All the Pretty Horses

Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: Other reviewers have spoken eloquently of this book's qualities. I want to warn everyone to avoid reading the review titled "Ok, but if you have a choice, don't read it." The cretin that wrote it revealed many plot points that you won't want to know (while still managing to grasp nothing of what the book was about). My experience of the book was the unabridged audio book read by Frank Muller. There is some interpretation involved in any reading, which may not suit all listeners, but I thought Muller did a fantastic job of capturing voices and the rhythm of the story. A delight to listen to.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful Wriitng and Lost Innocence
Review: This is my first novel by Cormac McCarthy, and I loved it. The story is gripping, though slow at times. The style reminds me of Hemingway--simple sentences with lots of coordinating conjunctions, and simple repetitons to create a poetic sense of setting and mood.

John Grady Cole is the archetypal teen on a quest to grow up, and he is complex. The moral dilemmas build this character, and his coming of age is rough and dark. Cole's lost innocence symbolizes the changes in the country after WWII.

This is the first novel in a trilogy, and I am looking forward to the other two.

Rating:
Summary: All the Pretty Horses
Review: I thought the book was rather hard to understand and extremely slow-moving. The author didn't use quotation marks when characters spoke, and he used Spanish in dialogue. I think that the book was disappointing.

Rating:
Summary: Not All the Ugly Horses
Review: This book was an exciting epic taken place in the 1950s. Sixteen year old, John Grady Cole has more than raising cattle in his plans. After his Grandfather's funeral, he and two other, somewhat comic, companions, Lacey Rawlins and Jimmy Blevins, make their way to Mexico to escape the hassles of their American culture. Soon they find themselves working on a ranch, where Cole shows his deep love and talent for training horses. Alejandra, the ranch owner's daughter, and Cole soon fall in love with each other, but their love is tested by the disapproval of Alejandra's family. This heroic, heart-throbbing novel is a tale that provides the search for romance and the challenge to pursue a cowboy's dreams. Although the lack of quotations was a change, the novel's comic relief and Texan accents gave it a unique style. The way John Grady defies the ways of society and continues to believe in the power of love shows a complete heroic character. I would recommend this book to any American romantics who enjoy a heroic story about a boy growing up in a Western atmosphere searching for adventure.


Rating:
Summary: Don't be 'scairt...
Review: Cormac McCarthy has managed to separate the literary men from boys with The Border Trilogy. Readers who were disappointed mentioned the lack of narration and punctuation. The first 10 pages of the first book caught me off guard. It felt a little like being left in a strange country with no one to translate. I kept going and fell in love with this style of writing. Everything I read afterward seemed like it was written for children; all the obvious tricks.
The story is stark. The writing is too. It fits. I was completely engrossed is this trilogy and yes, it was somewhat depressing. But for authenticity , the characters are flawless.
It takes a certain 'adjustment' to read, but anyone with a love for the west and nugget or two of gray matter can enjoy it.

Rating:
Summary: Big disappointment!
Review: This book was a waste of time to read. The boring plot along with the long-winded sentences made it absolutely trecherous to read. The lack of quotation marks, lack of character definition, and an uninteresting plot caused me to despise this book.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely horrific
Review: I would normally say this book was torturous, but there were a good...maybe ten pages in the book. It is all description, but not about anything of interest. There is very little action and when there is action, it is in run-on sentences and you wind up completely confused in the end anyway. I'd say- don't read it. You'll be sorry if you do.

Rating:
Summary: "It's a Western, with horses and guns, but deeply funny"
Review: For me McCarthy is the modern-day Faulkner: his themes are dark and unsettling, but as All the Pretty Horses shows, he can also be deeply funny. Though to be sure, this is no comedic novel. It's a Western, and adventure with horses, guns and coming of age for the protagonist, John Grady Cole, the last of a long line of Texas ranchers. And that's the core of the book, the sense that America is shrinking, that there is no room left for cowboys or adventurers. There's a great line in the book that John's buddy Rawlins says to him as they set off to Mexico on their adventure. "I could understand if you was from Alabama you'd have ever reason in the world to run off to Texas. But if you're already in Texas. I don't know."