Life, death, love, horses and hand rolled cigarettes

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	• All the Pretty Horses Cormac Mccarthy Vintage, 1993 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 289 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Life, death, love, horses and hand rolled cigarettes

I can't believe I've waited this long to get into Cormac McCarthy. We Texans have always known him to be one of the great Texas western writers, right up there with Larry McMurtry, earning a place in our hearts. But Cormac is bigger than that. Bigger than Texas, you say? His craft has been compared to Faulkner and Conrad. We're talking about literature here.

After I saw the movie, "No Country For Old Men," I knew I should read this guy and I'd start somewhere near the beginning. I picked "All The Pretty Horses," the first in a series of novels called "The Border Trilogy." John Grady Cole, last of a long line of Texas ranchers is sixteen years old and from San Angelo, Texas, takes off with friend Lacey Rawlins, on an adventurous hero's journey by horseback across country, over the Rio Grande and south into Mexico.

Even though the time period is in the late 1940s and on the cusp of modern life, with cars, trucks and radios, the story is basically a western, with horses, cowboy coffee made over an open fire, guns, and hand rolled cigarettes. I like the sprinkling of Spanish throughout, even though I didn't comprehend it all. It was a nice touch.

I'm not sure if it's the lack of some punctuation such as quotations and apostrophes, or the ultra long sentences, or the full to the brim characters, but it puts this novel in a class of its own. The writing is beyond good, it's classic. For all us regular folks who can't take the high-literary of Faulkner, here's a true and gritty albeit well written western. I plan to read the next two books, and find I can't wait to get into volume two. "Pretty Horses" was haunting, it's emotion and realism hard to stop thinking about.

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Enchanting for the Brave at Heart

I had never read any of McCarthy's books before until I saw this one sitting on the shelf at the book store. Once I started to read it, I couldn't put it down. I'm a busy college student, but I always looked forward to reading this book because I had no idea what was going to happen.
This is a great book for anyone who loves adventure. I'm a lover of horses, and so I enjoyed soaking in McCarthy's descriptions. The random spanish phrases throughout the story may get on some peoples nerves, but I found them very interesting as I am learning spanish right now and I could interpret them.
Overall, a very beautifully written story, packed full with adventure and desire, horses and blood, and even some romance. It has everything to keep a reader thinking long after it has been finished.

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Lyrical Language

McCarthy is undoubtably the finest American writer at this time. His prose has a lyrical quality that is not often found in modern writing, while always remaining attached to the reality of life in the raw. His prose is evocative of the land in which the story arises and of the people of the Texas border. Much of the writing defies convention in terms of structure. Much of the writing is wrong in a technical sense, but just so right in an evocative and emotional sense.
This is writing that cuts straight to the heart. Like all great literature it opens a new window into the soul of humanity.

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A Western Epic

I will not be able to add much at all to the hundreds more articulate reviews. Nevertheless, I will write this novel is refreshing, beautifully written, and leads the reader down many intriguing paths. I hastily look forward to enjoying the two remaining Border trilogy installments.

All the Pretty Horses

I read the book, but don't recommend it. Why the two cowboys took off was not clear to me. They weren't doing anything constructive, like cattle drive, and had no destination in mind. Just took off and endured the desert.
I did not like the way he broke horses. I've seen horses broke to saddle by the great Ray Hunt NEVER anything like hobbling them. I thought it was a pointless adventure. The more I read the less I liked the characters.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Now a major motion picture from Columbia Pictures starring Matt Damon, produced by Mike Nichols, and directed by Billy Bob Thornton.

The national bestseller and the first volume in Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy, All the Pretty Horses is the tale of John Grady Cole, who at sixteen finds himself at the end of a long line of Texas ranchers, cut off from the only life he has ever imagined for himself. With two companions, he sets off for Mexico on a sometimes idyllic, sometimes comic journey to a place where dreams are paid for in blood. Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction.

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