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The Border Trilogy #1
All the Pretty Horses
Teenager John Grady Cole, the last of a long line of Texas ranchers, has nothing left to stay for. Across the border Mexico beckons—beautiful and desolate, rugged and cruelly civilized. With neighbor Rawlins, and scruffy boy, he rides toward an idyllic, sometimes comic adventure, to a place where dreams are paid for in blood.
302 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
About the author
Cormac McCarthy
58 books24.7k followersCormac McCarthy was an American novelist and playwright. He wrote twelve novels in the Southern Gothic, western, and post-apocalyptic genres and also wrote plays and screenplays. He received the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for The Road, and his 2005 novel No Country for Old Men was adapted as a 2007 film of the same name, which won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. His earlier Blood Meridian (1985) was among Time Magazine's poll of 100 best English-language books published between 1925 and 2005, and he placed joint runner-up for a similar title in a poll taken in 2006 by The New York Times of the best American fiction published in the last 25 years. Literary critic Harold Bloom named him one of the four major American novelists of his time, along with Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, and Philip Roth. He is frequently compared by modern reviewers to William Faulkner. In 2009, Cormac McCarthy won the PEN/Saul Bellow Award, a lifetime achievement award given by the PEN American Center.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 8,908 reviews
August 15, 2020
I read this one a while ago and some of the scenes are still with me. And because of the continual flashes in remembrances I have to put this book into my top five of all time. The prose is lyrical, the characters three dimensional. The scene that comes back to me the most is the one where the two main characters are befriended by a kid down in Mexico All three are detained by the Mexican police and the horse the kid is riding is one he'd stolen. The Mexican police take him off and shoot him while the two friends wait, helpless to stop it. A good book is about conflict and conflict is all about emotions. For me that is one of the most emotional scenes I have ever read. This is a story of comradery, romance, a story of loyalty and loss. This book is one of a trilogy. I didn't like the others as much as I enjoyed this one. I think I just talked myself into reading this one again.
David Putnam author of The Bruno Johnson series.
David Putnam author of The Bruno Johnson series.
March 30, 2024
‘Between the wish and the thing the world lies waiting.’
The world is made of stories and these stories form cultural ideas about a place and time, such as all the mythos of the American West with ideas of heroics in hard times, gunfights, horses and living close to nature. But striping away the romanticisism reveals the reality beneath and the hard facts of life one must inevitably confront. Cormac McCarthy’s National Book Award winning novel, All the Pretty Horses, blends the brutality and beauty of life in a stunning bildungsroman that strips away the mythos of the American West as the old world gives way to the modern one. 16 year old John Grady Cole is ‘like a man come to the end of something’ when, distraught by his family selling the family ranch to the corporatization of oil, highways and industry creeping across the land, crosses into Mexico with friend Lacey Rawlings with his heart set on the adventure and heroisms of the cowboy mythos. But have they found paradise or have they entered a hell from which they will not make it back alive? Told in McCarthy’s ornate, signature prose and set in a threatening landscape that is practically a character on it’s own, All the Pretty Horses is a fantastic journey about border crossings: from one land to another, from naivety to understanding and from adolescence into adulthood.
When All the Pretty Horses was published in 1992, buoyed by the win of the National Book Award it outsold all of McCarthy’s previous novels combined and brought the author finally into the spotlight. Not that there was anything lacking in his previous works—Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West is often cited as a favorite—but the combination of McCarthy’s exquisite prose in a more plot-forward and less dense work has wowed critics and fans alike and it works well as an entrypoint into his works for that reason. This is a book that is difficult to put down, the writing which is practically a protagonist to overshadow his own characters takes hold on the reigns of your mind and sends you galloping into the action and intrigue that never lets up. While a few parts many feel a little over the top, such as the multi-day prison brawl and climactic showdown, the writing and imagery is so engaging and engrossing that you’ll hardly notice. McCarthy’s prose often reads like a cross between the Old Testament and William Faulkner, often with a lush loquacity that can also drive succinct and direct images into the reader’s mind and also expand their vocabulary. It moves as if with the natural world it describes, never being unnecessarily verbose but always a formidable force of language.
‘I knew that courage came with less struggle for some than for others but I believed that anyone who desired it could have it.’
As the novel opens, we find John Grady Cole mourning the loss of his grandfather, losing his girlfriend and also knowing that soon he will lose the family ranch he always hoped to inherit. While he is full of gusto and confidence, we find him to still be a starry-eyed youth constructing the facade of being ‘a Man’ than actually having achieved maturity. During his break-up when she offers to remain friends he accuses her of being ‘all talk.’ When she responds that everything is just talk he says ‘not everything’, an early indication that he values action above all else but it is contained in a scene where he displays a lack of maturity. The novel functions as a coming-of-age tale, with Grady learning to take responsibility for his actions as he moves towards maturation.
‘It may be that the life I desire for her no longer even exists.’
A major part of his coming-of-age, however, is the waking from the dream of the American mythos. He is drawn to Blevins, the young horse boy they meet early on in Mexico, despite Rawlings not trusting him. Grady see’s him as someone of action, something wild and embodying the cowboy mythos of living in communion with the land.
With Blevins, however, we see the tough cowboy act as a quick ticket towards disaster and cracks in the mythos begin to reveal itself as juvenile. The horrific end this leads to is enough to shock anyone awake into the reality of life and death, and suddenly posturing is shown to have deadly consequences ready to snatch you from this world. It’s a scene I’ll never forget, blunt as a gunshot, and told in such a way as to leave you teeming with details that suddenly become muted in the aftershock.
Much of this novel is about border crossings, a multi-functional metaphor that encompasses both physical and emotional spaces. There is also the crossing from idealization into acceptance of reality. Grady resents the loss of the myth of the American West as industrialization and modernization take over, idealizing Mexico as a fresh wilderness full of adventure he can live out his cowboy fantasies within (which, okay, a bit problematic in the ‘savage Others’ way). When Grady and Rawlins reach the ranch upon which they work, it is a sort of found Paradise to them, the promised land they had been chasing. Though along the way the land echoes different tones, depicted as threatening and violent (think the birds caught and dying in the thorns they pass). Grady’s actions, a metaphorical feasting on the forbidden fruit that is Don Hector’s daughter, Alejandra, quickly has them thrown from Paradise for their descent into Hell: prison. The book is rife with religious imagery and the crossing from Heaven into Hell, with a purgatory session in recovery later, adds a dramatic weight that comes alive and sinks its fangs into you through McCarthy’s prose.
The prose does a lot of heavy lifting in this novel, where even a single word in Spanish in the dialogue is used to denote the ethnicity of a character. ‘The truth is what happened,’ says John Grady, ‘it ain't what come out of somebody's mouth,’ and in keeping with this belief, and that of action mattering more than words, McCarthy’s prose shows us what the characters are made of through how we see them respond and through the metaphorical language around them. Just as the landscape is a character in the novel, so is the language itself.
‘Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real.’
Perhaps the greatest lesson in accepting reality and waking from the dream of idealism comes from Dueña Alfonsa, who tells of the failed revolution and the reality that hit hard to those clinging to ideals. It isn’t to say that ideals aren’t worth fighting for, but the understanding of what can be done, what must be done to do it, and that some borders can not be crossed. ‘It is supposed to be true that those who do not know history are condemned to repeat it,’ we are told, ‘I don't believe knowing can save us. What is constant in history is greed and foolishness and love of blood.’ Evil is real and will lead to death, and those familiar with McCarthy know that the unstoppable force of evil is often embodied in his novels. For Grady, this is learning that the Paradise he idealizes can never be his, but learning to love what can be his all the same. Which is the most meaningful part of this novel, that even amidst all the violence and darkness, Grady always holds on to believing in good and beauty.
I enjoyed that there were so many strong women in this novel too, and that it was from women that the young men learn the truths of life. Dueña Alfonsa is a strong character, and so is Alejandra. True, much of her character exists for romantic purposes, but she is also a highly capable and strong character that even shows up the boys at riding.
‘Don't fear Death. Its only gonna help you die faster, its not gonna help you live.’
It can be seen that All the Pretty Horses adheres to the Joseph Campbell narrative of the Hero’s Journey, with the boys setting out, meeting helpers, mentors, temptors and falling into the abyss where rebirth and transformation occur. The prison sequence, with Grady and Rawlins fighting for days on end, functions as the hellish catalyst for transformation. Once Grady has killed a man, heroics no longer seem so heroic. It is no longer something you do to be brave or be a hero, it is something you do because it is what you have to do. The romanticization of heroes and cowboy myths dissolve under the crushing weight of reality, life and death, and in this way we see Grady return home with a lesson under his belt. He left a youth, returned as an adult with a new found sense of self and purpose.
‘The closest bonds we will ever know are bonds of grief. The deepest community is one of sorrow.’
Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses is a wild ride that tears at the fabrics of myths and tugs at our heartstrings all the same. Violent, brutal, yet deeply beautiful, this is a fascinating coming-of-age tale that goes about it in unexpected ways while teaching lasting lessons. But most of all, it is a lot of fun and has a few scenes that are forever burned into my memory. ‘In the end we all come to be cured of our sentiments,’ writes McCarthy, ‘those whom life does not cure death will. The world is quite ruthless in selecting between the dream and reality, even where we will not. Between the wish and the thing the world lies waiting.’ May the world be a place where we can thrive and appreciate the beauty even amidst all the darkness, and may you enjoy this novel as much as I did.
4.5/5
‘He stood at the window of the empty cafe and watched the activities in the square and he said that it was good that God kept the truths of life from the young as they were starting out or else they'd have no heart to start at all.’
The world is made of stories and these stories form cultural ideas about a place and time, such as all the mythos of the American West with ideas of heroics in hard times, gunfights, horses and living close to nature. But striping away the romanticisism reveals the reality beneath and the hard facts of life one must inevitably confront. Cormac McCarthy’s National Book Award winning novel, All the Pretty Horses, blends the brutality and beauty of life in a stunning bildungsroman that strips away the mythos of the American West as the old world gives way to the modern one. 16 year old John Grady Cole is ‘like a man come to the end of something’ when, distraught by his family selling the family ranch to the corporatization of oil, highways and industry creeping across the land, crosses into Mexico with friend Lacey Rawlings with his heart set on the adventure and heroisms of the cowboy mythos. But have they found paradise or have they entered a hell from which they will not make it back alive? Told in McCarthy’s ornate, signature prose and set in a threatening landscape that is practically a character on it’s own, All the Pretty Horses is a fantastic journey about border crossings: from one land to another, from naivety to understanding and from adolescence into adulthood.
When All the Pretty Horses was published in 1992, buoyed by the win of the National Book Award it outsold all of McCarthy’s previous novels combined and brought the author finally into the spotlight. Not that there was anything lacking in his previous works—Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West is often cited as a favorite—but the combination of McCarthy’s exquisite prose in a more plot-forward and less dense work has wowed critics and fans alike and it works well as an entrypoint into his works for that reason. This is a book that is difficult to put down, the writing which is practically a protagonist to overshadow his own characters takes hold on the reigns of your mind and sends you galloping into the action and intrigue that never lets up. While a few parts many feel a little over the top, such as the multi-day prison brawl and climactic showdown, the writing and imagery is so engaging and engrossing that you’ll hardly notice. McCarthy’s prose often reads like a cross between the Old Testament and William Faulkner, often with a lush loquacity that can also drive succinct and direct images into the reader’s mind and also expand their vocabulary. It moves as if with the natural world it describes, never being unnecessarily verbose but always a formidable force of language.
‘I knew that courage came with less struggle for some than for others but I believed that anyone who desired it could have it.’
As the novel opens, we find John Grady Cole mourning the loss of his grandfather, losing his girlfriend and also knowing that soon he will lose the family ranch he always hoped to inherit. While he is full of gusto and confidence, we find him to still be a starry-eyed youth constructing the facade of being ‘a Man’ than actually having achieved maturity. During his break-up when she offers to remain friends he accuses her of being ‘all talk.’ When she responds that everything is just talk he says ‘not everything’, an early indication that he values action above all else but it is contained in a scene where he displays a lack of maturity. The novel functions as a coming-of-age tale, with Grady learning to take responsibility for his actions as he moves towards maturation.
‘It may be that the life I desire for her no longer even exists.’
A major part of his coming-of-age, however, is the waking from the dream of the American mythos. He is drawn to Blevins, the young horse boy they meet early on in Mexico, despite Rawlings not trusting him. Grady see’s him as someone of action, something wild and embodying the cowboy mythos of living in communion with the land.
‘What he loved in horses was what he loved in men, the blood and the heat of the blood that ran them. All his reverence and all his fondness and all the leanings of his life were for the ardenthearted and they would always be so and never be otherwise.’
With Blevins, however, we see the tough cowboy act as a quick ticket towards disaster and cracks in the mythos begin to reveal itself as juvenile. The horrific end this leads to is enough to shock anyone awake into the reality of life and death, and suddenly posturing is shown to have deadly consequences ready to snatch you from this world. It’s a scene I’ll never forget, blunt as a gunshot, and told in such a way as to leave you teeming with details that suddenly become muted in the aftershock.
Much of this novel is about border crossings, a multi-functional metaphor that encompasses both physical and emotional spaces. There is also the crossing from idealization into acceptance of reality. Grady resents the loss of the myth of the American West as industrialization and modernization take over, idealizing Mexico as a fresh wilderness full of adventure he can live out his cowboy fantasies within (which, okay, a bit problematic in the ‘savage Others’ way). When Grady and Rawlins reach the ranch upon which they work, it is a sort of found Paradise to them, the promised land they had been chasing. Though along the way the land echoes different tones, depicted as threatening and violent (think the birds caught and dying in the thorns they pass). Grady’s actions, a metaphorical feasting on the forbidden fruit that is Don Hector’s daughter, Alejandra, quickly has them thrown from Paradise for their descent into Hell: prison. The book is rife with religious imagery and the crossing from Heaven into Hell, with a purgatory session in recovery later, adds a dramatic weight that comes alive and sinks its fangs into you through McCarthy’s prose.
The prose does a lot of heavy lifting in this novel, where even a single word in Spanish in the dialogue is used to denote the ethnicity of a character. ‘The truth is what happened,’ says John Grady, ‘it ain't what come out of somebody's mouth,’ and in keeping with this belief, and that of action mattering more than words, McCarthy’s prose shows us what the characters are made of through how we see them respond and through the metaphorical language around them. Just as the landscape is a character in the novel, so is the language itself.
‘Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real.’
Perhaps the greatest lesson in accepting reality and waking from the dream of idealism comes from Dueña Alfonsa, who tells of the failed revolution and the reality that hit hard to those clinging to ideals. It isn’t to say that ideals aren’t worth fighting for, but the understanding of what can be done, what must be done to do it, and that some borders can not be crossed. ‘It is supposed to be true that those who do not know history are condemned to repeat it,’ we are told, ‘I don't believe knowing can save us. What is constant in history is greed and foolishness and love of blood.’ Evil is real and will lead to death, and those familiar with McCarthy know that the unstoppable force of evil is often embodied in his novels. For Grady, this is learning that the Paradise he idealizes can never be his, but learning to love what can be his all the same. Which is the most meaningful part of this novel, that even amidst all the violence and darkness, Grady always holds on to believing in good and beauty.
‘He thought that in the beauty of the world were hid a secret. He thought that the world’s heartbeat at some terrible cost and that the world’s pain and its beauty moved in a relationship of diverging equity and that in this headlong deficit the blood of multitudes might ultimately be exacted for the vision of a single flower.’
I enjoyed that there were so many strong women in this novel too, and that it was from women that the young men learn the truths of life. Dueña Alfonsa is a strong character, and so is Alejandra. True, much of her character exists for romantic purposes, but she is also a highly capable and strong character that even shows up the boys at riding.
‘Don't fear Death. Its only gonna help you die faster, its not gonna help you live.’
It can be seen that All the Pretty Horses adheres to the Joseph Campbell narrative of the Hero’s Journey, with the boys setting out, meeting helpers, mentors, temptors and falling into the abyss where rebirth and transformation occur. The prison sequence, with Grady and Rawlins fighting for days on end, functions as the hellish catalyst for transformation. Once Grady has killed a man, heroics no longer seem so heroic. It is no longer something you do to be brave or be a hero, it is something you do because it is what you have to do. The romanticization of heroes and cowboy myths dissolve under the crushing weight of reality, life and death, and in this way we see Grady return home with a lesson under his belt. He left a youth, returned as an adult with a new found sense of self and purpose.
‘The closest bonds we will ever know are bonds of grief. The deepest community is one of sorrow.’
Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses is a wild ride that tears at the fabrics of myths and tugs at our heartstrings all the same. Violent, brutal, yet deeply beautiful, this is a fascinating coming-of-age tale that goes about it in unexpected ways while teaching lasting lessons. But most of all, it is a lot of fun and has a few scenes that are forever burned into my memory. ‘In the end we all come to be cured of our sentiments,’ writes McCarthy, ‘those whom life does not cure death will. The world is quite ruthless in selecting between the dream and reality, even where we will not. Between the wish and the thing the world lies waiting.’ May the world be a place where we can thrive and appreciate the beauty even amidst all the darkness, and may you enjoy this novel as much as I did.
4.5/5
‘He stood at the window of the empty cafe and watched the activities in the square and he said that it was good that God kept the truths of life from the young as they were starting out or else they'd have no heart to start at all.’
May 22, 2011
All the Pretty Horses isn’t quite as grim as other Cormac McCarthy work that I’ve read but considering that this includes The Road, Blood Meridian, No Country For Old Men and watching the HBO adaptation of his play The Sunset Limited, it's still so bleak that your average person will be depressed enough to be checked into a mental ward and put on suicide watch after finishing it.
John Grady Cole is a sixteen year old cowboy in Texas a few years after World War II who was raised on his grandfather’s ranch after his parents split up. After his grandfather dies, the ranch is being sold off. With no where else to go, John and his best friend Lacey Rawlins ride off for Mexico. Along the way they hook up with a runaway kid who is nothing but bad news. After getting work on a large ranch, John catches the owner’s eye with his skill working with horses, but after being promoted, John falls in love with the owner’s daughter which leads to trouble for him and Rawlins.
I guess you could say that this is a tragic romance or a coming-of-age story, but that’s like comparing The Road to the The Road Warrior. Or saying that Blood Meridian is just a western. Or calling No Country For Old Men a simple crime story. There’s a lot more going on than just a couple of kids running off to play cowboy. John and Rawlins get their eyes harshly opened to just how cruel and unforgiving the world can be and that pleasures like young love can’t possibly hope to endure in the face of that.
As usual, McCarthy's views on life and death and good and evil won’t leave any sane person skipping down the street while whistling and looking for rainbows, but he’s so skilled that even his grim outlook has a kind of dark beauty to it.
John Grady Cole is a sixteen year old cowboy in Texas a few years after World War II who was raised on his grandfather’s ranch after his parents split up. After his grandfather dies, the ranch is being sold off. With no where else to go, John and his best friend Lacey Rawlins ride off for Mexico. Along the way they hook up with a runaway kid who is nothing but bad news. After getting work on a large ranch, John catches the owner’s eye with his skill working with horses, but after being promoted, John falls in love with the owner’s daughter which leads to trouble for him and Rawlins.
I guess you could say that this is a tragic romance or a coming-of-age story, but that’s like comparing The Road to the The Road Warrior. Or saying that Blood Meridian is just a western. Or calling No Country For Old Men a simple crime story. There’s a lot more going on than just a couple of kids running off to play cowboy. John and Rawlins get their eyes harshly opened to just how cruel and unforgiving the world can be and that pleasures like young love can’t possibly hope to endure in the face of that.
As usual, McCarthy's views on life and death and good and evil won’t leave any sane person skipping down the street while whistling and looking for rainbows, but he’s so skilled that even his grim outlook has a kind of dark beauty to it.
September 24, 2021
All the Pretty Horses (The Border Trilogy, #1), Cormac McCarthy
All the Pretty Horses is a novel by American author Cormac McCarthy published in 1992.
Its romanticism (in contrast to the bleakness of McCarthy's earlier work) brought the writer much public attention. It is also the first of McCarthy's "Border Trilogy".
The novel tells of John Grady Cole, a 16-year-old who grew up on his grandfather's ranch in San Angelo, Texas.
The boy was raised for a significant part of his youth, perhaps 15 of his 16 years, by a family of Mexican origin who worked on the ranch; he is a native speaker of Spanish and English.
The story begins in 1949, soon after the death of John Grady's grandfather when Grady learns the ranch is to be sold.
Faced with the prospect of moving into town, Grady instead chooses to leave and persuades his best friend, Lacey Rawlins, to accompany him.
Traveling by horseback, the pair travel southward into Mexico, where they hope to find work as cowboys. ...
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز دوم ماه ژانویه سال 2014میلادی
عنوان: همه اسبهای زیبا؛ نویسنده: کورمک مکارتی؛ مترجم: کاوه میرعباسی؛ تهران، نیکا، 1390، در 416ص؛ شابک9786005906448؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده 20م
داستان در سال 1949میلادی، در «تگزاس» آغاز میگردد؛ و درباره ی کابویی شانزده ساله، به نام «جان گردی کول» است، که در آغاز داستان، با مرگ پدربزرگش، عزادار میشود؛ در این بین، مادرش تصمیم میگیرد، تا املاکشان را بفروشند، و مهاجرت کنند؛ اما «جان»، که رویای گاوچرانی، و آزادی را، در سر دارد، خانه را ترک، و به همراه دوستش، راهی «مکزیک» میشوند؛ «جان گردی کول»، و «لیسی رائولینز»، که نمیتوانند رویاهای ماجراجویانه شان را، در «آمریکا»ی پس از جنگ جهانی دوم، واقعیت ببخشند، «تگزاس» را ترک، و به سوی «مکزیک» میتازند؛ این دو نوجوان، در آرزوی جشن مدام، در دل طبیعتی دست نخورده، به دوردست میروند؛ اما این سفر پرامید، که میبایست درس زندگی، و تجربه به آنان بیاموزد، به کابوسی دوزخی بدل میشود...؛
تاریخ 19/11/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 01/07/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
All the Pretty Horses is a novel by American author Cormac McCarthy published in 1992.
Its romanticism (in contrast to the bleakness of McCarthy's earlier work) brought the writer much public attention. It is also the first of McCarthy's "Border Trilogy".
The novel tells of John Grady Cole, a 16-year-old who grew up on his grandfather's ranch in San Angelo, Texas.
The boy was raised for a significant part of his youth, perhaps 15 of his 16 years, by a family of Mexican origin who worked on the ranch; he is a native speaker of Spanish and English.
The story begins in 1949, soon after the death of John Grady's grandfather when Grady learns the ranch is to be sold.
Faced with the prospect of moving into town, Grady instead chooses to leave and persuades his best friend, Lacey Rawlins, to accompany him.
Traveling by horseback, the pair travel southward into Mexico, where they hope to find work as cowboys. ...
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز دوم ماه ژانویه سال 2014میلادی
عنوان: همه اسبهای زیبا؛ نویسنده: کورمک مکارتی؛ مترجم: کاوه میرعباسی؛ تهران، نیکا، 1390، در 416ص؛ شابک9786005906448؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده 20م
داستان در سال 1949میلادی، در «تگزاس» آغاز میگردد؛ و درباره ی کابویی شانزده ساله، به نام «جان گردی کول» است، که در آغاز داستان، با مرگ پدربزرگش، عزادار میشود؛ در این بین، مادرش تصمیم میگیرد، تا املاکشان را بفروشند، و مهاجرت کنند؛ اما «جان»، که رویای گاوچرانی، و آزادی را، در سر دارد، خانه را ترک، و به همراه دوستش، راهی «مکزیک» میشوند؛ «جان گردی کول»، و «لیسی رائولینز»، که نمیتوانند رویاهای ماجراجویانه شان را، در «آمریکا»ی پس از جنگ جهانی دوم، واقعیت ببخشند، «تگزاس» را ترک، و به سوی «مکزیک» میتازند؛ این دو نوجوان، در آرزوی جشن مدام، در دل طبیعتی دست نخورده، به دوردست میروند؛ اما این سفر پرامید، که میبایست درس زندگی، و تجربه به آنان بیاموزد، به کابوسی دوزخی بدل میشود...؛
تاریخ 19/11/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 01/07/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
March 3, 2023
“They crossed highway 90 midmorning of the following day and rode out onto a pastureland dotted with grazing cattle. Far to the south the mountains of Mexico drifted in and out of the uncertain light of a moving cloud-cover like ghosts of mountains. Two hours later they were at the river. They sat on a low bluff and took off their hats and watched it. The water was the color of clay and roily and they could hear it in the rips downstream. The sandbar below them was thickly grown with willow and carrizo cane and the bluffs on the far side were stained and cavepocked and traversed by a constant myriad of swallows. Beyond that the desert rolled as before. They turned and looked at each other and put on their hats…”
- Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses
The trick I've learned to reading Cormac McCarthy is to treat even his short books as I would hefty Russian novels. McCarthy has to be read deliberately. You can’t skim; you can’t read his words when you have other things going on. The prose is simply too ornamented, the commas too few, to understand unless you give him your complete and undivided attention.
My paperback edition of All the Pretty Horses – which is larger than a mass market, but smaller than a trade – is 302 pages. I can fit it into the pocket of my sweat pants which, if we’re being honest, I probably wear too often.
It’s the kind of novel that seems like a quick read. A modern western about American cowboys in the twilight of their profession. Yet the first line – “The candleflame and the image of the candleflame caught in the pierglass twisted and righted when he entered the hall and again when he shut the door” – announces straightaway that you are going to have to block out some uninterrupted hours to fully absorb what’s going on.
Fortunately, this is worth the effort.
***
As the saying goes, All the Pretty Horses – the first entry in McCarthy’s “Border Trilogy” – is less about the story and more about how it’s told.
The plot is pretty basic: two young men go on a journey. Those two are sixteen-year-old John Grady Cole and his buddy Lacey Rawlins. When the book opens, they are living in Texas four years after the end of the Second World War. Cole’s grandfather has died, and the grandfather’s ranch is being sold. With nothing particular holding him down, Cole decides on an adventure down south, and gets Rawlins to join him.
Traveling by horseback, Cole and Rawlins cross the border into Mexico, planning on finding work as cowboys. Along the way, they encounter another young man, Jimmy Blevins, who has a horse and gun that don’t seem to belong to him.
Without giving away too much, it will suffice to say that the trio will find both love and trouble, and eventually have to try to get back to Texas.
***
One of the best things I’ve ever read on the internet was a humor piece on a now-defunct website, in which the author retold the 1990 children’s Christmas classic Home Alone while channeling Cormac McCarthy’s style. The lesson, I suppose, is that when judging McCarthy’s unique literary mannerisms, the line between authenticity and parody is pretty narrow.
This is all to say that whether or not you like All the Pretty Horses, or even attempt it in the first place, comes down to your tolerance for extremely stylized prose. There are long, run-on sentences, detailed descriptive passages, dialogue without quotation marks, and fragments of untranslated Spanish. The characters are simple men, with simple, practical thoughts. All the images and ideas swirling around them are far more complex.
I loved it.
The sense of place that McCarthy constructs is incredibly tactile. The way he describes the topography, a sudden thunderstorm, the setting of the sun, is magnificent; you don’t really have to imagine it because he’s put the picture in front of your inner eyes.
Each of his sentences requires attention, and even when the urgency of the tale occasionally makes you want to hurry ahead to see what will happen, you have to resist the impulse.
McCarthy has spent much of his writing life on the borderlands of Texas and Mexico, and he describes it with complete confidence. I cannot honestly say if it’s an accurate portrayal, but that’s not really the point in fiction. The point is whether it feels right. And it does.
***
The long shadow of the writing tends to obscure the characters a bit. They do not seem as fully realized as the landscapes. John Grady Cole is the only one we get to know very well, and he’s a bit of a cipher. Defined more by his actions than his thoughts, we know that he is competent, tough, and good with horses, but his internal motivations remain shrouded.
The supporting cast is a mixed bag. Lacey, for instance, is a nonentity. Others, such as Alfonsa, a woman Cole meets while working at a hacienda in Mexico, make a more memorable impression. Still, this isn’t one of those books where I genuinely worried about anyone. While I wanted to know where everyone ended up, I was driven more by intellectual curiosity than emotional connection. McCarthy weaves a hypnotic spell in his descriptions, but he never truly creates the illusion that his fictional creations are real, and thus deserving of my concern. For as much as I liked All the Pretty Horses, it didn’t grip me on a human level.
***
When it comes down to it, I have a bit of reading-anxiety. Time is always getting shorter, the list of books I want to read is always getting longer, and I’m far from a speed-reader. I’ll admit there are times that I pick out a slim novel in the hopes of moving a title from my “pending” shelf to my “finished” shelf.
That’s not the best approach, obviously. So when I picked up All the Pretty Horses, slight as it is, I consciously decided to employ a more unhurried pace. I spent as much time with it as I spend on books twice as long. It was worth it, as McCarthy – for all his pretensions – is an exceptionally unique world-builder, creating a place of lasting images, both beautiful and violent.
- Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses
The trick I've learned to reading Cormac McCarthy is to treat even his short books as I would hefty Russian novels. McCarthy has to be read deliberately. You can’t skim; you can’t read his words when you have other things going on. The prose is simply too ornamented, the commas too few, to understand unless you give him your complete and undivided attention.
My paperback edition of All the Pretty Horses – which is larger than a mass market, but smaller than a trade – is 302 pages. I can fit it into the pocket of my sweat pants which, if we’re being honest, I probably wear too often.
It’s the kind of novel that seems like a quick read. A modern western about American cowboys in the twilight of their profession. Yet the first line – “The candleflame and the image of the candleflame caught in the pierglass twisted and righted when he entered the hall and again when he shut the door” – announces straightaway that you are going to have to block out some uninterrupted hours to fully absorb what’s going on.
Fortunately, this is worth the effort.
***
As the saying goes, All the Pretty Horses – the first entry in McCarthy’s “Border Trilogy” – is less about the story and more about how it’s told.
The plot is pretty basic: two young men go on a journey. Those two are sixteen-year-old John Grady Cole and his buddy Lacey Rawlins. When the book opens, they are living in Texas four years after the end of the Second World War. Cole’s grandfather has died, and the grandfather’s ranch is being sold. With nothing particular holding him down, Cole decides on an adventure down south, and gets Rawlins to join him.
Traveling by horseback, Cole and Rawlins cross the border into Mexico, planning on finding work as cowboys. Along the way, they encounter another young man, Jimmy Blevins, who has a horse and gun that don’t seem to belong to him.
Without giving away too much, it will suffice to say that the trio will find both love and trouble, and eventually have to try to get back to Texas.
***
One of the best things I’ve ever read on the internet was a humor piece on a now-defunct website, in which the author retold the 1990 children’s Christmas classic Home Alone while channeling Cormac McCarthy’s style. The lesson, I suppose, is that when judging McCarthy’s unique literary mannerisms, the line between authenticity and parody is pretty narrow.
This is all to say that whether or not you like All the Pretty Horses, or even attempt it in the first place, comes down to your tolerance for extremely stylized prose. There are long, run-on sentences, detailed descriptive passages, dialogue without quotation marks, and fragments of untranslated Spanish. The characters are simple men, with simple, practical thoughts. All the images and ideas swirling around them are far more complex.
I loved it.
The sense of place that McCarthy constructs is incredibly tactile. The way he describes the topography, a sudden thunderstorm, the setting of the sun, is magnificent; you don’t really have to imagine it because he’s put the picture in front of your inner eyes.
They rode all day…through the hill country to the west. As they rode they cut strips of the smoked and half dried deermeat and chewed on it and their hands were black and greasy and they wiped them on the withers of the horses and passed the canteen of water back and forth between them and admired the country. There were storms to the south and masses of clouds that moved slowly along the horizon with their long tendrils trailing in the rain. That night they camped on a ledge of rock above the plains and watched the lightning all along the horizon provoke from the seamless dark the distant mountain ranges again and again. Crossing the plain the next morning they came upon standing water in the bajadas and they watered the horses and drank rainwater from the rocks and they climbed steadily into the deepening cool of the mountains until in the evening of that day from the crest of the cordilleras they saw below them the country of which they’d been told. The grasslands lay in a deep violet haze and to the west thin flights of waterfowl were moving north before the sunset in the deep red galleries under the cloudbanks like schoolfish in a burning sea and on the foreland plain they saw vaqueros driving cattle before them through a gauze of golden dust.
Each of his sentences requires attention, and even when the urgency of the tale occasionally makes you want to hurry ahead to see what will happen, you have to resist the impulse.
McCarthy has spent much of his writing life on the borderlands of Texas and Mexico, and he describes it with complete confidence. I cannot honestly say if it’s an accurate portrayal, but that’s not really the point in fiction. The point is whether it feels right. And it does.
***
The long shadow of the writing tends to obscure the characters a bit. They do not seem as fully realized as the landscapes. John Grady Cole is the only one we get to know very well, and he’s a bit of a cipher. Defined more by his actions than his thoughts, we know that he is competent, tough, and good with horses, but his internal motivations remain shrouded.
The supporting cast is a mixed bag. Lacey, for instance, is a nonentity. Others, such as Alfonsa, a woman Cole meets while working at a hacienda in Mexico, make a more memorable impression. Still, this isn’t one of those books where I genuinely worried about anyone. While I wanted to know where everyone ended up, I was driven more by intellectual curiosity than emotional connection. McCarthy weaves a hypnotic spell in his descriptions, but he never truly creates the illusion that his fictional creations are real, and thus deserving of my concern. For as much as I liked All the Pretty Horses, it didn’t grip me on a human level.
***
When it comes down to it, I have a bit of reading-anxiety. Time is always getting shorter, the list of books I want to read is always getting longer, and I’m far from a speed-reader. I’ll admit there are times that I pick out a slim novel in the hopes of moving a title from my “pending” shelf to my “finished” shelf.
That’s not the best approach, obviously. So when I picked up All the Pretty Horses, slight as it is, I consciously decided to employ a more unhurried pace. I spent as much time with it as I spend on books twice as long. It was worth it, as McCarthy – for all his pretensions – is an exceptionally unique world-builder, creating a place of lasting images, both beautiful and violent.
March 3, 2022
The hardest books to review are those where my personal pleasure contrasts with my objective assessment. This is such a book. There is much to admire, but I never really enjoyed it, and after a while, it felt like an uncomfortable hack across a barren, albeit sometimes beautiful, landscape.
This is a Western, set mostly in Mexico, shortly after WW2. It has all the features you’d expect, told with McCarthy’s harshly poetic prose and minimalist punctuation. There’s also a lot of Spanish vocabulary and dialogue: I got the gist, and it was effective in making me feel like an outsider (like Texans in Mexico and how a couple of characters feel in their own land), but it was also rather frustrating.
Despite the careful, and sometimes surprisingly phrased imagery, I often struggled to picture the story, let alone believe the main protagonist was only sixteen. Perhaps I need to watch more vaqueros films.
Ultimately, reading this was akin to having a beautiful smashed plate, one that tells a tale, as Willow Pattern does: there were fragments of beauty, and I could see the overall shape of plate and story, but ultimately, I appreciated isolated pieces rather than the whole.
Image: Broken Willow Pattern china in an old rubbish dump in Sturt National Park, Australia (Source)
Story
John Grady Cole’s grandfather just died and now the family ranch will be sold. John Grady decides to leave Texas for Mexico, to find work on a ranch. He has a natural gift with horses, and persuades his best friend, Lacey Rawlins, to come with him. Before crossing the border, they’re joined by a boy they reckon is only thirteen, who rides a very fine horse, says he’s called Jimmy Blevins, and seems like trouble.
Things happen, but not much happens, except when things happen: breaking horses in, being wrongly accused, travelling long distances in unfamiliar lands, the kindness of strangers, bribes, bars, gun and knife fights, a wealthy ranch, escape, forbidden love, corrupt authority figures, survival, prison, betrayal, loyalty, and people being manipulated - not in that order. The only thing it doesn’t have is native Americans. However, this is not a Western-by-numbers: the varied pacing and crafted descriptions elevate this to the literary shelves.
The story is also layered. There are many occasions when a character tells someone their backstory, which lends a liturgical air of repetition, but 14 pages of Doña Alfonsa’s near monologue was too much: it felt like the printer had accidentally inserted an interesting short story.
Blood
The narrative is steeped in blood, yet it’s not especially gory or graphic. At first, it’s metaphorical; later real blood is added to the mix. These are just a few of those on the first four pages:
• “The wind was much abated and it was very cold and the sun sat blood red and elliptic under the reefs of bloodred cloud before him.”
• “The women and children and women with children at their breasts all of them pledged in blood and redeemable in blood only.”
• “What he loved in horses was what he loved in men, the blood and the heat of the blood that ran them.”
Image: Cowboy riding into a blood-red sunset (Source)
Judgement
Before leaving, John Grady goes to the theatre:
“He’d the notion that there would be something in the story itself to tell him about the way the world was or was becoming but there was not.”
Perhaps that disappointment cements his resolve to find meaning elsewhere, although it’s Rawlins who is the philosophical one:
“Judgement day, said Rawlins. You believe in all that?
I dont know. Yeah, I reckon. You?”
The story is marked by choices and conflicts: Mexicans and Americans, man and beast, rich and poor, male and female, powerful and subordinate, dreams and reality, duty and freedom, fate and chance. Mostly, John Grady acts more by instinct than design (he is only sixteen). However, this is a story of growing to adulthood, and he becomes more thoughtful:
“He contemplated the wildness about him, the wildness within.”
Towards the end, a discussion with an actual judge determines John Grady’s next choice.
Image: A pair of horses in Senora, Mexico, with mountains in the background (though Senora is nearer Arizona than Texas) (Source)
This is my last McCarthy
I was wowed by the sparse and agonising beauty of my first McCarthy, The Road, which I reviewed HERE in 2009.
A year later, I picked up Outer Dark, which I reviewed HERE. I really disliked it and decided McCarthy wasn’t for me.
In the decade since, several people on GR and elsewhere nudged me to try him again, specifically this one. When someone brought a copy to a “book chat and borrow” group, I decided now was the time. I’m glad I read it. It’s a good book. And I am now confident that there are other authors I prefer to devote my time to, The Road notwithstanding.
Another novel, loosely in the Western genre, and also a coming-of-age trip, that I really enjoyed, is John Williams’ Butcher’s Crossing, which I reviewed HERE (he’s most famous for Stoner).
Quotes
• “There was nothing along the road save the country it traversed and there was nothing in the country at all.”
• “Rawlins eyed balefully that cauterized terrain.”
• “He rode with the sun coppering his face and the red wind blowing out of the west.”
• “Shrouded in the black thunderheads the distant lightning glowed mutely like welding seen through foundry smoke.”
• “Those eyes had altered the world forever in the space of a heartbeat.”
• “She spoke an english learned largely from schoolbooks and he tested each phrase for the meanings he wished to hear.”
• “At sundown a troubled light. The dark jade shapes of the lagunilas below them lay in the floor of the desert savannah like piercings through another sky. The laminar bands of color to the west bleeding out under the hammered clouds. A sudden violetcolored hooding of the earth.”
• “Sweeter for the larceny of time and flesh, sweeter for the betrayal.” [stolen kisses]
• “There seemed insufficient substance to him to be the object of men’s wrath.”
• “The moon that was already risen raced among the high wires by the highway side like a single silver music note burning in the constant and lavish dark.”
• “She tells me I must be my own person and with every breath she tries to make me her person.”
This is a Western, set mostly in Mexico, shortly after WW2. It has all the features you’d expect, told with McCarthy’s harshly poetic prose and minimalist punctuation. There’s also a lot of Spanish vocabulary and dialogue: I got the gist, and it was effective in making me feel like an outsider (like Texans in Mexico and how a couple of characters feel in their own land), but it was also rather frustrating.
Despite the careful, and sometimes surprisingly phrased imagery, I often struggled to picture the story, let alone believe the main protagonist was only sixteen. Perhaps I need to watch more vaqueros films.
Ultimately, reading this was akin to having a beautiful smashed plate, one that tells a tale, as Willow Pattern does: there were fragments of beauty, and I could see the overall shape of plate and story, but ultimately, I appreciated isolated pieces rather than the whole.
Image: Broken Willow Pattern china in an old rubbish dump in Sturt National Park, Australia (Source)
Story
John Grady Cole’s grandfather just died and now the family ranch will be sold. John Grady decides to leave Texas for Mexico, to find work on a ranch. He has a natural gift with horses, and persuades his best friend, Lacey Rawlins, to come with him. Before crossing the border, they’re joined by a boy they reckon is only thirteen, who rides a very fine horse, says he’s called Jimmy Blevins, and seems like trouble.
Things happen, but not much happens, except when things happen: breaking horses in, being wrongly accused, travelling long distances in unfamiliar lands, the kindness of strangers, bribes, bars, gun and knife fights, a wealthy ranch, escape, forbidden love, corrupt authority figures, survival, prison, betrayal, loyalty, and people being manipulated - not in that order. The only thing it doesn’t have is native Americans. However, this is not a Western-by-numbers: the varied pacing and crafted descriptions elevate this to the literary shelves.
The story is also layered. There are many occasions when a character tells someone their backstory, which lends a liturgical air of repetition, but 14 pages of Doña Alfonsa’s near monologue was too much: it felt like the printer had accidentally inserted an interesting short story.
Blood
The narrative is steeped in blood, yet it’s not especially gory or graphic. At first, it’s metaphorical; later real blood is added to the mix. These are just a few of those on the first four pages:
• “The wind was much abated and it was very cold and the sun sat blood red and elliptic under the reefs of bloodred cloud before him.”
• “The women and children and women with children at their breasts all of them pledged in blood and redeemable in blood only.”
• “What he loved in horses was what he loved in men, the blood and the heat of the blood that ran them.”
Image: Cowboy riding into a blood-red sunset (Source)
Judgement
Before leaving, John Grady goes to the theatre:
“He’d the notion that there would be something in the story itself to tell him about the way the world was or was becoming but there was not.”
Perhaps that disappointment cements his resolve to find meaning elsewhere, although it’s Rawlins who is the philosophical one:
“Judgement day, said Rawlins. You believe in all that?
I dont know. Yeah, I reckon. You?”
The story is marked by choices and conflicts: Mexicans and Americans, man and beast, rich and poor, male and female, powerful and subordinate, dreams and reality, duty and freedom, fate and chance. Mostly, John Grady acts more by instinct than design (he is only sixteen). However, this is a story of growing to adulthood, and he becomes more thoughtful:
“He contemplated the wildness about him, the wildness within.”
Towards the end, a discussion with an actual judge determines John Grady’s next choice.
Image: A pair of horses in Senora, Mexico, with mountains in the background (though Senora is nearer Arizona than Texas) (Source)
This is my last McCarthy
I was wowed by the sparse and agonising beauty of my first McCarthy, The Road, which I reviewed HERE in 2009.
A year later, I picked up Outer Dark, which I reviewed HERE. I really disliked it and decided McCarthy wasn’t for me.
In the decade since, several people on GR and elsewhere nudged me to try him again, specifically this one. When someone brought a copy to a “book chat and borrow” group, I decided now was the time. I’m glad I read it. It’s a good book. And I am now confident that there are other authors I prefer to devote my time to, The Road notwithstanding.
Another novel, loosely in the Western genre, and also a coming-of-age trip, that I really enjoyed, is John Williams’ Butcher’s Crossing, which I reviewed HERE (he’s most famous for Stoner).
Quotes
• “There was nothing along the road save the country it traversed and there was nothing in the country at all.”
• “Rawlins eyed balefully that cauterized terrain.”
• “He rode with the sun coppering his face and the red wind blowing out of the west.”
• “Shrouded in the black thunderheads the distant lightning glowed mutely like welding seen through foundry smoke.”
• “Those eyes had altered the world forever in the space of a heartbeat.”
• “She spoke an english learned largely from schoolbooks and he tested each phrase for the meanings he wished to hear.”
• “At sundown a troubled light. The dark jade shapes of the lagunilas below them lay in the floor of the desert savannah like piercings through another sky. The laminar bands of color to the west bleeding out under the hammered clouds. A sudden violetcolored hooding of the earth.”
• “Sweeter for the larceny of time and flesh, sweeter for the betrayal.” [stolen kisses]
• “There seemed insufficient substance to him to be the object of men’s wrath.”
• “The moon that was already risen raced among the high wires by the highway side like a single silver music note burning in the constant and lavish dark.”
• “She tells me I must be my own person and with every breath she tries to make me her person.”
May 17, 2020
On the surface, this book is a cowboy adventure. A gritty story in which childhood doesn't exist and two teenage boys, John Grady and Lacey Rawlins, are alone riding in a land foreign to them. They speak when they only truly have something worth saying. They sleep under the stars. Their only possessions are often the clothes on their back, a razor and a toothbrush. Oh, and their horses.
This life is sometimes idyllic, but more often, dangerous. It becomes complicated when they run into Blevins, a kid whose fate entwines with theirs, with disastrous consequences.
As in other books by this author, themes of fate and inevitability echo. Several lines have a prescient quality to happenings later on in the book. And, similar to No Country for Old Men, the wheels of the story are pushed down the hill by one single decision. It's pretty brutal (cauterizing a bullet wound using a heated gun barrel is just one of the cringe-inducing scenes), though truth be told, this is decidedly gentler than other McCarthy books.
So yes, wild west saga. But between the lines, the book couldn't be more romantic. Not Nora Roberts romantic, no, although there is a love story here too. But within this book pulses a heart that beats passionately for the past. This heart is broken for the loss of a time that no longer exists. The ticking clock has left John Grady in a country he doesn't recognise, and to which he no longer belongs.
Set in 1949, he is witnessing is the death of an era. People will watch movies about cowboys, instead of living like them. Elvis and television, office jobs and jello-molded salads - an artificially sanitised culture is around the bend. We don't glimpse the new world in the pages of this book, but we readers know what is ahead, and we know this guy on his horse will be the square peg, a ghostrider, a bewildered and bewildering sight.
This yearning nostalgia is reflected in unbelievably lyrical prose. McCarthy outdoes himself here in lush descriptions that convey a deep romance, while at the same point writing with zero sentimentality. It's a magical mixture of the bleak and the heartfelt.
This novel isn't perfect. The ending, just as in No Country, slows significantly from a galloping story to a series of rambling speeches. But, I just couldn't give it less than five stars. I guess I like romance more than I thought.
At the end of the day, there are few things John Grady can count on. One is his profound solitude. The other: those horses, those pretty horses - time cannot touch them.
This life is sometimes idyllic, but more often, dangerous. It becomes complicated when they run into Blevins, a kid whose fate entwines with theirs, with disastrous consequences.
As in other books by this author, themes of fate and inevitability echo. Several lines have a prescient quality to happenings later on in the book. And, similar to No Country for Old Men, the wheels of the story are pushed down the hill by one single decision. It's pretty brutal (cauterizing a bullet wound using a heated gun barrel is just one of the cringe-inducing scenes), though truth be told, this is decidedly gentler than other McCarthy books.
So yes, wild west saga. But between the lines, the book couldn't be more romantic. Not Nora Roberts romantic, no, although there is a love story here too. But within this book pulses a heart that beats passionately for the past. This heart is broken for the loss of a time that no longer exists. The ticking clock has left John Grady in a country he doesn't recognise, and to which he no longer belongs.
Set in 1949, he is witnessing is the death of an era. People will watch movies about cowboys, instead of living like them. Elvis and television, office jobs and jello-molded salads - an artificially sanitised culture is around the bend. We don't glimpse the new world in the pages of this book, but we readers know what is ahead, and we know this guy on his horse will be the square peg, a ghostrider, a bewildered and bewildering sight.
This yearning nostalgia is reflected in unbelievably lyrical prose. McCarthy outdoes himself here in lush descriptions that convey a deep romance, while at the same point writing with zero sentimentality. It's a magical mixture of the bleak and the heartfelt.
This novel isn't perfect. The ending, just as in No Country, slows significantly from a galloping story to a series of rambling speeches. But, I just couldn't give it less than five stars. I guess I like romance more than I thought.
At the end of the day, there are few things John Grady can count on. One is his profound solitude. The other: those horses, those pretty horses - time cannot touch them.
June 25, 2008
I seldom abandon books after reading just a couple of pages, but in this case I had no choice. Two pages into the book I was so annoyed by McCarthy's random use of apostrophes and near-total lack of commas that I felt I had better stop reading to prevent an aneurysm. I'm sure McCarthy is a great storyteller, but unless someone convinces me he has found a competent proof-reader who is not afraid to add some four thousand commas to each of his books, I'll never read another line he's written. I can only tolerate so many crimes against grammar and punctuation.
September 26, 2019
What a great writer, I've become a big fan. This is my fourth McCarthy book and I just love his style, his stories, the way he describes desert country...darkness all round, but so good...
Does anyone know if McCarthy is still writing? I would love a new book....
Does anyone know if McCarthy is still writing? I would love a new book....
July 4, 2017
My introduction to the fiction of Pulitzer Prize winner and Oprah Winfrey fan Cormac McCarthy is All the Pretty Horses, the first novel in McCarthy's so-called Border Trilogy, published in 1992. Westerns set in the post World War II country between Texas and Mexico, the trilogy continued with The Crossing and Cities of the Plain. The first seventy-five percent of this brooding, terse and darkly mesmerizing ranching tale is glorious, towering over the intersection of storytelling and language. The last twenty-five percent grows loquacious and protracted, breaking the fever and bringing the novel up short of being one of the best I've read, but it gets close.
San Angelo, Texas in 1949. Sixteen-year-old John Grady Cole has grown up working his patriarchal grandfather's ranch in Tom Green County, raised by Luisa, the Cole ranch's cook, after his theatrical actress mother left him at six months and his gambler father put in only fleeting appearances. When John Grady's grandfather dies, the ranch is passed to his mother, who makes clear her intention to sell it. Taciturn, hard working and fluent in Spanish, with some money saved and an exceptionally keen eye for horses, John Grady receives sympathies from the family attorney and a brand new Hamley Formfitter saddle from his father. He knows he's on his own now.
John Grady lights out for old Mexico to find work. Along for the journey is his loyal, pragmatic seventeen-year-old friend Lacey Rawlins, who despite speaking considerably less Spanish than John Grady does speak more English, pondering the afterlife and singing on the ride down. Stopping for breakfast in Pandale on their way toward the Pecos River, the pair realize they're being followed. They confront a thirteen-year-old kid astride a magnificent horse who offers the name Jimmy Blevins. The kid claims to be sixteen and is clearly on the run. He has no money, no food and despite giving Rawlins several occasions to abandon him once they cross into Mexico, John Grady is unable or unwilling to.
When they got back to the cottonwoods Blevins was gone. Rawlins sat looking over the barren dusty countryside. He reached in his pocket for his tobacco.
I'm goin to tell you somethin, cousin.
John Grady leaned and spat. All right.
Ever dumb thing I ever done in my life there was a decision I made before that got me into it. It was never the dumb thing. It was always some choice I'd made before it. You understand what I'm sayin?
Yeah. I think so. Meanin what?
Meanin this is it. This is our last chance. Right now. This is the time and there won't be another time and I guarantee it.
Meanin just leave him?
Yessir.
What if it was you?
It aint me.
What if it was?
Rawlins twisted the cigarette into the corner of his mouth and plucked a match from his pocket and popped it alight with his thumbnail. He looked at John Grady.
I wouldnt leave you and you wouldnt leave me. That aint no argument.
You realize the fix he's in?
Yeah. I realize it. It's the one he put hisself in.
They sat. Rawlins smoked. John Grady crossed his hands on the pommel of his saddle and sat looking at them. After a while he raised his head.
I cant do it, he said.
Okay.
What does that mean?
It means okay. If you cant you cant. I think I knew what you'd say anyways.
Yeah, well. I didnt.
Blevins is fatally undone by a thunderstorm, babbling that his family tree attracts lightning. The boy strips naked and cowers in a ravine, losing his horse, his pistol and his clothes in a flash flood. John Grady still refuses to abandon the kid, until they ride into a Mexican village and find old Blevins' pistol and horse under new ownership. Offering to help Blevins get his property back, the kid takes matters into his own hands. Shots are fired and though Blevins finally goes his own way, drawing the posse away from John Grady and Rawlins, the two cowboys are certain that they haven't seen the last of old Blevins.
John Grady and Rawlins continue on their three hundred kilometer trek through the state of Coahuila, where just over the Sierra del Carmen, the Mexicans tell of ranches that make John Grady think of the Big Rock County Mountains, lakes and runnin water and grass to the stirrups. They arrive at the Hacienda de Nuestra Senora de la Purisima Concepcion (La Purisima), an 11,000 acre ranch watered with natural springs and filled with shallow lakes, except in the western sections which rise to nine thousand feet. The vaqueros recognize John Grady and Rawlins as cowboys by the way the Americans sit in their saddles. Drawing closer to La Purisima, John Grady is fatally undone by the sight of a seventeen-year-old girl riding past them atop a black Arabian saddlehorse.
The ranch belongs to Don Hector Rocha y Villareal, whose family has held the land for one hundred and seventy years. Don Hector runs a thousand head of cattle and loves horses, trapping wild ones that roam in the higher elevations. When sixteen wild horses are brought down, John Grady proposes to Rawlins that they break all of the beasts in over four days. Their workshop draws a hundred spectators and culminates in resounding success. John Grady is invited by Don Hector to his home, which he shares with his daughter's great aunt Alfonsa and at times, his passionate seventeen-year-old daughter, Alejandra. At a dance in La Vega, John Grady and Alejandra linger out of the saddle.
At the band's intermission they made their way to the refreshment stand and he bought two lemonades in paper cones and they went out and walked in the night air. They walked along the road and there were other couples in the road and they passed and wished them a good evening. The air was cool and it smelled of earth and perfume and horses. She took his arm and she laughed and called him a mojado-reverso, so rare a creature and one to be treasured. He told her about his life. How his grandfather was dead and the ranch sold. They sat on a low concrete watertrough and with her shoes in her lap and her naked feet crossed in the dust she drew patterns in the dark water with her finger. She'd been away at school for three years. Her mother lived in Mexico and she went to her house on Sundays for dinner and sometimes she and her mother would dine alone in the city and go to the theatre or the ballet. Her mother thought that life on the hacienda was lonely and yet living in the city she seemed to have few friends.
She becomes angry with me because I always want to come here. She says that I prefer my father to her.
Do you?
She nodded. Yes. But that is not why I come. Anyway, she says I will change my mind.
About coming here?
About everything.
Cormac McCarthy can write like no other author. His facility with prose and dialogue reminded me of Stevie Ray Vaughan picking up a guitar and jamming. McCarthy is an innovator and Parts I, II and III of four were like hearing Stevie Ray jam "Love Struck Baby" on the radio for the first time. I loved the way the novel parsed out information, with McCarthy substituting descriptions and histories with impressions and hints, much the way a West Texan would if pressed for information. His dialogue is often witty and retains a well earned pathos, while the very nature of the story is adventurous and fraught with tension.
In Part IV, the taut control that McCarthy maintained up to that point is surrendered for self-indugence. Alfonsa, an intriguing character who is neither evil nor good, talks, and tells, and talks some more about her history and why she cannot allow her niece and John Grady to be together. I started skipping paragraphs, then pages. I knew the love affair was doomed, but characters talking about it contradicts everything McCarthy built up to that point in the novel. John Grady's flight from Mexico and his quest to find his horse before doing so goes on and on. With neither Rawlins, Alejandra or Blevins around to play off Grady, including in the early go, the novel mumbles to itself.
There is no denying the vision and storytelling breadth of three-fourths of the book. I wanted to be on that ride with John Grady and Rawlins, for better or for worse. Columbia Pictures did too. In 1996, the studio offered the directing job to Billy Bob Thornton, at the height of his filmmaking prestige for the low budget southern gothic Sling Blade. Thornton wasn't familiar with the novel, but loved westerns, and with Matt Damon and Penelope Cruz in the leads, turned in a rough cut that clocked in at 220 minutes and tested disastrously. A Cliff Notes version of 115 minutes was released in December 2000 and ignored by audiences. Thornton didn't direct again for twelve years.
San Angelo, Texas in 1949. Sixteen-year-old John Grady Cole has grown up working his patriarchal grandfather's ranch in Tom Green County, raised by Luisa, the Cole ranch's cook, after his theatrical actress mother left him at six months and his gambler father put in only fleeting appearances. When John Grady's grandfather dies, the ranch is passed to his mother, who makes clear her intention to sell it. Taciturn, hard working and fluent in Spanish, with some money saved and an exceptionally keen eye for horses, John Grady receives sympathies from the family attorney and a brand new Hamley Formfitter saddle from his father. He knows he's on his own now.
John Grady lights out for old Mexico to find work. Along for the journey is his loyal, pragmatic seventeen-year-old friend Lacey Rawlins, who despite speaking considerably less Spanish than John Grady does speak more English, pondering the afterlife and singing on the ride down. Stopping for breakfast in Pandale on their way toward the Pecos River, the pair realize they're being followed. They confront a thirteen-year-old kid astride a magnificent horse who offers the name Jimmy Blevins. The kid claims to be sixteen and is clearly on the run. He has no money, no food and despite giving Rawlins several occasions to abandon him once they cross into Mexico, John Grady is unable or unwilling to.
When they got back to the cottonwoods Blevins was gone. Rawlins sat looking over the barren dusty countryside. He reached in his pocket for his tobacco.
I'm goin to tell you somethin, cousin.
John Grady leaned and spat. All right.
Ever dumb thing I ever done in my life there was a decision I made before that got me into it. It was never the dumb thing. It was always some choice I'd made before it. You understand what I'm sayin?
Yeah. I think so. Meanin what?
Meanin this is it. This is our last chance. Right now. This is the time and there won't be another time and I guarantee it.
Meanin just leave him?
Yessir.
What if it was you?
It aint me.
What if it was?
Rawlins twisted the cigarette into the corner of his mouth and plucked a match from his pocket and popped it alight with his thumbnail. He looked at John Grady.
I wouldnt leave you and you wouldnt leave me. That aint no argument.
You realize the fix he's in?
Yeah. I realize it. It's the one he put hisself in.
They sat. Rawlins smoked. John Grady crossed his hands on the pommel of his saddle and sat looking at them. After a while he raised his head.
I cant do it, he said.
Okay.
What does that mean?
It means okay. If you cant you cant. I think I knew what you'd say anyways.
Yeah, well. I didnt.
Blevins is fatally undone by a thunderstorm, babbling that his family tree attracts lightning. The boy strips naked and cowers in a ravine, losing his horse, his pistol and his clothes in a flash flood. John Grady still refuses to abandon the kid, until they ride into a Mexican village and find old Blevins' pistol and horse under new ownership. Offering to help Blevins get his property back, the kid takes matters into his own hands. Shots are fired and though Blevins finally goes his own way, drawing the posse away from John Grady and Rawlins, the two cowboys are certain that they haven't seen the last of old Blevins.
John Grady and Rawlins continue on their three hundred kilometer trek through the state of Coahuila, where just over the Sierra del Carmen, the Mexicans tell of ranches that make John Grady think of the Big Rock County Mountains, lakes and runnin water and grass to the stirrups. They arrive at the Hacienda de Nuestra Senora de la Purisima Concepcion (La Purisima), an 11,000 acre ranch watered with natural springs and filled with shallow lakes, except in the western sections which rise to nine thousand feet. The vaqueros recognize John Grady and Rawlins as cowboys by the way the Americans sit in their saddles. Drawing closer to La Purisima, John Grady is fatally undone by the sight of a seventeen-year-old girl riding past them atop a black Arabian saddlehorse.
The ranch belongs to Don Hector Rocha y Villareal, whose family has held the land for one hundred and seventy years. Don Hector runs a thousand head of cattle and loves horses, trapping wild ones that roam in the higher elevations. When sixteen wild horses are brought down, John Grady proposes to Rawlins that they break all of the beasts in over four days. Their workshop draws a hundred spectators and culminates in resounding success. John Grady is invited by Don Hector to his home, which he shares with his daughter's great aunt Alfonsa and at times, his passionate seventeen-year-old daughter, Alejandra. At a dance in La Vega, John Grady and Alejandra linger out of the saddle.
At the band's intermission they made their way to the refreshment stand and he bought two lemonades in paper cones and they went out and walked in the night air. They walked along the road and there were other couples in the road and they passed and wished them a good evening. The air was cool and it smelled of earth and perfume and horses. She took his arm and she laughed and called him a mojado-reverso, so rare a creature and one to be treasured. He told her about his life. How his grandfather was dead and the ranch sold. They sat on a low concrete watertrough and with her shoes in her lap and her naked feet crossed in the dust she drew patterns in the dark water with her finger. She'd been away at school for three years. Her mother lived in Mexico and she went to her house on Sundays for dinner and sometimes she and her mother would dine alone in the city and go to the theatre or the ballet. Her mother thought that life on the hacienda was lonely and yet living in the city she seemed to have few friends.
She becomes angry with me because I always want to come here. She says that I prefer my father to her.
Do you?
She nodded. Yes. But that is not why I come. Anyway, she says I will change my mind.
About coming here?
About everything.
Cormac McCarthy can write like no other author. His facility with prose and dialogue reminded me of Stevie Ray Vaughan picking up a guitar and jamming. McCarthy is an innovator and Parts I, II and III of four were like hearing Stevie Ray jam "Love Struck Baby" on the radio for the first time. I loved the way the novel parsed out information, with McCarthy substituting descriptions and histories with impressions and hints, much the way a West Texan would if pressed for information. His dialogue is often witty and retains a well earned pathos, while the very nature of the story is adventurous and fraught with tension.
In Part IV, the taut control that McCarthy maintained up to that point is surrendered for self-indugence. Alfonsa, an intriguing character who is neither evil nor good, talks, and tells, and talks some more about her history and why she cannot allow her niece and John Grady to be together. I started skipping paragraphs, then pages. I knew the love affair was doomed, but characters talking about it contradicts everything McCarthy built up to that point in the novel. John Grady's flight from Mexico and his quest to find his horse before doing so goes on and on. With neither Rawlins, Alejandra or Blevins around to play off Grady, including in the early go, the novel mumbles to itself.
There is no denying the vision and storytelling breadth of three-fourths of the book. I wanted to be on that ride with John Grady and Rawlins, for better or for worse. Columbia Pictures did too. In 1996, the studio offered the directing job to Billy Bob Thornton, at the height of his filmmaking prestige for the low budget southern gothic Sling Blade. Thornton wasn't familiar with the novel, but loved westerns, and with Matt Damon and Penelope Cruz in the leads, turned in a rough cut that clocked in at 220 minutes and tested disastrously. A Cliff Notes version of 115 minutes was released in December 2000 and ignored by audiences. Thornton didn't direct again for twelve years.
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March 18, 2022
FRASI CHE POSSONO DARE LA VITA O IMPARTIRE LA MORTE
Mustang
Capitolo primo della cosiddetta trilogia della frontiera.
Rispetto ai suoi scritti precedenti, nonostante mantenga un clima di violenza più che notevole, qui Cormac McCarthy sembra introdurre dei sentimenti più ‘umani’: per esempio, l’amore.
L’amore tra il protagonista John Grady Cole e Alejandra, la figlia del ricco proprietario messicano presso il quale John trova lavoro come domatore di cavalli selvaggi, abilità che ha sviluppato nel ranch dei suoi nonni.
Matt Damon aveva ben più dei sedici anni che ha John Grady nel romanzo.
Siamo nel 1949, il progresso, l’industria, lo sviluppo economico avanzano e non si fermano di fronte alla nostalgia, di fronte a un pezzo di terra, davanti ai cavalli selvaggi. Le praterie sono destinate a diventare autostrade.
Il sedicenne protagonista parte a cavallo, come unico bagaglio quello che indossa e quello che la sella può trasportare: il nonno con cui è cresciuto è morto, la nonna venderà il ranch per trasferirsi a vivere in città. John Grady non ci sta e se ne va.
Punta a sud, verso il confine col Messico. Con lui parte anche un amico, Rawlins, che crede di essere più fortunato in Messico nella ricerca di un lavoro. Ma in fondo quella che entrambi cercano è una vita alternativa: in qualche modo, è un andare contro il tempo, il progresso arriva da nord, e allora spingiamoci a sud dove si vive ancora con i cavalli, le selle, i lazo. Il loro obiettivo si riflette nel paesaggio: secco, assolato, duro, primordiale, che sembra scolpito dalla collera di dio.
Ogni tanto il gruppo passava accanto a una macchia di cholla. Sulle spine delle piante c’erano trafitti numerosi uccelli trascinati dal vento, piccole creature grigie e anonime impalate nell’atto di volare o afflosciate con le piume arruffate. Alcuni erano ancora vivi e al passaggio dei cavalli si contorcevano sulle spine sollevando il capo e pigolando, ma i cavalieri non si fermarono. Quando il sole s’alzò nel cielo il paesaggio cambiò colore e si tinse del verde acceso delle acacie e dei paloverde, del verde scuro dell’erba che costeggiava la strada e del rosso fuoco dei fiori dell’ocotillo, come se la pioggia fosse stata elettrica e avesse elettrizzato il territorio.
Penelope Cruz è Alejandra.
Avvicinandosi al confine, la coppia di cavalieri diventa un trio: si aggiunge Blevins, un tredicenne che si spaccia per più adulto, e che cavalca un baio splendido, ed è armato di pistola.
Anche nel 1949 un cavallo e una pistola erano proprietà di valore per la quale valeva la pena uccidere o rubare. Blevins è misterioso, forse è un ladro di cavalli, e certo non porterà fortuna agli altri due, ma certi valori, vuoi amicizia vuoi fratellanza vuoi solidarietà, non si possono disconoscere neppure davanti alla cattiva sorte.
E senza seguire ogni snodo e curva della trama, basta sottolineare come il Messico si riveli più trappola che speranza, che la legge anche laggiù è dura e punisce senza pietà, ma alla sua maniera, magari lasciandoti torturare dai tuoi compagni di cella – che ambire alla mano della figlia del ricco datore di lavoro è sempre un’esagerazione oltraggiosa che si paga.
Il film del 2000 è una regia maldestra dell’attore Billy Bob Thornton, che comunque alla regia si è cimentato più volte, anche con risultato notevole come il precedente “Sling Blade”, premiato con l’Oscar per la migliore sceneggiatura da adattamento.
Il viaggio di John Grady ha forte valenza iniziatica, viaggio all’origine del mondo, e il romanzo si potrebbe ascrivere tra quelli cosiddetti di formazione.
E certo John Grady deve imparare in fretta a crescere con altrettanta fretta. Parte col sogno di ritrovare a sud uno stile di vita più semplice, per così dire più primitivo, dove certi valori come l’amicizia non appartengano già al solo passato. Ma non sa di far parte di una razza in via d’estinzione. E anche il Messico è meno “puro” di quanto si aspetti.
L’innocenza è perduta, e non è neppure più un valore: si muore per un cavallo, per il possesso di una pistola.
Il romanzo termina con John Grady che cavalca verso il tramonto, come ogni buon western che si rispetti. Ma non è certo un’immagine di speranza, piuttosto di ostinazione: John Grady non ha certo vinto la sua battaglia, ma non è neppure vinto. E non è ancora pronto a scendere da cavallo.
Vita nelle prigioni messicane.
McCarthy trasmette splendidamente la libertà dei grandi spazi, il senso dell’avventura, la speranza: ma anche quanto la vita è maestra severa e non consente appello.
È un McCarthy sempre laconico, austero, che non ha ancora ceduto a quell’eccesso di dialogo che mi ha sorpreso, non piacevolmente, in La strada e Non è un paese per vecchi. Lo scarno dialogo non è neppure sottolineato da due punti o virgolette, si integra nel contesto di una scrittura economica dal timbro biblico.
Frasi che possono dare la vita o impartire la morte è come Saul Bellow definiva la narrativa di Cormac McCarthy.
Il film in originale mantiene il suo titolo All the Pretty Horses, in italiano diventa Passione ribelle. Ma non trasmette neppure una minima parte del fascino maestoso del romanzo.
Quando soffiava il vento da nord si sentivano gli indiani, i cavalli, il fiato dei cavalli, gli zoccoli foderati di cuoio, il tintinnio delle lance e il perpetuo frusciare dei travois trascinati sulla sabbia come enormi serpenti, i ragazzi nudi che montavano i cavalli bradi con la spavalderia dei cavallerizzi da circo spingendo altri cavalli bradi davanti a loro, i cani che trottavano accanto con la lingua fuori e gli schiavi seminudi che marciavano a piedi oppressi da pesanti fardelli e soprattutto la lenta litania dei canti che i cavalieri cantavano in viaggio; un popolo e il suo spirito che attraversavano in coro sommesso il deserto pietroso verso un’oscurità perduta alla storia e a ogni ricordo come un graal contenente la somma delle loro vite violente ed effimere.
Mustang
Capitolo primo della cosiddetta trilogia della frontiera.
Rispetto ai suoi scritti precedenti, nonostante mantenga un clima di violenza più che notevole, qui Cormac McCarthy sembra introdurre dei sentimenti più ‘umani’: per esempio, l’amore.
L’amore tra il protagonista John Grady Cole e Alejandra, la figlia del ricco proprietario messicano presso il quale John trova lavoro come domatore di cavalli selvaggi, abilità che ha sviluppato nel ranch dei suoi nonni.
Matt Damon aveva ben più dei sedici anni che ha John Grady nel romanzo.
Siamo nel 1949, il progresso, l’industria, lo sviluppo economico avanzano e non si fermano di fronte alla nostalgia, di fronte a un pezzo di terra, davanti ai cavalli selvaggi. Le praterie sono destinate a diventare autostrade.
Il sedicenne protagonista parte a cavallo, come unico bagaglio quello che indossa e quello che la sella può trasportare: il nonno con cui è cresciuto è morto, la nonna venderà il ranch per trasferirsi a vivere in città. John Grady non ci sta e se ne va.
Punta a sud, verso il confine col Messico. Con lui parte anche un amico, Rawlins, che crede di essere più fortunato in Messico nella ricerca di un lavoro. Ma in fondo quella che entrambi cercano è una vita alternativa: in qualche modo, è un andare contro il tempo, il progresso arriva da nord, e allora spingiamoci a sud dove si vive ancora con i cavalli, le selle, i lazo. Il loro obiettivo si riflette nel paesaggio: secco, assolato, duro, primordiale, che sembra scolpito dalla collera di dio.
Ogni tanto il gruppo passava accanto a una macchia di cholla. Sulle spine delle piante c’erano trafitti numerosi uccelli trascinati dal vento, piccole creature grigie e anonime impalate nell’atto di volare o afflosciate con le piume arruffate. Alcuni erano ancora vivi e al passaggio dei cavalli si contorcevano sulle spine sollevando il capo e pigolando, ma i cavalieri non si fermarono. Quando il sole s’alzò nel cielo il paesaggio cambiò colore e si tinse del verde acceso delle acacie e dei paloverde, del verde scuro dell’erba che costeggiava la strada e del rosso fuoco dei fiori dell’ocotillo, come se la pioggia fosse stata elettrica e avesse elettrizzato il territorio.
Penelope Cruz è Alejandra.
Avvicinandosi al confine, la coppia di cavalieri diventa un trio: si aggiunge Blevins, un tredicenne che si spaccia per più adulto, e che cavalca un baio splendido, ed è armato di pistola.
Anche nel 1949 un cavallo e una pistola erano proprietà di valore per la quale valeva la pena uccidere o rubare. Blevins è misterioso, forse è un ladro di cavalli, e certo non porterà fortuna agli altri due, ma certi valori, vuoi amicizia vuoi fratellanza vuoi solidarietà, non si possono disconoscere neppure davanti alla cattiva sorte.
E senza seguire ogni snodo e curva della trama, basta sottolineare come il Messico si riveli più trappola che speranza, che la legge anche laggiù è dura e punisce senza pietà, ma alla sua maniera, magari lasciandoti torturare dai tuoi compagni di cella – che ambire alla mano della figlia del ricco datore di lavoro è sempre un’esagerazione oltraggiosa che si paga.
Il film del 2000 è una regia maldestra dell’attore Billy Bob Thornton, che comunque alla regia si è cimentato più volte, anche con risultato notevole come il precedente “Sling Blade”, premiato con l’Oscar per la migliore sceneggiatura da adattamento.
Il viaggio di John Grady ha forte valenza iniziatica, viaggio all’origine del mondo, e il romanzo si potrebbe ascrivere tra quelli cosiddetti di formazione.
E certo John Grady deve imparare in fretta a crescere con altrettanta fretta. Parte col sogno di ritrovare a sud uno stile di vita più semplice, per così dire più primitivo, dove certi valori come l’amicizia non appartengano già al solo passato. Ma non sa di far parte di una razza in via d’estinzione. E anche il Messico è meno “puro” di quanto si aspetti.
L’innocenza è perduta, e non è neppure più un valore: si muore per un cavallo, per il possesso di una pistola.
Il romanzo termina con John Grady che cavalca verso il tramonto, come ogni buon western che si rispetti. Ma non è certo un’immagine di speranza, piuttosto di ostinazione: John Grady non ha certo vinto la sua battaglia, ma non è neppure vinto. E non è ancora pronto a scendere da cavallo.
Vita nelle prigioni messicane.
McCarthy trasmette splendidamente la libertà dei grandi spazi, il senso dell’avventura, la speranza: ma anche quanto la vita è maestra severa e non consente appello.
È un McCarthy sempre laconico, austero, che non ha ancora ceduto a quell’eccesso di dialogo che mi ha sorpreso, non piacevolmente, in La strada e Non è un paese per vecchi. Lo scarno dialogo non è neppure sottolineato da due punti o virgolette, si integra nel contesto di una scrittura economica dal timbro biblico.
Frasi che possono dare la vita o impartire la morte è come Saul Bellow definiva la narrativa di Cormac McCarthy.
Il film in originale mantiene il suo titolo All the Pretty Horses, in italiano diventa Passione ribelle. Ma non trasmette neppure una minima parte del fascino maestoso del romanzo.
Quando soffiava il vento da nord si sentivano gli indiani, i cavalli, il fiato dei cavalli, gli zoccoli foderati di cuoio, il tintinnio delle lance e il perpetuo frusciare dei travois trascinati sulla sabbia come enormi serpenti, i ragazzi nudi che montavano i cavalli bradi con la spavalderia dei cavallerizzi da circo spingendo altri cavalli bradi davanti a loro, i cani che trottavano accanto con la lingua fuori e gli schiavi seminudi che marciavano a piedi oppressi da pesanti fardelli e soprattutto la lenta litania dei canti che i cavalieri cantavano in viaggio; un popolo e il suo spirito che attraversavano in coro sommesso il deserto pietroso verso un’oscurità perduta alla storia e a ogni ricordo come un graal contenente la somma delle loro vite violente ed effimere.
July 17, 2022
This might not reach the blood and horrors of Blood Meridian, but this still contains Cormac McCarthy's trademark blood and violence. Published in the early 1990s, it is the first in the border trilogy, a post-WW2 setting in 1949-1950, an epic bleak, philosophical and melancholic coming of age story, located in Texas and Mexico, a western depicting a dying era. Beautifully written, it centres on 16 year old John Grady Cole, gifted in his ability to connect with horses, who upon his grandfather's death, is forced to leave the ranch that is to be sold. Making the decision to ride to Mexico, he is accompanied by his best friend, Lacey Rawlins, on the challenging idyllic, yet dangerous journey and adventure, hoping to secure work on a ranch. A young boy claiming to be older than he is, Jimmy Blevins, unlikely to be his real name, with an expensive horse joins them, destined to bring them trouble.
Becoming ranch hands in Mexico, Cole falls deeply in love with the rancher's daughter, Alejandra, a doomed love affair. This is an enthralling, evocative, vibrant and captivating read that makes an emotional impact, with its skilful changes of pace and layers of meaning, pain and horrors, and the hostile beauty of the landscape. McCarthy's sharp, complex and astute characterisations are the means through which he explores fundamental issues of what it is to be human, life and death, and the grim harshness of actual realities against which dreams, ideals and love founder. There is the inherent darkness, the repercussions of decisions made, romance, the magical connection between man and nature, in this case, the horses, friendship, loyalty, courage, resilience, love and loss. Highly recommended. Many thanks to the publisher.
Becoming ranch hands in Mexico, Cole falls deeply in love with the rancher's daughter, Alejandra, a doomed love affair. This is an enthralling, evocative, vibrant and captivating read that makes an emotional impact, with its skilful changes of pace and layers of meaning, pain and horrors, and the hostile beauty of the landscape. McCarthy's sharp, complex and astute characterisations are the means through which he explores fundamental issues of what it is to be human, life and death, and the grim harshness of actual realities against which dreams, ideals and love founder. There is the inherent darkness, the repercussions of decisions made, romance, the magical connection between man and nature, in this case, the horses, friendship, loyalty, courage, resilience, love and loss. Highly recommended. Many thanks to the publisher.
July 22, 2019
Cormac McCarthy, in his 1992 novel, (which begins his Border Trilogy) has again conjured up dark and somber images of the verges of human civilization both literally and metaphorically in Mexico.
John Grady Cole and his friend leave 1949 Texas and cross the border into Mexico and in some respects goes back in time as the tone and setting could be a hundred years earlier. Cole works on a horse ranch and then because of his skill with horses is invited into the ranch house where he begins a prohibited romance with the rancher’s daughter Alejandra.
McCarthy’s prose is lean and muscular and is reminiscent of the stripped down to fighting weight language of Hemingway. The setting of the young men traveling into an idyllic setting, though written simply and plainly, is evocative of a mystical quest tale.
But this is after all Cormac McCarthy, creator of The Judge and Anton Chigurh, and so violence and darkness of the human soul are examined in minute detail. Compared to these other McCarthy stories, All the Pretty Horses is not as forbidding, and this more optimistic perspective (relatively speaking), makes for a good story, with McCarthy demonstrating how Cole represents a dying epoch, a lost ideal.
There is a way that everyone knows where a young woman can be the center of attention, but more subtle and more powerful is a way that an older woman can demand, grasp and take our notice. A woman who has been a girl, a daughter, a lover a mother, a wife, a grandmother and a widow whose beauty is blurred only as in an imperfect mirror and who knows all the spectrum of life better than anyone. There is a way that this woman can take the stage, if only in a supporting role, with but a few lines, who can steal not just the scene, but the whole show. Some will think of Olympia Dukakis in Moonstruck or Meryl Streep in August, but I think of Geraldine Page in The Pope of Greenwich Village. This woman who knows life, whose eyes have seen it all, speaks and we all listen.
In this way Alejandra’s great aunt Alfonsa, and especially her dialogue with John Grady, is the character in this excellent novel that I will remember the most. McCarthy, who has created and crafted so many memorial players, has again in Alfonsa produced a character that will stay with us after the last page is turned.
One of the better works of one of our most talented writers.
John Grady Cole and his friend leave 1949 Texas and cross the border into Mexico and in some respects goes back in time as the tone and setting could be a hundred years earlier. Cole works on a horse ranch and then because of his skill with horses is invited into the ranch house where he begins a prohibited romance with the rancher’s daughter Alejandra.
McCarthy’s prose is lean and muscular and is reminiscent of the stripped down to fighting weight language of Hemingway. The setting of the young men traveling into an idyllic setting, though written simply and plainly, is evocative of a mystical quest tale.
But this is after all Cormac McCarthy, creator of The Judge and Anton Chigurh, and so violence and darkness of the human soul are examined in minute detail. Compared to these other McCarthy stories, All the Pretty Horses is not as forbidding, and this more optimistic perspective (relatively speaking), makes for a good story, with McCarthy demonstrating how Cole represents a dying epoch, a lost ideal.
There is a way that everyone knows where a young woman can be the center of attention, but more subtle and more powerful is a way that an older woman can demand, grasp and take our notice. A woman who has been a girl, a daughter, a lover a mother, a wife, a grandmother and a widow whose beauty is blurred only as in an imperfect mirror and who knows all the spectrum of life better than anyone. There is a way that this woman can take the stage, if only in a supporting role, with but a few lines, who can steal not just the scene, but the whole show. Some will think of Olympia Dukakis in Moonstruck or Meryl Streep in August, but I think of Geraldine Page in The Pope of Greenwich Village. This woman who knows life, whose eyes have seen it all, speaks and we all listen.
In this way Alejandra’s great aunt Alfonsa, and especially her dialogue with John Grady, is the character in this excellent novel that I will remember the most. McCarthy, who has created and crafted so many memorial players, has again in Alfonsa produced a character that will stay with us after the last page is turned.
One of the better works of one of our most talented writers.
June 14, 2023
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy has just captured my heart and soul. While my heart will always be a part of the American West, this amazing book not only had such beautiful prose, but it put you there in the moment as you experienced all that is beautiful but threatening in the rugged west, particularly on the Texas-Mexico border. What is so lovely about this book is the underlying theme of the horses, all the beautiful horses, that is pulsing throughout this narrative as we come to love and admire John Grady Cole and his partner, Lacey Rawlins, as they make their way from their homes in Texas and travel on horseback to Mexico in 1949. The book opens with one of the most stunning passages as John Grady Cole is present after the death of his grandfather in the ranch home that he and his family have run for generations. And this first book of the trilogy ends with the death of John Cole's dear abuela, a woman who cared for his mother as well when she was a child. These two significant deaths for John Grady Cole are the bookends of this wonderful novel; the first book of The Border Trilogy. What transpires in the interim is a journey that you need to embark on yourself. It is a story of friendship, love, strength, courage and endurance with a lot of humanity all described in beautiful and descriptive prose as only Cormac McCarthy can do.
"The candleflame and the image of the candleflame caught in the pierglass twisted and righted when he entered the hall and again when he shut the door. He took off his hat and came slowly forward. The floorboards creaked under his boots. In his black suit he stood in the dark glass where the lilies leaned so palely from their waisted cutglass vase. Along the cold hallway behind him hung the portraits of forebears only dimly known to him all framed in glass and dimly lit above the narrow wainscoting. He looked down at the guttered candlestub. He pressed his thumbprint in the warm wax pooled on the oak veneer. Lastly he looked at the face so caved and drawn among the folds of funeral cloth, the yellowed moustache, the eyelids paper thin. That was not sleeping. That was not sleeping."
"What he loved in horses was what he loved in men, the blood and the heat of the blood that ran them. All his reverence and all his fondness and all the leanings of his life were for the ardenthearted and they would always be so and never be otherwise."
ADDENDUM: June 13, 2023
A sad note on the passing of one the greatest literary authors of this century. Rest in peace Mr. McCarthy. You will be missed.
"The candleflame and the image of the candleflame caught in the pierglass twisted and righted when he entered the hall and again when he shut the door. He took off his hat and came slowly forward. The floorboards creaked under his boots. In his black suit he stood in the dark glass where the lilies leaned so palely from their waisted cutglass vase. Along the cold hallway behind him hung the portraits of forebears only dimly known to him all framed in glass and dimly lit above the narrow wainscoting. He looked down at the guttered candlestub. He pressed his thumbprint in the warm wax pooled on the oak veneer. Lastly he looked at the face so caved and drawn among the folds of funeral cloth, the yellowed moustache, the eyelids paper thin. That was not sleeping. That was not sleeping."
"What he loved in horses was what he loved in men, the blood and the heat of the blood that ran them. All his reverence and all his fondness and all the leanings of his life were for the ardenthearted and they would always be so and never be otherwise."
ADDENDUM: June 13, 2023
A sad note on the passing of one the greatest literary authors of this century. Rest in peace Mr. McCarthy. You will be missed.
February 10, 2017
AMERICA'S GOT TALENT
A large auditorium. The audience is abuzz with low-quality hysteria. Who’s up next? A glowering old man stands on the vast stage. He’s got a guitar and one of those neck-brace harmonica things and he looks mortally offended. He always looks like that though.
Simon: And what’s your name?
Man : Cormac McCarthy.
Simon : Where are you from?
CM : Rhode Island.
LA Reid : Would you say you had a philosophy of life?
CM : There's no such thing as life without bloodshed. I think the notion that the species can be improved in some way, that everyone could live in harmony, is a really dangerous idea. Those who are afflicted with this notion are the first ones to give up their souls, their freedom. Your desire that it be that way will enslave you and make your life vacuous.
Cheryl Cole : Awa, tha wez canny good but Ah think it wez above me heed.
Paula Abdul : What are you going to do for us, Cormac?
CM : It’s called “All the Pretty Horses”.
Simon : Okay, in your own time.
CM performs “All the Pretty Horses”. Shots of 14 year old girls in the audience looking bewildered. Every time CM mentions violent death the boys whoop and cheer.
Simon : Er, okay, we’ll go straight to the vote. Cheryl?
CC : When Ah wis a bairn Ah used te gan te Sunday school - yon bonny lad soonds jes like yon Bible but wi cooboys. Wis there any cooboys in the Bible Simon?
Simon : Is that a yes or a no?
CC : Well… It’s sort of a yes…
Simon : Paula?
Paula : I’m so grateful that ordeal is over. I’m too old for this crap.
Simon : So that’s a no.
LA Reid : I have to say – Cormac – did you have any idea how much you were getting on our nerves? Was it necessary to start every single sentence with for, and, yet, so – it was conjunction city. So here's another short word for you. It’s a no.
Simon : Well (with a superior smile which one sweet day someone will knock off his face) I liked it. It was different. Admittedly you lost about two thirds of the audience after chapter three but that doesn’t have to be a disaster. I think you’ve really got something. Look, Cormac, I don’t really think the X Factor is the proper venue for your kind of talent. You know you have to have three votes out of four to pass the audition process but in your case I’m going to say see me after the show. I think we could work something out.
A large auditorium. The audience is abuzz with low-quality hysteria. Who’s up next? A glowering old man stands on the vast stage. He’s got a guitar and one of those neck-brace harmonica things and he looks mortally offended. He always looks like that though.
Simon: And what’s your name?
Man : Cormac McCarthy.
Simon : Where are you from?
CM : Rhode Island.
LA Reid : Would you say you had a philosophy of life?
CM : There's no such thing as life without bloodshed. I think the notion that the species can be improved in some way, that everyone could live in harmony, is a really dangerous idea. Those who are afflicted with this notion are the first ones to give up their souls, their freedom. Your desire that it be that way will enslave you and make your life vacuous.
Cheryl Cole : Awa, tha wez canny good but Ah think it wez above me heed.
Paula Abdul : What are you going to do for us, Cormac?
CM : It’s called “All the Pretty Horses”.
Simon : Okay, in your own time.
CM performs “All the Pretty Horses”. Shots of 14 year old girls in the audience looking bewildered. Every time CM mentions violent death the boys whoop and cheer.
Simon : Er, okay, we’ll go straight to the vote. Cheryl?
CC : When Ah wis a bairn Ah used te gan te Sunday school - yon bonny lad soonds jes like yon Bible but wi cooboys. Wis there any cooboys in the Bible Simon?
Simon : Is that a yes or a no?
CC : Well… It’s sort of a yes…
Simon : Paula?
Paula : I’m so grateful that ordeal is over. I’m too old for this crap.
Simon : So that’s a no.
LA Reid : I have to say – Cormac – did you have any idea how much you were getting on our nerves? Was it necessary to start every single sentence with for, and, yet, so – it was conjunction city. So here's another short word for you. It’s a no.
Simon : Well (with a superior smile which one sweet day someone will knock off his face) I liked it. It was different. Admittedly you lost about two thirds of the audience after chapter three but that doesn’t have to be a disaster. I think you’ve really got something. Look, Cormac, I don’t really think the X Factor is the proper venue for your kind of talent. You know you have to have three votes out of four to pass the audition process but in your case I’m going to say see me after the show. I think we could work something out.
August 20, 2019
Set in 1949, between the frontier lands that separate Texas from México, McCarthy introduces the legendary John Grady Cole when he is barely sixteen years of age. Destitute of state and home after his grandfather’s death, the boy starts a journey of personal growth that will bring him face to face with the harsh violence and crudity of life among bandits, cowboys and outlaws.
“All the pretty horses” is my first contact with the epic Cormac McCarthy, and even though I can’t deny the rugged artistry of his dry and somewhat archaic style, I confess I won’t hurry to read the following installments of the “Border Trilogy”.
Don't mistake me. There are noble sentiments in this novel that shine naturally by the sheer force of its characters. Honor, courage, romantic love and loyalty are ever present in spite of the hopelessness that seems to rule McCarthy’s world, a world that is fading out in front of the reader’s eyes. Still, I was left with the feeling that John Grady was chasing something all the way down from Texas to México that he couldn’t find; a place, an ideal, a dream that was never found or accomplished. There is only a kind of calm desperation, an accepted surrender to one’s place in a senseless world, a silent admission that life is worthless, that happiness or contentment can’t exist in a world where violence and abuse are so random, so arbitrary.
As a reader, I am generally uncomfortable with such a dark, despairing vision of life, but at the same time, I marveled at McCarthy’s sensitivity in portraying the profound connection that man can develop with nature, which in this book is represented by horses. These majestic, elegant animals are somehow presented as superior to man, they provide spiritual dimension to McCarthy’s characters and evoke the Native American ancestral belief that man and horse can merge into a single soul through exertion and suffering.
And so, there you have beauty even in the gloomiest portrayal of this conflicted, incongruous world. The shadow of man and horse united against fate, standing tall and dignified, never defeated, ready to keep walking relentlessly towards the setting sun. Who can resist such an iconic sculpture? Not even me.
“All the pretty horses” is my first contact with the epic Cormac McCarthy, and even though I can’t deny the rugged artistry of his dry and somewhat archaic style, I confess I won’t hurry to read the following installments of the “Border Trilogy”.
Don't mistake me. There are noble sentiments in this novel that shine naturally by the sheer force of its characters. Honor, courage, romantic love and loyalty are ever present in spite of the hopelessness that seems to rule McCarthy’s world, a world that is fading out in front of the reader’s eyes. Still, I was left with the feeling that John Grady was chasing something all the way down from Texas to México that he couldn’t find; a place, an ideal, a dream that was never found or accomplished. There is only a kind of calm desperation, an accepted surrender to one’s place in a senseless world, a silent admission that life is worthless, that happiness or contentment can’t exist in a world where violence and abuse are so random, so arbitrary.
As a reader, I am generally uncomfortable with such a dark, despairing vision of life, but at the same time, I marveled at McCarthy’s sensitivity in portraying the profound connection that man can develop with nature, which in this book is represented by horses. These majestic, elegant animals are somehow presented as superior to man, they provide spiritual dimension to McCarthy’s characters and evoke the Native American ancestral belief that man and horse can merge into a single soul through exertion and suffering.
And so, there you have beauty even in the gloomiest portrayal of this conflicted, incongruous world. The shadow of man and horse united against fate, standing tall and dignified, never defeated, ready to keep walking relentlessly towards the setting sun. Who can resist such an iconic sculpture? Not even me.
June 20, 2023
By all accounts, I shouldn't like Cormac McCarthy's novels. I have little patience for stylized prose. Violent imagery sends me over the edge. Books set in the American West or South are not my first—or even fourth—choice, as a general rule.
But I'm helpless under McCarthy's pen.
All the Pretty Horses is McCarthy's most accessible novel and I'm glad I didn't start here, because anything which followed would have been an horrific shock. In contrast to his other works that seem to roll out in fugue states or unravel like dreams in which you are falling falling falling, novels that feature violence so absolute you are left hollowed out and irrevocably altered, All the Pretty Horses is a baptism in hope. The sharp edges of the story's existentialism are softened by a classic buddy tale—the achingly lovely friendship between John Grady Cole and Lacey Rawlins, given a sepia patina by John Grady and Alejandra's romance, and can even be ignored entirely when Cole is practicing his horse whisperer magic on a wild pack brought down from the hills of northeast Mexico.
John Grady and Rawlins are only sixteen when they take off on horseback from west central Texas and cross the border, lured by the romance of Mexico. And one of them is searching for something deeper than adventure. The rapid pace of cultural change as the 1950s approaches is becoming too much for an old soul like young John Grady Cole. His parents have divorced, his father is drinking himself to death, his mother is selling off the family farm. John Grady is searching for home.
John Grady and Rawlins find adventure indeed, becoming ranch hands at an estate in Coahuila. Cole shows his quality and is soon promoted to trainer and horse breeder. They also find a mountain of trouble. John Grady tumbles into star-crossed love with Alejandra, the estate owner's bewitching daughter, and well, you just have the read the rest your damn self.
See how easy that was? A romantic premise made for a curl-up-and-sink-in reading, all atmospheric with velvet-black skies pricked by stars made of diamonds, and beautiful girls with green eyes and flowing black hair, and cowboys that in my mind look like the young and gorgeous Robert Redford and Paul Newman.
Ah, but remember, this is Cormac McCarthy we're talking about here. Nothing is that simple in McCarthy's world. And rarely is writing ever as good as his:
Jesus H. Christ. It's so good, it's ridiculous.
Maybe you've already determined that McCarthy's writing isn't for you-the whole lack of punctuation and all that. Fine. Whatever. What I hear is music, music created by nature, ordained by a higher power, released into the atmosphere by one man's imagination. All the Pretty Horses made me a little less afraid of Cormac McCarthy, less uncertain of the soul that lives within him. I know from reading The Road that he is a writer of tremendous empathy and vulnerability, but this lovely, sad, sweet tale showed a sense of humor and a tenderness that I hope to find again, the next time I venture into one of Cormac McCarthy's worlds
But I'm helpless under McCarthy's pen.
All the Pretty Horses is McCarthy's most accessible novel and I'm glad I didn't start here, because anything which followed would have been an horrific shock. In contrast to his other works that seem to roll out in fugue states or unravel like dreams in which you are falling falling falling, novels that feature violence so absolute you are left hollowed out and irrevocably altered, All the Pretty Horses is a baptism in hope. The sharp edges of the story's existentialism are softened by a classic buddy tale—the achingly lovely friendship between John Grady Cole and Lacey Rawlins, given a sepia patina by John Grady and Alejandra's romance, and can even be ignored entirely when Cole is practicing his horse whisperer magic on a wild pack brought down from the hills of northeast Mexico.
John Grady and Rawlins are only sixteen when they take off on horseback from west central Texas and cross the border, lured by the romance of Mexico. And one of them is searching for something deeper than adventure. The rapid pace of cultural change as the 1950s approaches is becoming too much for an old soul like young John Grady Cole. His parents have divorced, his father is drinking himself to death, his mother is selling off the family farm. John Grady is searching for home.
John Grady and Rawlins find adventure indeed, becoming ranch hands at an estate in Coahuila. Cole shows his quality and is soon promoted to trainer and horse breeder. They also find a mountain of trouble. John Grady tumbles into star-crossed love with Alejandra, the estate owner's bewitching daughter, and well, you just have the read the rest your damn self.
See how easy that was? A romantic premise made for a curl-up-and-sink-in reading, all atmospheric with velvet-black skies pricked by stars made of diamonds, and beautiful girls with green eyes and flowing black hair, and cowboys that in my mind look like the young and gorgeous Robert Redford and Paul Newman.
Ah, but remember, this is Cormac McCarthy we're talking about here. Nothing is that simple in McCarthy's world. And rarely is writing ever as good as his:
"In his sleep he could hear the horses stepping among the rocks and he could hear them drink from the shallow pools in the dark where the rocks lay smooth and rectilinear as the stones of ancient ruins and the water from their muzzles dripped and rang like water dripping in a well and in his sleep he dreamt of horses and the horses in his dream moved gravely among the tilted stones like horses come upon an antique site where some ordering of the world had failed and if anything had been written on the stones the weathers had taken it away again and the horses were wary and moved with great circumspection carrying in their blood as they did the recollection of this and other places where horses once had been and would be again. Finally what he saw in his dream was that the order in the horse's heart was more durable for it was written in a place where no rain could erase it."
Jesus H. Christ. It's so good, it's ridiculous.
Maybe you've already determined that McCarthy's writing isn't for you-the whole lack of punctuation and all that. Fine. Whatever. What I hear is music, music created by nature, ordained by a higher power, released into the atmosphere by one man's imagination. All the Pretty Horses made me a little less afraid of Cormac McCarthy, less uncertain of the soul that lives within him. I know from reading The Road that he is a writer of tremendous empathy and vulnerability, but this lovely, sad, sweet tale showed a sense of humor and a tenderness that I hope to find again, the next time I venture into one of Cormac McCarthy's worlds
They rode out along the fence line and across the open pastureland. The leather creaked in the morning cold. They pushed the horses into a lope. The lights fell away behind them. They rode out on the high prairie where they slowed the horses to a walk and the stars swarmed around them out of the blackness. They heard somewhere in that tenantless night a bell that tolled and ceased where no bell was and they rode out on the round dais of the earth which alone was dark and no light to it and which carried their figures and bore them up into the swarming stars so that they rode not under but among them and they rode at once jaunty and circumspect, like thieves newly loosed in that dark electric, like young thieves in a glowing orchard, loosely jacketed against the cold and ten thousand worlds for the choosing'.
October 9, 2018
The Border Trilogy – Part 1 of 3
His name is John Grady Cole and he is 16 years old. His world shifted and changed radically from what he knew and what he expected while growing up in San Angelos, Texas. He and his best friend Lacey Rawlins (17) decide to ride to Mexico and see if they can find work on a ranch.
On their way there, a younger boy, possibly 14 (although he lay claim to 16 years) named Jimmy Blevins joins them, although neither is particularly keen to have the fellow along. For starters, his name is the same as a preacher on the radio so the two older boys doubt that he even gave them his real name. He also has a large, expensive looking horse.
However, they appear to be stuck with him – until a series of incidents splits them up. Shrouded in the black thunderheads the distant lightning glowed mutely like welding seen through foundry smoke. As if repairs were under way at some flawed place in the iron dark of the world. Both the younger boy and his big horse happen to have a huge fear of lightning.
All three of the young men meet up again a few weeks later, but their circumstances are much harsher than the rough living of their journey. They do meet some characters along the way, and they all have stories: Buddy when he come back from up in the panhandle told me one time it quit blowin up there and all the chickens fell over. John Grady also falls hopelessly in love with his boss’ daughter and she with him. This is yet another event that converged with others to result in all three young men struggling to stay alive.
This story is set mostly in Mexico in 1949-1950 and is jam-packed with action, adventure, and misadventure. The writing is excellent and its pace is well suited to the story: it takes an ambling gait through parts of the story interspersed with wild gallops in-between. Again, there is no punctuation to show when people are talking, and at times I was compelled to pay attention to context to know who was actually talking. Another hurdle for me is that several conversations take place in Spanish; however, I took it as a given that the summary of those conversations followed in the ever-moving flow of the story.
I cared very much for the characters in this book and found empathy in my heart for pretty much everyone. Although none of the boys ‘come of age’ in this novel, it felt to me like they had already done so years before. Their lifestyle wasn’t the easiest choice in the world, but it was one they chose to do their best at. And who am I to say they didn’t succeed?
His name is John Grady Cole and he is 16 years old. His world shifted and changed radically from what he knew and what he expected while growing up in San Angelos, Texas. He and his best friend Lacey Rawlins (17) decide to ride to Mexico and see if they can find work on a ranch.
On their way there, a younger boy, possibly 14 (although he lay claim to 16 years) named Jimmy Blevins joins them, although neither is particularly keen to have the fellow along. For starters, his name is the same as a preacher on the radio so the two older boys doubt that he even gave them his real name. He also has a large, expensive looking horse.
However, they appear to be stuck with him – until a series of incidents splits them up. Shrouded in the black thunderheads the distant lightning glowed mutely like welding seen through foundry smoke. As if repairs were under way at some flawed place in the iron dark of the world. Both the younger boy and his big horse happen to have a huge fear of lightning.
All three of the young men meet up again a few weeks later, but their circumstances are much harsher than the rough living of their journey. They do meet some characters along the way, and they all have stories: Buddy when he come back from up in the panhandle told me one time it quit blowin up there and all the chickens fell over. John Grady also falls hopelessly in love with his boss’ daughter and she with him. This is yet another event that converged with others to result in all three young men struggling to stay alive.
This story is set mostly in Mexico in 1949-1950 and is jam-packed with action, adventure, and misadventure. The writing is excellent and its pace is well suited to the story: it takes an ambling gait through parts of the story interspersed with wild gallops in-between. Again, there is no punctuation to show when people are talking, and at times I was compelled to pay attention to context to know who was actually talking. Another hurdle for me is that several conversations take place in Spanish; however, I took it as a given that the summary of those conversations followed in the ever-moving flow of the story.
I cared very much for the characters in this book and found empathy in my heart for pretty much everyone. Although none of the boys ‘come of age’ in this novel, it felt to me like they had already done so years before. Their lifestyle wasn’t the easiest choice in the world, but it was one they chose to do their best at. And who am I to say they didn’t succeed?
February 5, 2019
Rating: 2* of five
The Publisher Says: 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.
My Review: The Doubleday UK meme, a book a day for July 2014, is the goad I'm using to get through my snit-based unwritten reviews. Today's prompt is to discuss the "most chocolatey novel" for National Chocolate Day.
I hate chocolate, and I hated this pretentious self-conscious poseur of a novel.
I dont think omitting punctuation is novel since the nouveau roman movement has been doing it since oh I dunno the 1950s AND its pretty much pointless in telling a standard coming-of-age story AND it's an absurd (and inconsistently utilized) affectation whose cynical deployment in this violent animal-abusive Peckinpahesque farrago won the author a National Book Award
Which is not to say that McCarthy can't write very nice lines:
Between the wish and the thing the world lies waiting.
--lovely and precise
Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real.
--amen to that one
But that isn't enough to make a book a Modern Classic! A triumph! A brilliant (overused word) novel!
It's a very basic coming-of-age-in-the-West story featuring a blah little boy who becomes a Man because shit happens. Where it isn't tedious it's nauseous. The pornographically sensual descriptions of guns and blood and cruelty are, for this reader at least, off-putting.
Take away the "difficult" "innovative" (really? eighty years after Ulysses and we're calling this crap-fest difficult and innovative?) stylistic quirks and what do you have?
A Louis L'Amour novel written by DH Lawrence.
How horrible is that.
The Publisher Says: 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.
My Review: The Doubleday UK meme, a book a day for July 2014, is the goad I'm using to get through my snit-based unwritten reviews. Today's prompt is to discuss the "most chocolatey novel" for National Chocolate Day.
I hate chocolate, and I hated this pretentious self-conscious poseur of a novel.
I dont think omitting punctuation is novel since the nouveau roman movement has been doing it since oh I dunno the 1950s AND its pretty much pointless in telling a standard coming-of-age story AND it's an absurd (and inconsistently utilized) affectation whose cynical deployment in this violent animal-abusive Peckinpahesque farrago won the author a National Book Award
Which is not to say that McCarthy can't write very nice lines:
Between the wish and the thing the world lies waiting.
--lovely and precise
Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real.
--amen to that one
But that isn't enough to make a book a Modern Classic! A triumph! A brilliant (overused word) novel!
It's a very basic coming-of-age-in-the-West story featuring a blah little boy who becomes a Man because shit happens. Where it isn't tedious it's nauseous. The pornographically sensual descriptions of guns and blood and cruelty are, for this reader at least, off-putting.
Take away the "difficult" "innovative" (really? eighty years after Ulysses and we're calling this crap-fest difficult and innovative?) stylistic quirks and what do you have?
A Louis L'Amour novel written by DH Lawrence.
How horrible is that.
November 24, 2018
Cormac McCarthy is so good at making you care deeply about his characters and then keeping you on tenterhooks of dread about what horror of bloodletting he's going to lead them into.
Two young boys, John Grady Cole and Lacey Rawlins, decide to leave their homes in Texas and ride to Mexico. Early on, McCarthy sets up a heartwarming friendship between them. And between Cole and his horse. Then they are joined by another boy even younger than they are who is riding an expensive horse. There's always a sense in this novel the horse is like an extension of the individual's will, a direct connection to what's both poetic and primal in an individual's soul. Both have an uneasy feeling about Blevins but despite efforts to drive him away the boy follows them. It seems to be a recurring motif in McCarthy's books that one individual will personify ill fortune which will infect all those attached to him.
During a thunderstorm the bringer of ill fortune, Blevins, loses his horse and leaves to hunt for it. For a while all seems to be going well for the two boys. They find work with horses on a ranch in Mexico and Cole falls in love with the owner's daughter. Follow lovely moving love story. Then Blevin returns and the idyllic veneer of everything is brutally ripped away.
Tremendously moving and well written. I'm now about to start my next McCarthy.
Two young boys, John Grady Cole and Lacey Rawlins, decide to leave their homes in Texas and ride to Mexico. Early on, McCarthy sets up a heartwarming friendship between them. And between Cole and his horse. Then they are joined by another boy even younger than they are who is riding an expensive horse. There's always a sense in this novel the horse is like an extension of the individual's will, a direct connection to what's both poetic and primal in an individual's soul. Both have an uneasy feeling about Blevins but despite efforts to drive him away the boy follows them. It seems to be a recurring motif in McCarthy's books that one individual will personify ill fortune which will infect all those attached to him.
During a thunderstorm the bringer of ill fortune, Blevins, loses his horse and leaves to hunt for it. For a while all seems to be going well for the two boys. They find work with horses on a ranch in Mexico and Cole falls in love with the owner's daughter. Follow lovely moving love story. Then Blevin returns and the idyllic veneer of everything is brutally ripped away.
Tremendously moving and well written. I'm now about to start my next McCarthy.
March 23, 2015
This western of new antiquity flows with a horse's grace and bursts into furious and powerful charges. McCarthy's pen grazes upon lush words. His verbs gallop, his adjectives whinny and snort. There is a subdued, wild loneliness. The populous within the pages wander like herds or rally in a tense, motionless pack ready to pounce, while mere boys -more man than most- wander through them ready for love, ready for death.
These characters breath and sweat and bleed. The reader comes to know the true color of their blood. It flows down their filthy boots into a landscape vivid with an encompassing spectrum not seen in The Road. Here, the travelers cross the land and the land touches their painfully real feet, and from there a current spreads out, electrifying the hardscrabble Mexican countryside.
Kick the dust and sand off these words. Dig in and glory in their life-giving beauty.
Review Appendix: There's a band I've recently come across who write the kind of music that would make for a wonderful soundtrack to McCarthy's Border Trilogy. The Division Men (a husband and wife duo) play a music that sounds like Leonard Cohen lost in the desert. Take a listen: http://divisionmen.bandcamp.com/track...
Listen to the whole album Under The Gun here: http://divisionmen.bandcamp.com/album...
These characters breath and sweat and bleed. The reader comes to know the true color of their blood. It flows down their filthy boots into a landscape vivid with an encompassing spectrum not seen in The Road. Here, the travelers cross the land and the land touches their painfully real feet, and from there a current spreads out, electrifying the hardscrabble Mexican countryside.
Kick the dust and sand off these words. Dig in and glory in their life-giving beauty.
Review Appendix: There's a band I've recently come across who write the kind of music that would make for a wonderful soundtrack to McCarthy's Border Trilogy. The Division Men (a husband and wife duo) play a music that sounds like Leonard Cohen lost in the desert. Take a listen: http://divisionmen.bandcamp.com/track...
Listen to the whole album Under The Gun here: http://divisionmen.bandcamp.com/album...
June 20, 2008
A young hired hand is warned against getting close to the beautiful, haughty daughter of his ranchowner employer, but her haunting beauty zzzzzzzzzz.........
July 23, 2021
I’m having difficulty writing a cogent review of All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy.
I plunged into this author’s work not knowing anything about his writing style. My first impression, after around 10 pages, was – “I have just read some of the WORLD’S longest sentences.” If I had to read them out loud, I would’ve run out of breath. My other observation was the lack of quotation marks, and he said, she said - which really gave me some trouble following who said what in a conversation. There was also a fair amount of untranslated Spanish – thank heavens I have a rudimentary understanding of that language, and my guess is many Americans have the same – but it still meant this reader missed out on the meaning of some things said. Yep, it was authentic, but it wasn’t enjoyable.
Having said that, this story of two young men travelling south from Texas into Mexico to earn some money (yes, it’s that simple) was interesting. I decided early on not to try and read this one quickly, it worked! I found myself immersed in some wonderful prose – I even re-read some passages to let them sink in.
The story itself was very interesting and I found myself looking forward to lying in bed with John Grady Cole and Rawlins each night, with Blevins joining us on occasions – and reading about their escapades. The horse wrangling, the dramas, the horse stolen, the uber-violent prison time, the love story – it was truly fascinating. A ripping yarn.
I found the part when a bunch of Mexicans wanted to buy young Blevins, as it seemed they were attracted to his naked legs – this was when he lost his clothes. This made me laugh, there were some funny bits.
Rawlins nodded. It’s sort of like old T-Bone. Watts when he worked for daddy they all fussed about him havin bad breath. He told them it was bettern no breath at all
But things started spinning out of control for me last night during my final sitting – the final 40 pages, the bit when Grady is riding with the Captain. I just couldn’t follow it; it became too confusing. Yes, this author does surprise – for example, you can read a passage and then realise – “oh that’s who he’s banging on about”. But this last bit, the part where I wanted some sort of ending – was lost on me. I didn’t like that.
It made me think, does this author write for himself or for the audience? He just struck me a bit like a top Jazz Trumpet Player who riffs for 30 minutes, improvising, mucking around with various tricks and slicks – almost inaccessible to the average punter. Is this author self-indulgent, or is he brilliant? In some ways, I can’t understand why somebody would create art that is confusing. Or is that the appeal to the educated reader? I think it might be – or to a certain section of educated readers.
Are McCarthy’s other books written like this?
3 stars
I plunged into this author’s work not knowing anything about his writing style. My first impression, after around 10 pages, was – “I have just read some of the WORLD’S longest sentences.” If I had to read them out loud, I would’ve run out of breath. My other observation was the lack of quotation marks, and he said, she said - which really gave me some trouble following who said what in a conversation. There was also a fair amount of untranslated Spanish – thank heavens I have a rudimentary understanding of that language, and my guess is many Americans have the same – but it still meant this reader missed out on the meaning of some things said. Yep, it was authentic, but it wasn’t enjoyable.
Having said that, this story of two young men travelling south from Texas into Mexico to earn some money (yes, it’s that simple) was interesting. I decided early on not to try and read this one quickly, it worked! I found myself immersed in some wonderful prose – I even re-read some passages to let them sink in.
The story itself was very interesting and I found myself looking forward to lying in bed with John Grady Cole and Rawlins each night, with Blevins joining us on occasions – and reading about their escapades. The horse wrangling, the dramas, the horse stolen, the uber-violent prison time, the love story – it was truly fascinating. A ripping yarn.
I found the part when a bunch of Mexicans wanted to buy young Blevins, as it seemed they were attracted to his naked legs – this was when he lost his clothes. This made me laugh, there were some funny bits.
Rawlins nodded. It’s sort of like old T-Bone. Watts when he worked for daddy they all fussed about him havin bad breath. He told them it was bettern no breath at all
But things started spinning out of control for me last night during my final sitting – the final 40 pages, the bit when Grady is riding with the Captain. I just couldn’t follow it; it became too confusing. Yes, this author does surprise – for example, you can read a passage and then realise – “oh that’s who he’s banging on about”. But this last bit, the part where I wanted some sort of ending – was lost on me. I didn’t like that.
It made me think, does this author write for himself or for the audience? He just struck me a bit like a top Jazz Trumpet Player who riffs for 30 minutes, improvising, mucking around with various tricks and slicks – almost inaccessible to the average punter. Is this author self-indulgent, or is he brilliant? In some ways, I can’t understand why somebody would create art that is confusing. Or is that the appeal to the educated reader? I think it might be – or to a certain section of educated readers.
Are McCarthy’s other books written like this?
3 stars
August 4, 2023
Well, how to even review this book. Admittedly, I went in with high expectations, and with Cormac McCarthy passing away a couple of months ago, there was plenty of chat round his books.
As McCarthy is known for his sparse punctuation, graphic violence and use of Spanish dialogue, I went in with some expectation of what I would be faced with. Being monolingual (well, I am generalising, but New Zealanders are not known for their grasp of languages), the only of the three I struggled with was the Spanish. In many cases there was just enough that it was evident what was happening, but I suspect I might have lost some key information at times. Where really confused I did resort to typing sentences into google translate, which did disrupt the flow of my reading. Luckily MCarthy sticks with short punchy sentences in his dialogue!
McCarthy's trilogy is a modern cowboy story, known as the great American novel, and that is pretty hard to argue with. I enjoyed it, and regularly had trouble putting this down (and going back to work).
I loved it, it was great, and I look forward to the other books in the trilogy.
5 stars
As McCarthy is known for his sparse punctuation, graphic violence and use of Spanish dialogue, I went in with some expectation of what I would be faced with. Being monolingual (well, I am generalising, but New Zealanders are not known for their grasp of languages), the only of the three I struggled with was the Spanish. In many cases there was just enough that it was evident what was happening, but I suspect I might have lost some key information at times. Where really confused I did resort to typing sentences into google translate, which did disrupt the flow of my reading. Luckily MCarthy sticks with short punchy sentences in his dialogue!
McCarthy's trilogy is a modern cowboy story, known as the great American novel, and that is pretty hard to argue with. I enjoyed it, and regularly had trouble putting this down (and going back to work).
I loved it, it was great, and I look forward to the other books in the trilogy.
5 stars
December 24, 2021
A rare thing happened to me while I read this novel: I barely gave it a thought. It didn't exist for me outside of the time I was reading it. Which means I don't have a lot to say about it. McCarthy is a good storyteller. He goes from A to B to C. He is good at telling a relatively simple story of straightforward emotions on a grand Homeric scale. Perhaps once or twice I registered a dislike of the Biblical registers of his highly stylised prose in the poetic passages. And I thought for a moment how important loyalty is to him as a quality, the last bastion of defence against the tribulations of a hostile fate. There was a wise old aunt I liked. But it wasn't a novel that engaged me on a deep level.
August 13, 2023
John “Grady” Cole is sixteen years old in the fall of 1949; his grandfather is newly dead and his mother is going to sell their Texas ranch, the only home he’s ever known. Grady has been raised by the Mexican workers on the farm, Arturo and Luisa, and Luisa’s mother, whom Grady calls Abeula (grandmother). We learn that Abuela not only took care of his mother as a baby, but also the wild Grady boys who were his mother’s uncles and who had all died so long ago. Grady’s mother has been absent most of his life, chasing the dream of being an actress. It seems his father has been an in and out presence, mostly out. Cormac McCarthy doesn’t indulge in dozens of paragraphs writing about Grady’s identity; he doesn’t linger on Grady’s emotions, but for the careful reader, the underpinnings of Grady’s life are smoldering embers, meant to be seen and felt as they are walked over. Luisa’s greeting, “Buenos días, guapo.” Good morning, handsome. The touch of her hand to the back of Grady’s neck as she walks to the stove. In contrast the conversation with his mother accentuates their distance, each sitting at opposite ends of a long table. Grady’s pleas to save the ranch fall on deaf ears. He says he can run the ranch and she tells him he’s ridiculous. She has no true knowledge of her son or his abilities, worst of all, she doesn’t seem to care about what’s going to happen to him. He’s going to be as displaced as the Mexican family that’s raised him. If she feels any affiliation with this Mexican family she’s known all her life, she does not let it rise to the level of conflict with her plans.
Grady’s father may not have had much of a part of his raising but he knows one of the most important aspects of his life. Horses. His gift to Grady, the Hamley Formfitter saddle shows this. Throughout the novel, we learn of Grady’s relationship with horses and through this I came to think of this connection as elemental, a part of him as close as his own skin. He talks to his horses in Spanish, which because of his raising is probably his first language.
Blevins’s horse was breathing with slow regularity and his stomach was warm and his shirt damp from the horse’s breath. He found he was breathing in rhythm with the horse as if some part of the horse were within him breathing and then he descended into some deeper collusion for which he had not even a name.
Displaced Grady travels across the Rio Grande into Mexico with his friend Rawlins. There they meet a young, perhaps 13 year-old boy, Jimmy Blevins. Blevins is a tagalong on a beautiful bay horse that Grady and Rawlins suspect he has stolen. Their unlikely association with Blevins will have consequences.
Grady and Rawlins will find work at the Hacienda de Nuestra Señora de la Purísima Concepción. There Grady will fall in love with the owner’s daughter, Alejandra, and that is a story worth reading just to take in McCarthy’s prose, which is simple and beautiful.
In Mexico, there are Mexicans that perceive Grady as ‘other.’ They will cause problems for him. “She (Alejandra) took his arm and she laughed and called him a mojado-reverso, so rare a creature and one to be treasured.” So certain was I that this was a key consideration that I read several articles that referred to this term. That’s the beauty of reading older novels. One can often uncover revelatory insights through the analysis of others. In ‘“Mojado-Reverso”: Illegal Immigration and Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy’, an article by Josh Crain, Crain states that La Purisima can be “can be understood as a parody of the migrant experience in America.” The description of La Purisima reminded the boys of paradise. Just as Mexican immigrants come to America for the better life they’ve seen in the movies and heard of in reports from relatives, so Grady and Rawlins went there to find the paradise they’d heard about. Crain comments that the American paradise is often represented by opportunities for leisure while “the immigrant, whose habit of life has been hard work, stands in marked contrast to them.” This analysis made me want to laugh at the scenes of Grady and Rawlins waking early to break the wild horses, going to bed late, and rising to do this day after day, while they attracted a crowd of Mexican onlookers who observed and partied. While Crain encourages readers not to give these interpretations political meanings, I’m fascinated that McCarthy’s genius is leading us to remember (or consider) what it is like to be the immigrant.
Grady’s father may not have had much of a part of his raising but he knows one of the most important aspects of his life. Horses. His gift to Grady, the Hamley Formfitter saddle shows this. Throughout the novel, we learn of Grady’s relationship with horses and through this I came to think of this connection as elemental, a part of him as close as his own skin. He talks to his horses in Spanish, which because of his raising is probably his first language.
Blevins’s horse was breathing with slow regularity and his stomach was warm and his shirt damp from the horse’s breath. He found he was breathing in rhythm with the horse as if some part of the horse were within him breathing and then he descended into some deeper collusion for which he had not even a name.
Displaced Grady travels across the Rio Grande into Mexico with his friend Rawlins. There they meet a young, perhaps 13 year-old boy, Jimmy Blevins. Blevins is a tagalong on a beautiful bay horse that Grady and Rawlins suspect he has stolen. Their unlikely association with Blevins will have consequences.
Grady and Rawlins will find work at the Hacienda de Nuestra Señora de la Purísima Concepción. There Grady will fall in love with the owner’s daughter, Alejandra, and that is a story worth reading just to take in McCarthy’s prose, which is simple and beautiful.
In Mexico, there are Mexicans that perceive Grady as ‘other.’ They will cause problems for him. “She (Alejandra) took his arm and she laughed and called him a mojado-reverso, so rare a creature and one to be treasured.” So certain was I that this was a key consideration that I read several articles that referred to this term. That’s the beauty of reading older novels. One can often uncover revelatory insights through the analysis of others. In ‘“Mojado-Reverso”: Illegal Immigration and Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy’, an article by Josh Crain, Crain states that La Purisima can be “can be understood as a parody of the migrant experience in America.” The description of La Purisima reminded the boys of paradise. Just as Mexican immigrants come to America for the better life they’ve seen in the movies and heard of in reports from relatives, so Grady and Rawlins went there to find the paradise they’d heard about. Crain comments that the American paradise is often represented by opportunities for leisure while “the immigrant, whose habit of life has been hard work, stands in marked contrast to them.” This analysis made me want to laugh at the scenes of Grady and Rawlins waking early to break the wild horses, going to bed late, and rising to do this day after day, while they attracted a crowd of Mexican onlookers who observed and partied. While Crain encourages readers not to give these interpretations political meanings, I’m fascinated that McCarthy’s genius is leading us to remember (or consider) what it is like to be the immigrant.
January 28, 2024
Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real.
All the Pretty Horses ~~ Cormac McCarthy
Believe it or not, All the Pretty Horses is the first Cormac McCarthy novel I have read. I wish I hadn't put reading Cormac McCarthy off for so long. Reading this was like discovering an unknown Ernest Hemingway title. This was a fantastic read.
All the Pretty Horses is a richly-imagined, modern-day, western, full of adventure, romance, and vibrant characters. After having read this, I am convinced McCarthy is one of the best writers America has produced the last 50 years.
The story is simple, but written with energy and thoughtful subtlety ~~ one critic described All the Pretty Horses as part bildungsroman, part horse opera, and part meditation on courage and loyalty. The writing is sparse, the characters few ~~ all are all drawn with care and skill ~~ the friendship between Cole and Rawlins is humorous and heartfelt.
McCarthy’s nostalgic prose is sparse, romantic and mesmerizing; McCarthy paints a ruggedly beautiful picture of the badlands of Texas and northern Mexico.
I grew to love John Grady for his determination, his courage, his manliness and even his work ethic. I found Grady’s attitude refreshing and inspiring. Grady is the epitome of loyalty.
John Grady is the definition of honor, integrity, and kindness. I'm looking forward to continuing this journey with him.
After I'd finished All the Pretty Horses, I felt I'd experienced something beautiful and fleeting. This is one of the greatest books I've read in years. Highly recommended.
All the Pretty Horses ~~ Cormac McCarthy
Believe it or not, All the Pretty Horses is the first Cormac McCarthy novel I have read. I wish I hadn't put reading Cormac McCarthy off for so long. Reading this was like discovering an unknown Ernest Hemingway title. This was a fantastic read.
All the Pretty Horses is a richly-imagined, modern-day, western, full of adventure, romance, and vibrant characters. After having read this, I am convinced McCarthy is one of the best writers America has produced the last 50 years.
The story is simple, but written with energy and thoughtful subtlety ~~ one critic described All the Pretty Horses as part bildungsroman, part horse opera, and part meditation on courage and loyalty. The writing is sparse, the characters few ~~ all are all drawn with care and skill ~~ the friendship between Cole and Rawlins is humorous and heartfelt.
McCarthy’s nostalgic prose is sparse, romantic and mesmerizing; McCarthy paints a ruggedly beautiful picture of the badlands of Texas and northern Mexico.
I grew to love John Grady for his determination, his courage, his manliness and even his work ethic. I found Grady’s attitude refreshing and inspiring. Grady is the epitome of loyalty.
John Grady is the definition of honor, integrity, and kindness. I'm looking forward to continuing this journey with him.
After I'd finished All the Pretty Horses, I felt I'd experienced something beautiful and fleeting. This is one of the greatest books I've read in years. Highly recommended.
December 9, 2009
Despite my great love for The Road, I’d argue that my enjoyment of All the Pretty Horses was far from predetermined. To begin with, I’ve recently been made aware (in discussions with fellow Goodreaders) that I’ve never seen a single Clint Eastwood movie or even a non-Clint Eastwood Western. And although I grew up in the South (sort of), I’m now an East Coast city guy who’s never even gone camping if you don’t count that college freshman orientation trip. Not only do I know jack-shit about horses and their care, but my allergies (basically the entire animal kingdom is off limits) will see to it that I never will. And as this book's title suggests, there’s quite a lot of horse information here (as well as impassioned equine eulogizing), complete with the usual Cormac McCarthy super-detailed passages. It’s this healthy inclusion of mundane detail that readers sometimes complain about, but for us greenhorns who can barely recognize a fully-dressed cowboy, it allows for a full immersion into mid-century Texas and Mexico that’s not only believable, but undeniably real. Don’t let the character accents (sorry Texans!) and punctuation paucity fool you; this guy knows his shit and you will believe him. Except maybe when it comes to romance.
Oh, Cormac. The Alejandra and John Grady Cole relationship reads like a Hollywood movie where the producer came in demanding massive cuts in the middle, leaving us without all the get-to-know-you stuff between the character introduction and the sex--i.e. the stuff that makes you ultimately care about and believe in the couple. And their first contact is pure Hollywood love-at-first-sight cheese. It goes something like this: “he saw her and he knew his life would never be the same” or “he saw her and he knew that he’d found the woman of his dreams” (I’ll look up the exact quote later). How forgiving you are of this type of thing probably depends on how much you enjoy the story arc as a whole and how well you suspend disbelief generally. It’s not that the relationship itself is unbelievable; it’s just that McCarthy doesn’t really take the time to develop it. But by being responsible for JGC’s motivations, Alejandra functions as the ultimate plot-driver, the one whose existence gets JGC into Big Trouble and is therefore responsible for many of his gripping Mexican adventures. And as I’ve suggested somewhat obviously before, forbidden love is a good topic for compelling (or at least high-selling) fiction, even if it's not done particularly well.
Despite some romantic shortcomings, McCarthy has once again won me over with his treatment of morality. Like in The Road, he examines situations where it’d be easy to do something short of the (most) right thing. (Minor, vague spoilers to follow). Along with Alejandra, a side character named Jimmy Blevins exists mainly to get our hero in trouble. He’s also there to show us that our hero is the fucking man. Blevins is a 13 year-old kid that tags along with JGC and his buddy Rawlins on their trip down to Mexico. He wasn’t invited, he’s a pain in the ass, and he screws them over in big and little ways. And JGC and Rawlins are provided plenty of opportunities to move on without him, to leave him with what he deserves, to quit him after giving him every opportunity to be something less than a pain in the ass. But JGC sticks his neck out for Blevins especially when he deserves the opposite. When it’s portrayed well, this kind of grace-full sacrifice gets me good. And McCarthy knows how to do it well.
While I was initially skeptical of McCarthy’s prose style and punctuation liberties, I’ve come to greatly enjoy both since becoming convinced that they (mostly) serve to enhance the storytelling impact. At one point I came across a passage that I was sure I’d read before, but whence I couldn’t remember. And then it hit me—it was from B.R. Myers’s (in)famous essay, A Reader’s Manifesto, which basically laments the state of modern, critically-praised literary fiction. And at the time, since I hadn’t read any of the authors he was quoting and denigrating, I thought that Myers really had a point. Because taken as a standalone quotation, this sentence really does look ridiculous:
While inside the vaulting of the ribs between his knees the darkly meated heart pumped of who's will and the blood pulsed and the bowels shifted in their massive blue convolutions of who's will and the stout thighbones and knee and cannon and the tendons like flaxen hawsers that drew and flexed and drew and flexed at their articulations of who's will all sheathed and muffled in the flesh and the hooves that stove wells in the morning groundmist and the head turning side to side and the great slavering keyboard of his teeth and the hot globes of his eyes where the world burned.
However, when read in context (and I’m not talking about the context of the entire book, but rather just considering the few preceding sentences), the description is not only lucid, but the breathlessly odd rendering of the in-action horse mirrors the emotional, animal upheaval within JGC's own innards, infusing the passage with implicit and potent meaning. But Myers, preying on those who are either unfamiliar with the work or who’ve understandably forgotten this short atypical part, goes for the jugular with what amounts to an ad hominem attack re McCarthy’s intent:
The obscurity of who's will, which has an unfortunate Dr. Seussian ring to it, is meant to bully readers into thinking that the author's mind operates on a plane higher than their own—a plane where it isn't ridiculous to eulogize the shifts in a horse's bowels.
Whether Myers was genuinely confused about the “who” in question is unknowable, but his suggestion regarding McCarthy’s intent is malicious (and laughable). Furthermore, I suspect that many powerful passages—ones designed to reach an emotional peak (without the constraints of Standard Written English) rather than to achieve a straightforward communication of information—would look rather silly out of context, even (or perhaps especially) those written by the High Modernists who remain unsullied by Myers. Unorthodox sentences can be highly effective in context, and McCarthy shows great sensitivity in deciding when to unleash the fireworks and when to leave things plain and simple.
Myers also complains about the level of detail, particularly when it comes to the mundane:
But novels tolerate epic language only in moderation. To record with the same somber majesty every aspect of a cowboy's life, from a knife fight to his lunchtime burrito, is to create what can only be described as kitsch.
It is precisely this style, however, that sets McCarthy apart as a conjurer of another place and another time that feel lived in by human beings who don’t just shoot guns, chase women, and ride horses, but who also wash clothes, get hungover, cook food, and complete other boring, everyday tasks. In spite of all the mundane events that McCarthy chronicles, I can’t put his books down because of the unique way he describes these things; because of the way he records events with that “somber majesty” scorned by Myers.
And while, like Myers, I can also find a few things to criticize in All the Pretty Horses (in addition to the romance), this nitpicking would seriously misconstrue my enjoyment of the book. I inhaled it. As with The Road, McCarthy creates a world that’s not only compelling, but inescapable. You’re in there and the only way out is to get to the next page and then the next, the next, the next. Whatever he’s doing, it works, and Myers’s deconstruction only makes sense if you’re not having a great time. And that’s what All the Pretty Horses is foremost; a great time.
Oh, Cormac. The Alejandra and John Grady Cole relationship reads like a Hollywood movie where the producer came in demanding massive cuts in the middle, leaving us without all the get-to-know-you stuff between the character introduction and the sex--i.e. the stuff that makes you ultimately care about and believe in the couple. And their first contact is pure Hollywood love-at-first-sight cheese. It goes something like this: “he saw her and he knew his life would never be the same” or “he saw her and he knew that he’d found the woman of his dreams” (I’ll look up the exact quote later). How forgiving you are of this type of thing probably depends on how much you enjoy the story arc as a whole and how well you suspend disbelief generally. It’s not that the relationship itself is unbelievable; it’s just that McCarthy doesn’t really take the time to develop it. But by being responsible for JGC’s motivations, Alejandra functions as the ultimate plot-driver, the one whose existence gets JGC into Big Trouble and is therefore responsible for many of his gripping Mexican adventures. And as I’ve suggested somewhat obviously before, forbidden love is a good topic for compelling (or at least high-selling) fiction, even if it's not done particularly well.
Despite some romantic shortcomings, McCarthy has once again won me over with his treatment of morality. Like in The Road, he examines situations where it’d be easy to do something short of the (most) right thing. (Minor, vague spoilers to follow). Along with Alejandra, a side character named Jimmy Blevins exists mainly to get our hero in trouble. He’s also there to show us that our hero is the fucking man. Blevins is a 13 year-old kid that tags along with JGC and his buddy Rawlins on their trip down to Mexico. He wasn’t invited, he’s a pain in the ass, and he screws them over in big and little ways. And JGC and Rawlins are provided plenty of opportunities to move on without him, to leave him with what he deserves, to quit him after giving him every opportunity to be something less than a pain in the ass. But JGC sticks his neck out for Blevins especially when he deserves the opposite. When it’s portrayed well, this kind of grace-full sacrifice gets me good. And McCarthy knows how to do it well.
While I was initially skeptical of McCarthy’s prose style and punctuation liberties, I’ve come to greatly enjoy both since becoming convinced that they (mostly) serve to enhance the storytelling impact. At one point I came across a passage that I was sure I’d read before, but whence I couldn’t remember. And then it hit me—it was from B.R. Myers’s (in)famous essay, A Reader’s Manifesto, which basically laments the state of modern, critically-praised literary fiction. And at the time, since I hadn’t read any of the authors he was quoting and denigrating, I thought that Myers really had a point. Because taken as a standalone quotation, this sentence really does look ridiculous:
While inside the vaulting of the ribs between his knees the darkly meated heart pumped of who's will and the blood pulsed and the bowels shifted in their massive blue convolutions of who's will and the stout thighbones and knee and cannon and the tendons like flaxen hawsers that drew and flexed and drew and flexed at their articulations of who's will all sheathed and muffled in the flesh and the hooves that stove wells in the morning groundmist and the head turning side to side and the great slavering keyboard of his teeth and the hot globes of his eyes where the world burned.
However, when read in context (and I’m not talking about the context of the entire book, but rather just considering the few preceding sentences), the description is not only lucid, but the breathlessly odd rendering of the in-action horse mirrors the emotional, animal upheaval within JGC's own innards, infusing the passage with implicit and potent meaning. But Myers, preying on those who are either unfamiliar with the work or who’ve understandably forgotten this short atypical part, goes for the jugular with what amounts to an ad hominem attack re McCarthy’s intent:
The obscurity of who's will, which has an unfortunate Dr. Seussian ring to it, is meant to bully readers into thinking that the author's mind operates on a plane higher than their own—a plane where it isn't ridiculous to eulogize the shifts in a horse's bowels.
Whether Myers was genuinely confused about the “who” in question is unknowable, but his suggestion regarding McCarthy’s intent is malicious (and laughable). Furthermore, I suspect that many powerful passages—ones designed to reach an emotional peak (without the constraints of Standard Written English) rather than to achieve a straightforward communication of information—would look rather silly out of context, even (or perhaps especially) those written by the High Modernists who remain unsullied by Myers. Unorthodox sentences can be highly effective in context, and McCarthy shows great sensitivity in deciding when to unleash the fireworks and when to leave things plain and simple.
Myers also complains about the level of detail, particularly when it comes to the mundane:
But novels tolerate epic language only in moderation. To record with the same somber majesty every aspect of a cowboy's life, from a knife fight to his lunchtime burrito, is to create what can only be described as kitsch.
It is precisely this style, however, that sets McCarthy apart as a conjurer of another place and another time that feel lived in by human beings who don’t just shoot guns, chase women, and ride horses, but who also wash clothes, get hungover, cook food, and complete other boring, everyday tasks. In spite of all the mundane events that McCarthy chronicles, I can’t put his books down because of the unique way he describes these things; because of the way he records events with that “somber majesty” scorned by Myers.
And while, like Myers, I can also find a few things to criticize in All the Pretty Horses (in addition to the romance), this nitpicking would seriously misconstrue my enjoyment of the book. I inhaled it. As with The Road, McCarthy creates a world that’s not only compelling, but inescapable. You’re in there and the only way out is to get to the next page and then the next, the next, the next. Whatever he’s doing, it works, and Myers’s deconstruction only makes sense if you’re not having a great time. And that’s what All the Pretty Horses is foremost; a great time.
March 4, 2020
A gloriously atmospheric reading experience.
WINNER: U.S. National Book Award
WINNER: National Book Critics Circle Award
It's not so much 'what' this book is about as it is 'the words' of this book. The delicious, deliberate, patient, cowboy-slow, piece-of-straw-in-your-mouth, quiet way the story is told.
The terrain of Texas and Mexico. Horseback riding and camping. Campfires, campfire meals (I seem to remember there being a lot of tortillas and beans). Strong black coffee in the morning. The solitude. The open air. The night sky. Traveling on horseback. Divine.
“He lay on his back in his blankets and looked out where the quarter moon lay cocked over the heel of the mountains... the great diamond of Orion and Cepella and the signature of Cassiopeia all rising up through the phosphorous dark... He lay a long time listening to the others breathing in their sleep while he contemplated the wildness about him, the wildness within.”
WINNER: U.S. National Book Award
WINNER: National Book Critics Circle Award
It's not so much 'what' this book is about as it is 'the words' of this book. The delicious, deliberate, patient, cowboy-slow, piece-of-straw-in-your-mouth, quiet way the story is told.
The terrain of Texas and Mexico. Horseback riding and camping. Campfires, campfire meals (I seem to remember there being a lot of tortillas and beans). Strong black coffee in the morning. The solitude. The open air. The night sky. Traveling on horseback. Divine.
“He lay on his back in his blankets and looked out where the quarter moon lay cocked over the heel of the mountains... the great diamond of Orion and Cepella and the signature of Cassiopeia all rising up through the phosphorous dark... He lay a long time listening to the others breathing in their sleep while he contemplated the wildness about him, the wildness within.”
April 21, 2022
April has clearly become the month of my best readings of the year so far, and after finishing All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy, it seems very unlikely that that fact may change in a while.
Since this book and I seem to be connected in a way that it is difficult for me to explain, I would just like to say why it is actually my favorite book of the year and one of my best reads of my life.
To begin with, the writing style and its own beauty. I believe you don't find a book with such a poetic prose every day; there is a powerful, beautiful narrative in the whole book – it is like poetry written in prose form, telling you a story. Poetry, poetry and just poetry. You can feel each word, each phrase, where every single thing together makes complete sense; besides, our characters' feelings and thoughts are constantly depicted using this poetic style, which is an indescribable experience.
Dialogues without quotation marks: not a problem anymore for me; now I can notice the difference between a bad writing style and a good one, and see why it was a huge problem in my last reading experience and like a blessing in this one here.
In addition, another aspect that really surprised me was the fact that there are characters who are constantly speaking Spanish, and even the narrator is 'speaking' Spanish (mostly words, not complete sentences) in order to describe some scenes; if you are both a Spanish and an English speaker, you are probably going to love this fact, and of course, if you like to read in both English and Spanish, I encourage you to read this one in its original language, not in translation (I think it might lose its own soul in translation). For example, dialogues such as this one:
Digame, he said. Cuál es lo peor: Que soy pobre o que soy americano?
The vaquero shook his head. Una llave de oro abre cualquier puerta, he said.
In my opinion, I don't know if McCarthy speaks Spanish fluently, I think he does since he was able to use this resource perfectly in his novel. The characters who are Mexican speak real Mexican Spanish (I found one, maybe two expressions in the entire novel which are not Mexican at all, but from Spain, which is completely acceptable), and the author is truly respectful of Mexican culture. In short, I found a small part of my country in this book, but a real one, and that fact, just that one, made me love this novel quite a bit.
Secondly, the story and the characters. Even though there is a gloomy, ominous atmosphere every now and then in the story, the plot itself is absolutely emotional, moving. The story is set in both Texas and mainly the north of Mexico, in the state of Coahuila, and it follows the life of John Grady, a 16-year-old boy who grew up on a ranch in San Angelo, Texas and who speaks both Spanish and English. After his grandfather's death, he and his best friend Lacey Rawlins leave their place and set off together in order to find a job as cowboys in Mexico.
The whole journey, my friends, the whole extraordinary journey means beauty, wonder, passion. I can't describe how much I loved reading this story, joining the characters on their own trip; obviously it was not only a physical journey, but also a symbolic one. The development of the protagonists is completely noticeable and more than impressive, the dialogues are quite thought-provoking and some of them are still stuck in my head, and the beautiful, rather symbolic ending.... I just felt like another notch on my belt after finishing it.
The horses!, please don't forget the horses whose parts in the novel—almost the entire novel—are sublime; in short, I don't know if I will find another novel such as this one soon. It was my first McCarthy, but certainly it won't be the last one.
Lastly—I know I am breaking my rule of three paragraphs only, but I just have one more thing to say—there is one monologue in this novel that really impressed me, and still now, while I'm writing my review, it is in my mind so vividly and profoundly. A 70-year-old woman, talking about an episode that she lived during the Mexican Revolution, and how she comes back to that precise moment while she is talking... Wow! I am not lying if I say that I felt this part so close to me as a Mexican. I had the fortune to meet my great-grandmother, and although I don't remember her so well (I was merely 5 years old when she passed away in 2000), my grandmother used to tell me what her mother lived during the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution, and how her family had to overcome the whole situation, how they got through the consequences of the war.
Obviously I couldn't help but cry while I was reading these memories, but also I couldn't be happier with the descriptions, thoughts and true, deep feelings that McCarthy depicts in this scene, and of course, in the entire book.
Society is very important in Mexico. Where women do not even have the vote. In Mexico they are mad for society and for politics and very bad at both.
The following paragraph is another example of how shocking the effects of the revolution were for children, being quite heartbreaking:
There were so few restraints upon them. So few expectations. Then at the age of eleven or twelve they would cease being children. They lost their childhood overnight and they had no youth. They became very serious. As if some terrible truth had been visited upon them. Some terrible vision. At a certain point in their lives they were sobered in an instant and I was puzzled by this but of course I could not know what it was they saw. What it was they knew.
In a nutshell, All the Pretty Horses is an absolute masterpiece, a great piece of literature that I am pretty sure everyone can enjoy and live at once. Obviously I'd wholeheartedly recommend this book, and I hope you love it as much as I did.
Favorite/Remarkable quotes:
He said that war had destroyed the country and that men believe the cure for war is war as the curandero prescribes the serpent’s flesh for its bite.
She smiled. I believe you, she said. But you must understand. This is another country. Here a woman’s reputation is all she has.
Yes mam.
There is no forgiveness, you see.
Mam?
There is no forgiveness. For women. A man may lose his honor and regain it again. But a woman cannot. She cannot.
Anybody can be a pendejo, said John Grady. That just means asshole.
Yeah? Well, we’re the biggest ones in here.
Evil is a true thing in Mexico. It goes about on its own legs. Maybe some day it will come to visit you. Maybe it already has.
In history there are no control groups. There is no one to tell us what might have been. We weep over the might have been, but there is no might have been. There never was. It is supposed to be true that those who do not know history are condemned to repeat it. I dont believe knowing can save us. What is constant in history is greed and foolishness and a love of blood and this is a thing that even God—who knows all that can be known—seems powerless to change.
He thought the world’s heart beat at some terrible cost and that the world’s pain and its beauty moved in a relationship of diverging equity and that in this headlong deficit the blood of multitudes might ultimately be exacted for the vision of a single flower.
Since this book and I seem to be connected in a way that it is difficult for me to explain, I would just like to say why it is actually my favorite book of the year and one of my best reads of my life.
To begin with, the writing style and its own beauty. I believe you don't find a book with such a poetic prose every day; there is a powerful, beautiful narrative in the whole book – it is like poetry written in prose form, telling you a story. Poetry, poetry and just poetry. You can feel each word, each phrase, where every single thing together makes complete sense; besides, our characters' feelings and thoughts are constantly depicted using this poetic style, which is an indescribable experience.
Dialogues without quotation marks: not a problem anymore for me; now I can notice the difference between a bad writing style and a good one, and see why it was a huge problem in my last reading experience and like a blessing in this one here.
In addition, another aspect that really surprised me was the fact that there are characters who are constantly speaking Spanish, and even the narrator is 'speaking' Spanish (mostly words, not complete sentences) in order to describe some scenes; if you are both a Spanish and an English speaker, you are probably going to love this fact, and of course, if you like to read in both English and Spanish, I encourage you to read this one in its original language, not in translation (I think it might lose its own soul in translation). For example, dialogues such as this one:
Digame, he said. Cuál es lo peor: Que soy pobre o que soy americano?
The vaquero shook his head. Una llave de oro abre cualquier puerta, he said.
In my opinion, I don't know if McCarthy speaks Spanish fluently, I think he does since he was able to use this resource perfectly in his novel. The characters who are Mexican speak real Mexican Spanish (I found one, maybe two expressions in the entire novel which are not Mexican at all, but from Spain, which is completely acceptable), and the author is truly respectful of Mexican culture. In short, I found a small part of my country in this book, but a real one, and that fact, just that one, made me love this novel quite a bit.
Secondly, the story and the characters. Even though there is a gloomy, ominous atmosphere every now and then in the story, the plot itself is absolutely emotional, moving. The story is set in both Texas and mainly the north of Mexico, in the state of Coahuila, and it follows the life of John Grady, a 16-year-old boy who grew up on a ranch in San Angelo, Texas and who speaks both Spanish and English. After his grandfather's death, he and his best friend Lacey Rawlins leave their place and set off together in order to find a job as cowboys in Mexico.
The whole journey, my friends, the whole extraordinary journey means beauty, wonder, passion. I can't describe how much I loved reading this story, joining the characters on their own trip; obviously it was not only a physical journey, but also a symbolic one. The development of the protagonists is completely noticeable and more than impressive, the dialogues are quite thought-provoking and some of them are still stuck in my head, and the beautiful, rather symbolic ending.... I just felt like another notch on my belt after finishing it.
The horses!, please don't forget the horses whose parts in the novel—almost the entire novel—are sublime; in short, I don't know if I will find another novel such as this one soon. It was my first McCarthy, but certainly it won't be the last one.
Lastly—I know I am breaking my rule of three paragraphs only, but I just have one more thing to say—there is one monologue in this novel that really impressed me, and still now, while I'm writing my review, it is in my mind so vividly and profoundly. A 70-year-old woman, talking about an episode that she lived during the Mexican Revolution, and how she comes back to that precise moment while she is talking... Wow! I am not lying if I say that I felt this part so close to me as a Mexican. I had the fortune to meet my great-grandmother, and although I don't remember her so well (I was merely 5 years old when she passed away in 2000), my grandmother used to tell me what her mother lived during the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution, and how her family had to overcome the whole situation, how they got through the consequences of the war.
Obviously I couldn't help but cry while I was reading these memories, but also I couldn't be happier with the descriptions, thoughts and true, deep feelings that McCarthy depicts in this scene, and of course, in the entire book.
Society is very important in Mexico. Where women do not even have the vote. In Mexico they are mad for society and for politics and very bad at both.
The following paragraph is another example of how shocking the effects of the revolution were for children, being quite heartbreaking:
There were so few restraints upon them. So few expectations. Then at the age of eleven or twelve they would cease being children. They lost their childhood overnight and they had no youth. They became very serious. As if some terrible truth had been visited upon them. Some terrible vision. At a certain point in their lives they were sobered in an instant and I was puzzled by this but of course I could not know what it was they saw. What it was they knew.
In a nutshell, All the Pretty Horses is an absolute masterpiece, a great piece of literature that I am pretty sure everyone can enjoy and live at once. Obviously I'd wholeheartedly recommend this book, and I hope you love it as much as I did.
Favorite/Remarkable quotes:
He said that war had destroyed the country and that men believe the cure for war is war as the curandero prescribes the serpent’s flesh for its bite.
She smiled. I believe you, she said. But you must understand. This is another country. Here a woman’s reputation is all she has.
Yes mam.
There is no forgiveness, you see.
Mam?
There is no forgiveness. For women. A man may lose his honor and regain it again. But a woman cannot. She cannot.
Anybody can be a pendejo, said John Grady. That just means asshole.
Yeah? Well, we’re the biggest ones in here.
Evil is a true thing in Mexico. It goes about on its own legs. Maybe some day it will come to visit you. Maybe it already has.
In history there are no control groups. There is no one to tell us what might have been. We weep over the might have been, but there is no might have been. There never was. It is supposed to be true that those who do not know history are condemned to repeat it. I dont believe knowing can save us. What is constant in history is greed and foolishness and a love of blood and this is a thing that even God—who knows all that can be known—seems powerless to change.
He thought the world’s heart beat at some terrible cost and that the world’s pain and its beauty moved in a relationship of diverging equity and that in this headlong deficit the blood of multitudes might ultimately be exacted for the vision of a single flower.
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