands of them,” (184). By telling this to Oskar, she demonstrating an idea of “carpe diem,” that Oskar should take chances and live his life so that he will not regret missing out on it later.
We also learn why Oskar “zips himself into a sleeping bag” in this part of the reading. He reveals to his therapist that he’s “gonna bury [his] feelings deep inside… No matter how much [he] feel[s], [he’s] not gonna let it out… it doesn’t help anything. It just makes everyone’s life worse,” (203). Oskars’s state of mind here reflects his grandmother’s ideology that she would not reveal her emotions to her husband because she didn’t want to hurt him. If Oskar feels so strongly about never showing his emotions, then why does he reveal them to us, the reader? I wonder if Oskar will ever learn that it is OK to let other people comfort him; that it’s OK to let his family into his life.
This portion of reading deals a lot with the issue of “covering up”. This is most apparent when Wells goes back to the motel and looks at the crime scene. It seems as if people are so afraid to acknowledge what happened, that they instead pretend as if it didn’t. The bellboy, “is not supposed to discuss” what happened the previous night (143).
We see this theme prevalent in and around Moss’s hotel room. Inside the room is bloody with “bloodstained washcloth in the sink” and bloody towels laying around (146). The inside of the room is where the gore is, and the door is kept shut trying to close it to prevent people from seeing what happened. It seems as if the “old men” or the people not involved in the killing are afraid to expose the rest of the world to the true violence that is going on. On the outside of the room the “pavement had been hosed off, by you could still see the bloodstains.” (146). This goes to show that despite people’s best efforts to cover up the situation, blood remains there. This shows that violence may be here to stay, and there is no effort that Wells or Bell can do to combat it. Blood, which represents violence, cannot be washed out. The entire hotel can do its close the door to the violence, but they can never erase it- the remnants will always be there. This is interconnected with Bell’s statements about how the situation is getting worse and the people are getting more ruthless. Wells describes Chigurh’s actions as, “ he came out into the street and killed every one of the Mexicans and then went back into the hotel. Like you might go out and get a paper or something” ( 150). Killing seems to be downplayed in this novel, it is an everyday event and something which people like Chigurh do not have a conscience about0 they do it instinctively.
Lucy Litman
One of the pieces of the book that I have struggled with most is that we are not given thorough descriptions of characters directly. For example, although the actions of Moss and Chigurh are described in detail, we are never given the motives behind these actions or hints about their personalities. This creates a very different kind of story than we are accustomed to reading because the characters seem very mysterious to us, and we are forced to make judgments on them solely based on what we see them do. In this last piece that we read, we were given a slightly different view of Moss through the voice of his wife. I think this was interesting because we are given an alternative view into Moss’ life and personality through the descriptions provided by his wife during Sheriff Bell’s questioning. For example, we learn that Moss is not a quitter, when Carla Jean replies to Bell’s “They won’t quit” with, “He won’t neither. He never has” (127). What I find interesting about this statement is that we already know Moss is not a quitter for he has not given up so far despite the fact that he is running for his life. I wonder why the author chooses to blatantly tell us this fact about Moss only after we have already witnessed his stubbornness and determination many times throughout the beginning of the novel.
This section also had an interesting symbol of foreshadowing in the passage, “The face that lapped and shifted in the dark liquid in the cup seemed an omen of things to come. Things losing shape. Taking you with them”(127). I believe this is foreshadowing Bell’s future encounters with Moss and/or Chigurh. The predicament facing Bell currently is so messed up and confusing and this suggests hard times ahead.
Steph Shelton
Readers Log
George Faegre
For my reader’s log I choose to write about the passage where Moss first encounters Chigurh. Moss was hiding in his hotel room silently when Chigurh entered the room. He caught Chigurh at a point where he was unable to turn around and attack Moss. Moss cocked his gun and told him to not turn around, for he would open fire if he did. This was shocking to me. As I was reading I was thinking to myself of what I would do if I were to be put in that situation. I had no idea. However Moss, being incredibly shrewd disarms Chigurh instead of killing him. This was an incredible idea. Not only was it an incredible idea, but it showed a new element of how Moss thinks. The way he handled the situation immediately cued me to suspect he had handled events like this before. It tied him in deep to a criminal past. Not even Chigurh a stone cold ruthless killer had any resolution to the gunpoint he was being held to. This was also the first time I noticed Chigurh give in to someone. Chigurh becomes more inhuman as each page goes by. He is very machine like and very methodical with his tasks. All of the characters actions reveal aspects of who they are and who they were, and the reactions Moss gave to the situation made me certain he had experienced gun violence in his past. On the very next page it reads “There was nothing that could happen that would have surprised him” (p.111). This was all the evidence I needed. Moss has lived a life riddled with criminal activity and it will be all the more interesting to see how he handles future encounters with extremely dangerous elements.
I felt the most interesting segment of this section was the increase of information about the past of Moss and his young wife. Previous to the café conversation between Sheriff Bell and Carla Jean, we had only seen Carla speak about twice. Both of these time Carla had been responding to Moss’ wishes whether it was making him dinner or getting on bus to get out of town, we hadn’t really ever seen Carla Jean. But as she sat in the café with Bell, we saw our first glance of a strong willed young woman who obviously believed (blindly) in her husband. The way that she just guesses Bell’s thoughts by stating “I guess you think I’m just bait settin up here” (131), gives me as the reader a completely new perspective on her as a character. She isn’t a silly 19- year old girl, she really knows what’s going on though she might know the exact details. This gained knowledge about Carla Jean I think gives us some more information about Moss. Hearing the story about how they met and hearing how he was good to Carla’s mom, it gives feeling and emotion to the character of Moss. Something that I think will become apparent in the future of the book when he is compared to Chigurh (who seems to have no feeling, emotional or physical) , which I do believe will happen.
Tim Walden
No Country for Old Men
Reader's Log p. 158-194
The way that Chigurgh has been acting is very interesting to me. I first thought that Chigurgh was just a heartless killer who was a part of a big crime organization that he turned on and is now out for blood at all costs. What I saw in this past reading was something else. When he is holding the shotgun to Wells and talking to him in the hotel room, he says that “You think I’m like you. That it’s just greed. But I’m not like you. I live a simple life.”(177) Here he is trying to say that he isn’t even after the money, which very much goes against what I earlier thought. He seems to think of himself as invincible, inhuman, and above others. Although he and Wells were in the same line of work, he put himself above Wells. His thoughts with regards to finding the satchel are similarly egotistic. “It will be brought to me and placed at my feet.”(176) This almost makes him seem godlike. This makes me wonder why he pursues Moss so relentlessly, and I feel like it’s his God ego getting to him because Moss accidentally foiled his plan to get the money and the heroin and he grows angrier at every inconvenience and near-miss that Moss provides him.
Log p.123-138
Many of the things that we have so far seen throughout the story as well as many of the events that have taken place have clearly been corrupt. Moss has stolen two million dollars and Chigurah is killing anything that stands in his way of getting that money back. On page 123 Bell talks about the relation between the corrupt and the truth. He states “I think that when the lies are all told and forgot the truth will be there yet. It don’t move about from place to place and it don’t change from time to time” (123). He believes that the truth cannot be corrupted and even more so that it will outlast all the lies. We’ve seen a lot of corruption in the book so far and I think that this passage relates directly to Bells character and how he believes that the truth can and will eventually discovered. This is one of the first times we hear a character talking about truth in a different context separate from the chase for Moss. In this context we also see the first mention of the bible, relating to truth, and a rock of which I’m not sure what he was talking about. Bells job as a sheriff is to search for the truth so I found this part to be ironic as well.
In this reading of "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" we are introduced (finally) to Oskar's grandfather. He is still, after all this time, without his word and unable to speak, still writing in his book. He also lives with Oskar's grandmother, despite the fact that she has never mentioned him specifically (other than calling him "the Renter"). He is also very reclusive He seems to not want the grandmother to know about his relationship with Oskar. This also brings up some interesting language-related parallels. The renter cannotspeak, but listens to Oskar, and when he does communicate, it's in response to Oskar. This is very similar to Mr. Black, he didn't share very much of himself with Oskar and instead decided to accompany him. This begs the question: why is Oskar in constant pursuit of people he doesn't know to listen to him? He obviously chooses to tell people he's impersonal with (Mr. Black and the Renter) and declines to tell people he knows about his melancholy situation. He writes letters to Stephen Hawking and Ringo Star, but never to his grandmother or people whom he actually knows. Again, this accentuates Oskar's inability to communicate with people around him.
In this reading of "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" we are introduced (finally) to Oskar's grandfather. He is still, after all this time, without his word and unable to speak, still writing in his book. He also lives with Oskar's grandmother, despite the fact that she has never mentioned him specifically (other than calling him "the Renter"). He is also very reclusive He seems to not want the grandmother to know about his relationship with Oskar. This also brings up some interesting language-related parallels. The renter cannotspeak, but listens to Oskar, and when he does communicate, it's in response to Oskar. This is very similar to Mr. Black, he didn't share very much of himself with Oskar and instead decided to accompany him. This begs the question: why is Oskar in constant pursuit of people he doesn't know to listen to him? He obviously chooses to tell people he's impersonal with (Mr. Black and the Renter) and declines to tell people he knows about his melancholy situation. He writes letters to Stephen Hawking and Ringo Star, but never to his grandmother or people whom he actually knows. Again, this accentuates Oskar's inability to communicate with people around him.
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