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All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
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All the Pretty Horses

by Cormac Mccarthy

Series: Border Trilogy (1)

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3,73864647 (3.95)140
Info:

Vintage (1993), Paperback, 320 pages

Member:emccullough
Collections:Your libraryRating:****
Tags:December 2008
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English (63)  Danish (1)  All languages (64)
Showing 1-5 of 63 (next | show all)
Ride with John Grady Cole through Texas into Mexico in Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses. When sixteen-year old Cole realizes at his grandfather’s funeral that his ranch home will most likely be sold (by his estranged mother), he sets out for a better life in Mexico. He takes his horse and his buddy, Rawlins. Not long after they set out, they come across another young man named Blevins. Cole welcomes him into their group, shares his food and tries to learn more about the stranger. Most impressive to Cole is Blevins’ magnificent horse. Rawlins, however, feels uneasy about both Blevins and his horse. He thinks they’ll lead to trouble—and they soon find out which man’s feeling is right.
McCarthy’s lyrical style takes a few pages to adapt to, yet the effort is worthwhile. His description of the Texan landscape and Mexican villages is realistic and leaves readers feeling as if they are riding alongside the main characters. McCarthy’s depiction of old Mexico is honest—harsh and raw, yet hopeful and full of beauty. Readers who enjoyed McCarthy’s The Road or are looking for a memorable story/series (Border Trilogy) will enjoy All the Pretty Horses. ( )
  karlek2 | Nov 16, 2009 |
Great coming of age story in the west. Well developed characters and interactions ( )
  jwcooper3 | Nov 15, 2009 |
More user-friendly than The Road and No Country for Old Men ( )
  ccavaleri | Nov 13, 2009 |
Delusione. McCarthy - a mio parere - è uno dei più grandi scrittori viventi. Nei suoi libri ci sono semptre una padronanza perfetta della materia narrativa, un assoluto controllo del linguaggio, un uso sapiente delle parole, dosate e spesso centellinate ma proprio per questo ancora più incisive. In questo libro queste caratteristiche - invece di produrre un congegno letterario a orologeria - hanno dato vita a una narrazione che spesso mi pare gratuita e priva di mordente. ( )
  sanseverina | Nov 3, 2009 |
I first "read" this book as an audiobook years ago. I loved it then, but I have to say, I loved reading it much more. McCarthy has some incredibly large, beautiful sentences throughout this book. His sense of feeling and detail permeates even the most rough scenes in the story. This will truly sit in my rereading list.

A few noteworthy observations (spoiler alert!!): The character Lacey Rawlins clearly holds Jimmy Blevins in contempt at the beginning of the book; this is witnessed repeatedly and John Grady Cole is the voice of reason and caring. It struck me late in the book, after Jimmy is no longer around, how it becomes clear that Lacey really did care and felt the weight of sadness and guilt on the way life unfolded for him. McCarthy captures these feelings with a minimum of text and a maximum of power. ( )
  Cygnus555 | Nov 1, 2009 |
Showing 1-5 of 63 (next | show all)
You can’t just nip at darkness, so when you read this book, from page one you feel a threat following you, some animistic urging that keeps you going by the way McCarthy manipulates your demonic love of the sounds of speech.
 
All the Pretty Horses may indicate McCarthy's desire to come in out of the cold of those Tennessee mountain winters, but his imagination is at its best there with Arthur Ownby or with the monstrous Judge of Blood Meridian drowning dogs. He is best with what nature gives or imposes, rather than with the observations of culture.
added by Shortride | editThe New York Review of Books, Denis Donoghue (pay site) (Jun 24, 1993)
 
The magnetic attraction of Mr. McCarthy's fiction comes first from the extraordinary quality of his prose; difficult as it may sometimes be, it is also overwhelmingly seductive. Powered by long, tumbling many-stranded sentences, his descriptive style is elaborate and elevated, but also used effectively to frame realistic dialogue, for which his ear is deadly accurate.
 
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Series (with order)
Canonical Title
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Awards and honors
Epigraph
Dedication
First words
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.
Quotations
There were storms to the south and masses of clouds that moved slowly along the horizon with their long dark 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. (p. 93 of original ed.)
The boy who rode on slightly before him sat a horse not only as if he'd been born to it which he was but as if he were begot by malice or mischance into some queer land where horses never were he would have found them anyway.
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Disambiguation notice
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Canonical titleAll the Pretty Horses
Original publication date1992-05
SeriesBorder Trilogy (1)
People/CharactersJohn Grady Cole, Lacey Rawlins, Jimmy Blevins
Important placesTexas, USA, Mexico, San Angelo, Texas, USA, Coahuila, Mexico
Awards and honorsNational Book Award (Fiction, 1992), National Book Critics Circle Award (Fiction, 1992), Western Heritage Award (Western Novel, 1993), New York Times bestseller (Fiction, 1992), 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2008 Edition), Guardian 1000 (War and travel) (show all 7)
First wordsThe 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.
QuotationsThere were storms to the south and masses of clouds that moved slowly along the horizon with their long dark tendrils trailing in the rain. That night they camped on a ledge of rock above the plains and watched the lightning ... (show all)
Last words(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Publisher's editorFisketjon, Gary
Book description

Amazon.com (ISBN 0679744398, Paperback)

Part bildungsroman, part horse opera, part meditation on courage and loyalty, this beautifully crafted novel won the National Book Award in 1992. The plot is simple enough. John Grady Cole, a 16-year-old dispossessed Texan, crosses the Rio Grande into Mexico in 1949, accompanied by his pal Lacey Rawlins. The two precocious horsemen pick up a sidekick--a laughable but deadly marksman named Jimmy Blevins--encounter various adventures on their way south and finally arrive at a paradisiacal hacienda where Cole falls into an ill-fated romance. Readers familiar with McCarthy's Faulknerian prose will find the writing more restrained than in Suttree and Blood Meridian. Newcomers will be mesmerized by the tragic tale of John Grady Cole's coming of age.

(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:12 -0400)

(see all 5 descriptions)

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