All the Pretty Horses
All the Pretty Horses is a novel by American author Cormac McCarthy published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1992. Its romanticism (in contrast to the bleakness of McCarthy's earlier work) brought the writer much public attention. It was a bestseller, and it won both the U.S. National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Along with The Crossing (1994), and Cities of the Plain (1998), it constitues McCarthy's "Border Trilogy", an elegy for the American Frontier, written in an unconventional format which omits traditional Western punctuation (such as quotation marks) and makes use of polysyndetic syntax in a manner similar to that of Ernest Hemingway. The book was adapted as a 2000 eponymous film, starring Matt Damon and Penélope Cruz, and directed by Billy Bob Thornton. (Main source: Wikipedia)
Stats for nerds
24recommend
38mentions
34people
2009–2026years
71% recommend26% neutral3% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- All The Pretty Horses is probably the most approachable and satisfying of the trilogy. But also—McCarthy is not easy to read. It's not terribly difficult either if you proceed slowly and look up words you've never encountered, but you are correct it takes a great deal of concentration.
- Our son was about 3yo when I read it, and I couldn't put it down. To me, it is a story of the father standing by his son no matter what. A really immersive reading experience. A father-son exchange that touched me:
I do think McCarthy's own family life felt, well, "controversial" in the light of all this. But, at least he didn't seem to justify himself about it. IIRC, on not paying child support after divorce, he has said "with what?" in one of his rare interviews.What is it? Nothing. I had a bad dream. What did you dream about? Nothing. Are you okay? No. He put his arms around him and held him. It's okay, he said. I was crying. But you didnt wake up. I'm sorry. I was just so tired. I meant in the dream.I'm not a native English speaker, and I've had writerly ambitions myself, and his style feels like magic to me (hey, an accidental cormac-y polysyndeton here!). But... yeah. Thinking about the way many poets "manage" to put art before family life (obviously, they can't help it) is a good reflection of me myself being just a layperson.
But he is a true master, obviously. Could be that I liked "All The Pretty Horses" even more than "The Road". Unfortunately "Suttree" isn't translated to my language yet.
- > Could be that I liked "All The Pretty Horses" even more than "The Road".
Have you read the others in the Border Trilogy, The Crossing and Cities of the Plain? If you liked Pretty Horses, you'll probably like them, too. Pretty sure I've read all three twice.
- I started the year reading Demons by Dostoevsky. Seemed prophetic in a lot of ways about what was coming about 40 years later in 1917.
At the beginning of the summer I read All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy. I'm not into westerns, but I really liked that one. A modern classic.
Just finished The Memory of Old Jack by Wendell Berry. Such a gorgeously written book.
- I lately I’ve been reading three books at once:
- Fiction: Pure entertainment, with no shame, although I do enjoy working in a mix of slop and more high-brow works. I generally go through one of these every 5-10 days.
- Non-fiction: Big, meaty, interesting book. These take me forever to finish but I really enjoy them. I get through like 100 pages in a good month.
- Children’s: I have been reading to my son, which is entirely for me as he’s only ~5mo old. But I have a stack of lovely children’s classics that I have greatly enjoyed going through.
Here’s what I’m currently reading and some recommendations on previous stuff I’ve read.
Fiction
Right now I’m finishing up The Kremlin’s Candidate. Not great, the series has been going a bit downhill. Some recent hits:
- The Dog Stars (Heller): Awful movie, incredible book. Highly recommended.
- True Grit (Portis): For everyone recommending Lonesome Dove, definitely get a copy of True Grit. A fantastically fun masterpiece. A real achievement.
- The Force (Winslow): The first 80 pages are deep cringe but it picks up into a really compelling and fast crime novel. Pulp for sure but fun.
- All the Pretty Horses (McCarthy): Incredible book. I could read it 100 times.
Nonfiction
- The Politics of Heroin (McCoy): Dense but very very good. First hand reporting of the CIA’s role in the global drug trade and how it has, to a surprising degree, shaped the modern world.
Children’s
- The Last Unicorn (Beagle): Surprisingly nice. Some rough edges but I’m enjoying it. If my son was able to understand more than just that he’s spending time with me and that I’m making comforting noises I think he’s enjoy it.
- The Wind in the Willows (Grahame): Stop everything you’re doing and go read this. Aloud, your kids if you have them but as a treat to yourself if you don’t. What a joy this is.
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Some things I haven’t read that are on the shelf thaf I really want to dig in to:
- Challenger: History of the tragic NASA accident.
- First Casualty: Inside the CIA’s paramilitary ops and the early days of the Afghanistan war.
- The Great Game: Historic book on the power struggles of the British and Russian empire in Afghanistan.
- Lonesome Dove: I love westerns, I have this whole series on the shelf, and am kind of just waiting and keeping it in my back pocket for a rainy day.
- Power of the Dog series: I just know I’m going to love this. Cartel/DEA saga spanning decades.
- McCloskey’s CIA series: It’s slop, and the tradecraft is dated to the point that what is happening in the field now is completely unrecognizable from the dead drops and SDRs and such of the cold war, but… it’s fun!
- If you think "Blood Meridian" is dark, try "Child of God." I'm a huge McCarthy fan, but "Blood Meridian" is tough to appreciate. "The Road," "No Country for Old Men," and "All the Pretty Horses" are his most readable works; try them, then decide how much farther you want to go.
