All the Pretty Horses

I hadn't read a McCarthy book since The Road years and years ago and this was terrific. I always thought this was some sort of soapy western based on the the movie adaptation, which I admittedly have not seen. There's a romance aspect to this, and it is indeed a novel with a romantic heart. However, this is a novel more about the love of the West than interpersonal romance.

Great dialog. I'd recommend it if you're already a fan of Westerns.

I can finally understand why people read McCarthy. If you haven't read him before, this might be a good one to start with: beautiful evocative language, memorable setting, not too much violence. But OK, that's it. I don't need to read it again, nor read any more of his books. I get it, and I get that I'm not smart enough to really appreciate his style, and that's fine.

Aside: do any women read McCarthy? And enjoy? I'd love to hear your perspectives if so.

All the Pretty Horses is a privilege to read.

It has the sweeping tone of a grand Western like Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry, with a focus on the grandeur of John Grady's journey across the landscape. McCarthy's metaphors and descriptions are beautiful, like reading poetry. Several scenes - mostly of riding through nature, and especially a romantic scene in a lake - are so pretty I read them several times. It's the most beautiful prose I've read since All The Light We Cannot See. It's both romantic (about a love story) and Romantic (anti-cynical), which is exactly like me; coming from his pitch-black post-apocalyptic novel The Road, this is an entirely different feel. It's also pretty funny at times, which I didn't really expect.

I've heard people compare his writing to As I Lay Dying. Although I happened to like that book in its own right, I think that Hemingway is a better comparison than Faulkner. McCarthy's sentences feel stark and clipped, even though sometimes they run on for a whole paragraph, and he doesn't use much punctuation. But they're never deliberately hard to follow, like some of the character chapters in Faulkner. This is just how McCarthy writes.

Cons: he uses a fair amount of technical language about horses and Spanish. Even though I know very little vocabulary for either, I didn't have a hard time following anything.

I loved this book, and whoever you might be, I think you would too.

Short review - beautifully written spare story about a teen seeking after what he cannot have. I really like McCarthy's style of writing. Heavy on detail and narrative, but light on dialogue. It works particularly well for the lone western man that this story is about. But I can see how some would find it boring or slow.

As much as I love McCarthy, his is somewhat hard to take because all of his books read like an Old Testament prophet calling down judgement on the world. There is so little grace and hope. But there is truth in the books. Sin and evil permeate the world, they affect the lives of even those that try to do the right things. So I will probably wait about six months before I read another of his books.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/all-the-pretty-horses/

McCarthy is the master of description and dialogue. All the Pretty Horses takes you on an incredible journey with a young man and his best friend seeking escape and adventure and a new life abroad only to find all those things and far more than they bargained for.

This is a coming of age story in a sense, a story of a boy searching for a purpose in a world where the life he knew was just turned upside down.

The story is fantastic. The pacing is perfect. The writing though is what sets this apart. The writing is superb. Some of the best stuff I have ever read.

”[. . .] they smelled of smoke and tallow and sweat and they looked as wild and strange as the country they were in.”

Yes. Yes, they did. McCarthy writes poetry on every page. There is no author in recent memory that can paint a picture, paint a mood, like McCarthy. This particular quote captures the texture of the story. For all your aspiring writers out there. This is masterclass stuff.