I don't like books that are swooned over because of a unique voice. This book has a voice and a story and some characters and pacing and. . . . ( )

This is a true American classic. A coming of age story that is unpredictable and wonderful. ( )

Cormac McCarthy is officially my new favourite author. I am so glad I discovered his writing this year, as All the Pretty Horses his the third book of his that I have read this year, and probably the best. Luckily it is the first is a trilogy, so I have two more books to which I can look forward!

All the Pretty Horses takes place, like No Country for Old Men, around the Texas-Mexico border. The protagonist is John Grady Cole, a sixteen year old boy who decides to leave his home in Texas for the unknown of Mexico. Along with his cousin Lacey Rawlins, John Grady travels over the border with the plan of working on a Mexican ranch. He is a master with horses, an unrivaled rider, and above all, a naive young man frustrated with the world. His mother has left his father, who is dying, and his girlfriend has found happiness with another man - and so John Grady feels that Texas holds nothing for him.

While riding to Mexico, John Grady and Rawlins meet a young boy named Jimmy Blevins, who forces his company on them. Blevins is rash and angry; Rawlins is certain that he will cause trouble, and this prediction proves true. Soon the three boys encounter danger, violence, and the corrupt nature of Mexican officials.

McCarthy's novels are far from cheery - the stories are bleak and depressing, the violence is real, and the characters meet with many misfortunes. However, his novels are also beautiful - in writing, in story, and in message. John Grady suffers, but he also loves, and grows. He begins the novel a boy, and ends it a man with many life experiences. McCarthy's writing is rough and sparse at times, lyrical and descriptive at others, just like the landscape that he so richly describes.

At the centre of All the Pretty Horses are the ideas expressed in this passage:

"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 were he begot by malice or mischance into some queer land where horses never were he would have found them anyway. Would have known that there was something missing for the world to be right or he right in it and would have set forth to wander wherever it was needed for as long as it took until he came upon one and he would have known that that was what he sought and it would have been" (23).

This idea - that we all need something to be whole, and that we would instinctively search for it until we found it - is what drives John Grady. It applies not only to horses, but to his search for a country that is "his country," his need to right Blevins' wrong, and his continued love for a girl beyond his means. I find this concept fascinating - are we all on a journey to find the thing that makes us whole? Are we all destined to find it, or is it the search that is important?

McCarthy's novels are not for everyone - they are violent, and rough, but they are beautiful too. ( )

There is the love story of course, which many take to be the central element in this tale, and while I think it is an important part of the novel, in my opinion the story rests on the encounter with a mere child. As our protagonist John Grady and his cousin Rawlins reach Mexico on their horses, they are followed by, and then meet a young boy claiming to be sixteen, astride a horse which looks much too good for him, which leads John Grady and especially Rawlins to assume that he has stolen it. The boy, who has a gun but no provisions nor water nor money claims his name is Jimmy Blevins and soon trails along with them in Mexico. Rawlins takes an instant disliking to him, claiming Blevins will surely get them into serious trouble. As we soon find out, Blevin does in fact inadvertently instigate a chain of events which fuel much of the drama and adventure throughout the novel, which is a Western story above all, one about men, guns and horses, and one exquisitely told. ( )

http://sarahbbc.wordpress.com/2009/03... ( )