Cormac McCarthy - All The Pretty Horses

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Exceptionally good

This masterpiece scarcely needs another review from me, but I agree with all the rave reviews: it is a remarkable piece of work and a wholly engrossing and very rewarding read.

It’s the story of John Grady Cole, a very young man in the late 1940s in Texas who loses his family ranch and crosses to Mexico to seek work with the horses he loves. He and his friend have a number of encounters, some violent, some friendly and some loving. It’s a story of growing up, of endurance and of a love of the land and of its creatures and it is beautifully done. McCarthy has a deep understanding of his subjects and especially of men, friendship and John Cole’s decency which can act against him.

The prose is remarkable; it is spare in its revelations about people and lavish in its evocation of places, with an almost biblically poetic feel at times. There is some real violence and horror, but it is done without any sense of deliberate shockingness or titillation; it is a flat, honest description of how things were and it is all the more powerful and gripping for that. There are also some quiet but important and timely truths stated here, like these two examples (from the same remarkable speech by an older woman):

“...what I was seeking to discover was a thing I’d always known. That all courage was a form of constancy. That it was always himself that the coward abandoned first. After this all other betrayals came easily.”

and

“I only know that if she does not come to value what is true above what is useful it will make little difference whether she lives at all.”

In short, I thought All The Pretty Horses was stunning. I was wholly engrossed in it and it continues to resonate well after I’ve finished reading – and I’m sure will go on resonating for a long time. My strong recommendation is that you do not miss out on this book. It is exceptional.