Tree of Smoke

[Daniel Julius]

How about because of his hubris?  Remember his confidence in the
office?  "He's a sociopath, but there's a lot of them in this world."
And then his portrayal of himself as The Only Hope for Moss in the
hospital?

Not only has he had his day like Mr. Haney suggests, but he is falsely
confident that he is still living in that moment.

--
Dan


On Nov 18, 2007 4:16 PM, Richard Ryan <richardryannyc at yahoo.com> wrote:
> The writing is evocative, but that scene made no sense to me.  Why did Wells, a trained killer like Chigurh, go docilely to his death? Why did he walk into Chigurh's trap and then submit to his own execution?  And why did McCarthy introduce an interesting character - in some sense a sane version of Chigurh - and then eliminate him? To make a some didactic point about the implacability of Chigurh and the evil that he represents?
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Keith <keithsz at mac.com>
> To: Pynchon-l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Sunday, November 18, 2007 4:55:24 PM
> Subject: Re: Tree of Smoke
>
>
> I like this better:
>
> "He closed his eyes and he turned his head and raised one hand to
> fend away that which could not be fended away. Chigurh shot him in
> the face. Everything that Wells had ever known or thought or loved
> drained slowly down the wall behind him. His mother's face, his First
> Communion, women he had known. The faces of men as they died on their
> knees before him. The body of a child dead in a roadside ravine in
> another country. He lay half headless on the bed with his arms
> outflung, most of his right hand missing. Chigurh rose and picked up
> the empty casing off the rug and blew into it and put it in his
> pocket and looked at his watch. The new day was still a minute away."
>
>    --off camera from McCarthy's _No Country_
>
> On Nov 18, 2007, at 7:02 AM, Monte Davis wrote:
>
> "From all around came the ten thousand sounds of the jungle, as well
> as the
> cries of gulls and the far-off surf, and if [Bill] stopped dead and
> listened
> a minute, he could hear also the pulse snickering in the heat of his
> flesh,
> and the creak of sweat in his ears."
>
>
>
>
>
>