Reading No Country for Old Men in Puente Genil

This month we expand upon an earlier Noted Abroad installment, providing the full text of a piece that was initially stripped down in the interest of achieving a blog-friendly style. Subsequent events, notably a USA Today interview with romance author Nicholas Sparks, have made a reprise of the material seem appropriate.

The bookstore in Puente Genil has a wide selection of reference books, novels and biographies in Spanish, but, perhaps because no sensible English-speaking traveler would make Puente Genil part of their Andalusian adventure, English titles are few and far between. Even the proprietor isn’t always sure which books-in-English he carries, or where in his store they might be found. If you happen to find one, it is likely to be an American or British novel that has been made into a Hollywood blockbuster, which blockbuster has inspired publishers to repackage the book — NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE! — and send shit-tons of copies, in various languages, out into the world far and wide, so far and so wide that some of them, somehow, land in places like Puente Genil. In short, a thorough combing of the bookshop revealed that if my student Macu wanted to study a novel in English, she would need to choose between Atonement, No Country for Old Men, and The Notebook.

When I understood Macu’s options, I pulled rank and made the decision for her. It’s not that Macu wasn’t capable of coming into the store and doing a little research of her own, deciding which novel might best suit her needs and interests. It’s simply because I didn’t know her that well, and I was afraid that if she were left to decide on her own which novel might best suit her needs and interests, she might decide on The Notebook. Certainly millions of other intermediate-level readers of English had preferred The Notebook to more, how to say it, challenging titles. I just couldn’t take that chance.

That wasn’t really fair, to Macu or to the book. I’d withdrawn the thing unread, out of hand, with extreme prejudice. On principle, sort of. I used to consider myself a “serious writer,” and when I did, I picked up certain habits that seem to have stuck, one of which is to feel wildly superior to “non-serious writers,” e.g. writers of melodramatic romance novels. If the writer of melodramatic romance novels happens to make bank writing melodramatic romance novels, the serious writer is obliged to then feel not only wildly superior but wildly resentful, too, and thereby become that sad, all-too-familiar creature: the embittered serious writer, whose only recompense is a corrosive cocktail of contempt and envy. Now that I don’t really think of myself as a “serious writer,” I am slowly getting over the superiority complex. But I still grouse about anyone who makes bank writing melodramatic romance novels, mainly because they’re making bank, and I’m not. Suffice it to say that the decision to pull The Notebook from the pool was certainly made for all the wrong reasons.

Curiously, the author of The Notebook would go on to offer up a number of sound, perfectly logical reasons to reject not just The Notebook, but anything else he has ever written. In a 2010 USA Today interview, said author casually dismissed the work of Cormac McCarthy, compared himself to Ernest Hemingway, and named, as his favorite coming-of-age novel, one of his own books. When I first read the interview, I thought it had to be a sham, a sour-grapes parody cooked up by a bitter, less marketable writer. The notions were so preposterous that, once I understood that the interview was not a farce, I felt vindicated. I was right to have rejected The Notebook unread, out of hand, and with extreme prejudice; and if given the chance, I would do so again.

That’d show ‘em.

In any event, for reasons that are retroactively justifiable, I was left to choose either Atonement or No Country for Old Men. There was no danger of rashly judging the finalists by their respective covers: their respective covers were equally awful. Keira Knightley looking ever-so-comely against a backdrop of rolling meadows; Josh Brolin looking ever-so-tough against a backdrop of… Javier Bardem. Not Cecilia Tallis, Llewelyn Moss, and Chigurh, mind you — Keira Knightley, Josh Brolin, and Javier Bardem. If this weren’t enough, the back cover of each book featured that rectangular movie-poster thingy that credits the stars, the director, the producers et al, as if these people had something to do with the writing of the book. They didn’t. Hollywood’s stamp was so dominant in the repackaging — the new cover art, such as it was — I might have been excused for thinking that Atonement was a Keira Knightley vehicle that had been made into an Ian McKewan novel, and No Country for Old Men a Josh Brolin vehicle that had been made into a Cormac McCarthy novel.

I’ve never handled NOW-A-MAJOR-MOTION-PICTURE packaging very well. It has always seemed crass to me, vulgar, plain wrong. Maybe it lays the facts of the book business — that it is, finally, a business — too bare. But the idea that being a major motion picture somehow validates a book is backasswards. Repackaging is not about validating the book, of course: it’s about selling it. And it seems to work. Ian McKewan probably isn’t complaining much. And McCarthy first wrote No Country for Old Men as a screenplay. But still.

Judged on literary merit, in terms of complexity and reach, Atonement clearly wins out over No Country for Old Men. McCarthy himself likely wouldn’t argue that. Where Atonement reads like a tour de force, No Country… reads more like the screenplay it originally was, and later became again. Heavy on dialogue and driven by blunt exposition, it is a fast read, by far the most accessible of McCarthy’s novels, and the least searching. All of which had me leaning toward it. Not because I thought Macu wasn’t up to the challenge of a more literary effort, but because at an intermediate ESL level, if we’d excluded The Notebook — and we had, for retroactively sound reasons — direct language telling a reasonably linear story would surely be more useful than elaborate prose working through complex themes. No Country for Old Men it was.

The problems started early, with Macu wondering how to pronounce the name “Chigurh.” I didn’t know what to tell her. Wherever the name came from, it did not seem to adhere to any phonetic system either she or I was remotely familiar with. Perhaps the Basques could claim it. In any case, as a compromise we agreed to call Chigurh “Sugar,” which, if it was not an appropriate name for a murderous psychopath, was a pronounceable one. And even though pronouncing c-h-i-g-u-r-h as “sugar” did not adhere to any phonetic system either Macu or I was remotely familiar with, it was, in a sense, pedagogically useful. Calling Chigurh “Sugar,” Macu had an opportunity to practice the “sh” and short “u” sounds, neither of which exists in Spanish. If it came out “zoo-car” sometimes, that was pedagogically useful for me: the Spanish word for “sugar” is azucar, pronounced “ah-zoo-car.” Another not-entirely-obvious cognate situation revealed. As teachers, it’s not what we teach our students, it’s what they teach us. Or something like that.

Also initially problematic but ultimately useful was the word “blood,” of which there is much in the novel. Like most Spanish ESL students, Macu wanted to make “blood” rhyme with “food.” Having learned with other English words (like “food”) that the “oo” can in fact make that sound, and having a proximate sound in her own language, the long “oo” would seem a sensible choice — or at any rate an appealing one, since the short “uh” sound of “blood” is not part of Spanish. With “blood” we had an opportunity to work on the short “u” again, as well as an opportunity to face down yet another oddity of English spelling. Given the amount of blood in the novel, ample opportunity.

As to the context for all that blood, the “jet[s] of blood,” the “strangling on his own blood,” the “blood…pumping steadily”, the “money…slick with blood,” in class Macu would sometimes fall silent and squint at me, partly puzzled, partly worried, as though I had to be deranged to have chosen such a book. And maybe I was. That I could readily translate most of the technical language related to firearms — evidently you can take the man out of South Carolina, but… — certainly did not help my case. In the end there was but one pedagogical consolation I could offer: American English. Macu had said from the get-go that she wanted to learn American English. And so, what with all the strangling and suffocating and riddling with bullets, the .45s and .357s and submachine guns, she was.

All things considered, given the opportunity to go back and choose for herself, Macu might have preferred the American English found in The Notebook. So might I, frankly, if not for the principle of the thing. I have since read some of its author’s work, in an advertisement for the iPad on the back of a New Yorker (have you no shame?), and it seems suitable for someone who is learning to read English. The prose is uncomplicated and well stocked with common adjectives; and the dialogue is sure to be recognized by any Spaniard familiar with imported American movies-of-the-week or homegrown telenovelas. Then again, you don’t get better at a thing by playing your equals. To get better, you need a challenge.

Right?

________________________________________________
Charlie Geer is the author of the novel “Outbound: The Curious Secession of Latter-Day Charleston.” His work has appeared in Tin House, The Sun, Bloomsbury Magazine, and The Southern Review.