[shrinkboy]

well said, fotno. well said. fate is undoubtedly the major theme of mccarthy's writing, and he does it in a way that illustrates the impersonal nature of fate acting through the human host.

i like to think of fate in this way: we connect ourselves to our fate when we act with what the greeks called hubris i.e. the sense of pride which allows one to believe that he can overcome the consequences of going against what he knows to be wrong. in this case, moss unleashes the furies on himself when he takes the money. an act of hubris if there ever was one. he has now locked himself together with chigurh.

the other face of fate is destiny. my destiny is what i discover when i refuse the selfishness of taking on what cannot be overcome. my true self emerges and i am drawn to become what i truly am. if i bring the fates down on myself, then that can never happen.

one is doom, the other salvation. and this is the realm that all of mccarthy's work dwells in. if anyone's read The Road, then we get a relentless, utterly bleak, fate blasted world that ends with a grace note of salvation. an utterly miraculous, sparse, almost impossible to accept, yet nevertheless there it is fleeting vision of the world beyond this.