Paperback, 1056 pages
English language
Published Nov. 30, 2002 by Picador.
All the Pretty Horses is a novel by American author Cormac McCarthy published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1992. Its romanticism (in contrast to the bleakness of McCarthy's earlier work) brought the writer much public attention. It was a bestseller, and it won both the U.S. National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. It is also the first of McCarthy's "Border Trilogy". The book was adapted as a 2000 film starring Matt Damon and Penélope Cruz and directed by Billy Bob Thornton.
I'm sorry, I was bored by this. I'm sorry stop throwing things at me ow
Perhaps the problem is the coming-of-age aspect, and since I never came of age I can't relate.
McCarthy sandwiches his novels with devastating, poetic language that always humbles me as a reader. I hang on every sentence and marvel at his mastery of language, often used in ways I hadn't thought of before, but then the stories find their legs and I am absorbed completely into the characters and events as they unfold. This novel is no different. What I didn't expect, having only read Blood Meridian before this was how entertaining and funny so much of the core story would be. There are dark moments for the characters, for sure, but those are earned. McCarthy loves these characters and that love spreads across the page.
I stopped reading this. I understand that Cormac has strong beliefs about punctuation (for example, refusing to use quotation marks among other things), but it makes it difficult to get into the book. The first 30 to 50 pages feels like you are fighting to understand what is going on.
Make my life, as the reader, easy. If you can't respect that, I can't offer you the honest time to read your work.
That said, the story was moving fairly slowly by the point I stopped. I didn't really care what happened to the two main characters (I was more interested in what happened to a third that bothered them while on their trip, that I assume makes an appearance later, but I will never know).
In short, this book isn't for me. It might be for you, if you like westerns or at least like stories that take place …
I stopped reading this. I understand that Cormac has strong beliefs about punctuation (for example, refusing to use quotation marks among other things), but it makes it difficult to get into the book. The first 30 to 50 pages feels like you are fighting to understand what is going on.
Make my life, as the reader, easy. If you can't respect that, I can't offer you the honest time to read your work.
That said, the story was moving fairly slowly by the point I stopped. I didn't really care what happened to the two main characters (I was more interested in what happened to a third that bothered them while on their trip, that I assume makes an appearance later, but I will never know).
In short, this book isn't for me. It might be for you, if you like westerns or at least like stories that take place in western US, and horses. But this just doesn't do it for me.
I'm a firm believer in giving up on a book if it doesn't grab you in the first 50 pages. Life is too short, and full of too many great reads, to struggle with a book. When I first picked up All the Pretty Horses I was underwhelmed. Couple of teenage boys leave home to travel down to Mexico for...well, I was never really clear on the reason. Perhaps because they're young they don't need a reason. They find work and one falls in love with the ranch owner's daughter. Naturally, that doesn't go over well yada yada yada. I almost gave up. Almost.
The thing that finally sucked me in was the character development. Our protagonist, John Grady, learns about life in a hard way. It doesn't destroy him or scar him or anything. It just teaches him. He has been one of the most interesting and solid characters …
I'm a firm believer in giving up on a book if it doesn't grab you in the first 50 pages. Life is too short, and full of too many great reads, to struggle with a book. When I first picked up All the Pretty Horses I was underwhelmed. Couple of teenage boys leave home to travel down to Mexico for...well, I was never really clear on the reason. Perhaps because they're young they don't need a reason. They find work and one falls in love with the ranch owner's daughter. Naturally, that doesn't go over well yada yada yada. I almost gave up. Almost.
The thing that finally sucked me in was the character development. Our protagonist, John Grady, learns about life in a hard way. It doesn't destroy him or scar him or anything. It just teaches him. He has been one of the most interesting and solid characters I've read in a story in a long time. I look forward to meeting up with him again in Cities of the Plain.
Oh, man. I had flipped through a McCarthy book once, and was put off that he doesn't use punctuation to indicate dialog. Seemed pretentious. My friend Irene assured me that he's wonderful, and to get over it. She's right, which isn't a surprise, really. The interesting thing is that I loved this book, even though the subject matter couldn't be less to my taste. It's the story of a 16 year old runaway in the 1940s in Texas and Mexico, chasing a dream of living the life of a 19th century cowboy. It's all horses and manliness, and I loved every page.[return][return]That said, this is book 1 of The Borders Trilogy. I started to read the 2nd book, "The Crossing", and have stalled halfway through. Everyone and everything is doomed, and I just can't take it.
