Transcending what you think the limits of westerns are

books:

	• All the Pretty Horses Cormac Mccarthy Vintage, 1993 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 301 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Saddle up for a long ride....

It seems superflouous to review a book that has 237 other reviews on Amazon, not counting the two professional reviews that precede those of the readers, however reporting on what I read is what I do, so here goes.

John Grady Cole is in for it. You know it from the moment you start the book and meet him at his grandfather's funeral. You are positive of it when near the mid point of the book he is finally able to talk to the daughter of his Mexican employer whom he has been worshipping from afar. They are riding their respective horses and she wants to swap. As he slides to the ground to comply with her wishes, he notes that "You are fixin to get me in trouble." Her reply holds true for the rest of the book, "You are in trouble."

The story winds itself about Cole's troubles and adventures, dreams and disappointments and does so in a manner that draws the reader along to the point where you feel like a rider on one of the "pretty horses."

McCarthy's style of punctuation, i.e. lack of, and his frequent lapse into the Mexican language can be annoying, but there is nothing wrong with his story telling. It is the first book in what he calls The Border Trilogy and as such is a promising start with many trails to ride before it closes.

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An atypical typical coming-of-age story

"All the Pretty Horses" is a deceptive title for this book, since no matter how beautiful the setting in which a scene takes place, violence is never far away. Although there is beauty in the form of horses, an untamed western landscape, and a (doomed) love affair, evil and ugliness abound in the coming-of-age tale of John Grady Cole. On a trip that changes the rest of his life, Cole goes from teenager to survivor to hero, becoming a hardened but wise man along the way.

I'm stunned by some readers' dismal views on "All the Pretty Horses," because I think it is one of the most beautiful, lyrical novels I have ever read. McCarthy's writing style is a bit tough to adjust to--yes, he does have a propensity for the word "and," a clear resentment of quotation marks, and an odd habit of making compound words out of everything (i.e., "candleflame")--but these are things I had no trouble adjusting to. Alas, I even enjoyed McCarthy's quirks as a welcome departure from the formulaic, mass-produced fiction that currently dominate bookstores' shelves ("Da Vinci Code," anyone?). Though the whole boy-grows-into-a-man concept has been done repeatedly, few do it more effectively or captivatingly than McCarthy here. Your literary repertoire is incomplete without "All the Pretty Horses."

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Transcending what you think the limits of westerns are

ALL THE PRETTY HORSES is the first book of Cormac McCarthy's "Border Trilogy", a series of novels set on the US-Mexico border in the years around World War II. At its heart, it is the story of John Grady Cole, who on the eve of manhood leaves Texas, where his family's ranch has just been sold, for Mexico where he hopes to find work. Accompanying him is his best friend Rawlins, and as they are crossing the border they are joined by a younger boy who calls himself Jimmy Blevins. In Mexico they find work on a ranch owned by a rich family. John Grady falls in love with the ranch owner's daughter, but while this is a meaningful part of the novel, the work as a whole is not a mere love story.

Behind its "horse opera" plot, ALL THE PRETTY HORSES is about many other things. It is a paean to the ranching life that was disappearing in the late 1940s. It is also an exploration of the simple values of people with a greater connection to the land, where transgressions are attoned for with blood and where adversity is constant.

This was the first work by McCarthy that I have read, and his style is quite individual. He does not use much in the way of quotation marks or punctuation, so his writing approximates stream of consciousness. He also is fond of similes, especially strikingly odd ones for this genre. At one point, for example, the protagonist sees another awaiting him sitting under a tree, who looks "like some figure in meditation." Much of the dialogue is left in Spanish, which makes for a great authenticity, and readers will get much more out of the book if they have some knowledge of the language. McCarthy's style is indeed peculiar, but it makes for pleasant reading, and I look forward to moving on to the subsequent volumes in this trilogy.

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reviews: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, page 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

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