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All the Pretty Horses (Border Trilogy, Vol 1)
by Cormac McCarthy

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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/469571.All_the_Pretty_Horses?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="All the Pretty Horses (Border Trilogy, Vol 1)" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1204745310m/469571.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/469571.All_the_Pretty_Horses?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">All the Pretty Horses</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4178.Cormac_McCarthy">Cormac McCarthy</a> 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/20680532?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
 rating: 4 of 5 stars this is an instance where i wish goodreads gave rating options of half stars or quarter stars. i really liked this book, but there are parts of its makeup i feel drag the book down. this is more like a 3.75 star book for me. but anyway.
 
 
 overall this is a wonderful book. the adventure is spectacular and violent and tells its story using all the senses. the plot is random and rambles from point to point, and for me it makes it more realistic. the story just moves so well. its a novel that just takes you along, and you can't forsee how its going to end up. there are no neat endings to the sub plots, no real resolution to this novel. and i like that. the lives that touch the protagonists are a secret once they leave his. unlike other books, it is not about the love story between john grady and alejandra or the friendship between john grady and rawlins. or about getting in and out of mexico alive. for me its about the blind steps one takes for adventure that lead one into trouble. and how each step sets off multiple random events, events you can't control or know how they will effect you later. 
 
 mccarthy does a wonderful job writing about landscape and work: describing tools and how they feel to work with, the sound of rope and the smell of horses, and so on. and i like his limited use of punctuation. one, i think it makes the reader discern the individual voices of the characters, and therefore get to know them more. also, for me it gave the sense that there is only one voice, someone who knows john grady and rawlins or maybe is one of the two. someone is telling the reader this story, maybe over a campfire or something. and so there are no quotation marks, apostrophes, etc.
 
 but i also found fault in the writing. at times it became too heavy, too poetic. much of the writing is slow, deliberate, and almost conservative; setting a tone that mathces the setting and mood of the characters. then at times he sticks in a few sentences or an entire paragraph of flowery, sometimes beautiful, stream of consciousness type prose. and more often than not there is no build up from the usual prose to these passages. so the flowery passages stick out awkwardly or weigh down the rest of the writing that surrounds it. in my opinion mccarthy or his editor should have struck those out first thing. hemingway said "take all your best lines out". that would have worked here. also, too much time is spent describing the main characters smoking or looking out in the distance in contemplation. now the point of view. for the most part it stays true to a distant point of view of john grady, at times zooming in more to understand his emotions. and then, when it seems to suit mccarthy to get in a detail or set up some action separate from john grady, the point of view switches to another character. the inconsistency to me would not be so great except one problem.(the rest of this will give some plot away so anyone actually awake enough to read this far might want to stop) the problem is he does not switch the point of view from john grady when the reader would most want him to, for instance when blevins is taken off alone and shot in the desert. he lets us know blevin's point of view when he is scared of the lightning, but not when he is scared shitless knowing he is being taken off alone into the desert to be shot. the pov of blevins with the lightning really doesn't add much to what john grady could ascertain from his pov. but the lack of blevin's pov at his most dramatic moment is critical, because john grady only hears it happen. if mccarthy were consistent on this point, his hand as creator would not be seen so easily. last, john grady is just too good. by the end of the book i was kind of sick of him, especially when he is talking w/ the judge at the judge's house. kind of wanted to puke.
 
 that said, it is a good book. and the good far outweighs the bad. though i doubt i'll read the rest of the border trilogy novels, i am going to read some of his other works.
 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/652004?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Grant's review
rating:

this is an instance where i wish goodreads gave rating options of half stars or quarter stars. i really liked this book, but there are parts of its makeup i feel drag the book down. this is more like a 3.75 star book for me. but anyway.

overall this is a wonderful book. the adventure is spectacular and violent and tells its story using all the senses. the plot is random and rambles from point to point, and for me it makes it more realistic. the story just moves so well. its a novel that just takes you along, and you can't forsee how its going to end up. there are no neat endings to the sub plots, no real resolution to this novel. and i like that. the lives that touch the protagonists are a secret once they leave his. unlike other books, it is not about the love story between john grady and alejandra or the friendship between john grady and rawlins. or about getting in and out of mexico alive. for me its about the blind steps one takes for adventure that lead one into tr...more this is an instance where i wish goodreads gave rating options of half stars or quarter stars. i really liked this book, but there are parts of its makeup i feel drag the book down. this is more like a 3.75 star book for me. but anyway.

overall this is a wonderful book. the adventure is spectacular and violent and tells its story using all the senses. the plot is random and rambles from point to point, and for me it makes it more realistic. the story just moves so well. its a novel that just takes you along, and you can't forsee how its going to end up. there are no neat endings to the sub plots, no real resolution to this novel. and i like that. the lives that touch the protagonists are a secret once they leave his. unlike other books, it is not about the love story between john grady and alejandra or the friendship between john grady and rawlins. or about getting in and out of mexico alive. for me its about the blind steps one takes for adventure that lead one into trouble. and how each step sets off multiple random events, events you can't control or know how they will effect you later.

mccarthy does a wonderful job writing about landscape and work: describing tools and how they feel to work with, the sound of rope and the smell of horses, and so on. and i like his limited use of punctuation. one, i think it makes the reader discern the individual voices of the characters, and therefore get to know them more. also, for me it gave the sense that there is only one voice, someone who knows john grady and rawlins or maybe is one of the two. someone is telling the reader this story, maybe over a campfire or something. and so there are no quotation marks, apostrophes, etc.

but i also found fault in the writing. at times it became too heavy, too poetic. much of the writing is slow, deliberate, and almost conservative; setting a tone that mathces the setting and mood of the characters. then at times he sticks in a few sentences or an entire paragraph of flowery, sometimes beautiful, stream of consciousness type prose. and more often than not there is no build up from the usual prose to these passages. so the flowery passages stick out awkwardly or weigh down the rest of the writing that surrounds it. in my opinion mccarthy or his editor should have struck those out first thing. hemingway said "take all your best lines out". that would have worked here. also, too much time is spent describing the main characters smoking or looking out in the distance in contemplation. now the point of view. for the most part it stays true to a distant point of view of john grady, at times zooming in more to understand his emotions. and then, when it seems to suit mccarthy to get in a detail or set up some action separate from john grady, the point of view switches to another character. the inconsistency to me would not be so great except one problem.(the rest of this will give some plot away so anyone actually awake enough to read this far might want to stop) the problem is he does not switch the point of view from john grady when the reader would most want him to, for instance when blevins is taken off alone and shot in the desert. he lets us know blevin's point of view when he is scared of the lightning, but not when he is scared shitless knowing he is being taken off alone into the desert to be shot. the pov of blevins with the lightning really doesn't add much to what john grady could ascertain from his pov. but the lack of blevin's pov at his most dramatic moment is critical, because john grady only hears it happen. if mccarthy were consistent on this point, his hand as creator would not be seen so easily. last, john grady is just too good. by the end of the book i was kind of sick of him, especially when he is talking w/ the judge at the judge's house. kind of wanted to puke.

that said, it is a good book. and the good far outweighs the bad. though i doubt i'll read the rest of the border trilogy novels, i am going to read some of his other works.
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