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A review by millennial_dandy
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
3.0
This being my second McCarthy I think I've finally got a pretty good sense of what the man's about as an author. And I can say with definitive certainty that the lack of punctuation and in particular the lack of quotation marks just isn't for me.
"If you write properly, you shouldn't have to punctuate," he once said.
Yeah, ok, McCarthy.
Don't get me wrong; I'm no language purist, so by all means play with the language, shape it as you will, but for god's sake don't forget utility. If your only reason for dropping punctuation is 'cuz I felt like it' then don't be surprised if a lot of people find it irritating.
In the same vein, I really didn't understand why neither McCarthy nor the publisher of this edition saw fit to provide a translation for the not infrequent conversations held in Spanish. Much like his cavalier feelings about punctuation, I can only assume that McCarthy thought "if you write properly, you don't have to translate." Or something.
At first I thought this would just be an occasional thing, but once they get into Mexico and are (reasonably) having to use Spanish to communicate most of the time, it got incredibly frustrating to have to skim sometimes an entire page and have no idea what just happened. This could have been kind of fine if it felt like this was meant to be disorienting on purpose/in service to the love letter to northern Mexico that 'All the Pretty Horses' so clearly is. But it didn't always feel like that, especially since our POV character speaks the language fluently, so it doesn't give readers a second-hand version of the experience he has of being isolated linguistically, nor does it really add to the love letter vibe because most of the time the conversations recorded in Spanish could have been skipped by just including the information in the descriptive prose sections.
I dunno, it just, once again, felt like a thoughtless stylistic choice.
As far as my feelings about the actual story are concerned, I'll be upfront in saying that books that fall into what I call the 'yeehaw' genre just aren't really my thing. I've never been a big fan of American literature in general for this reason (Faulkner, my guy, I'm looking hard at you, and Mark Twain too while we're at it).
However, all that about the technical aspects of the writing being said, I was pleasantly surprised by 'No Country for Old Men' and so I tried to keep an open mind when I was reading this one.
The verdict? It was a'ight.
The pacing was a bit all over the place in large part because McCarthy seemed unable to write anything that wasn't a plodding along of characters through the desert or a fast-paced (somewhat improbable) action scene. Like, there was nothing in between. Certain things, like the 'love story' fitted in to create drama while the plot caught up with the characters went by with so little detail and fanfare that I couldn't feel anything about it. Were those two people supposed to be in love? I guess.
The best characters were easily the side characters. Rawlins and Blevins and the aunt Matriarch of the family our two protagonists worked for were really well fleshed out and distinct and I enjoyed the sections with them in it.
John Grady on the other hand not only didn't feel like a teenager, he didn't even feel like the protagonist since he did absolutely nothing to drive the plot until the very, very end, and even that only came about because of action taken earlier in the story by Blevins.
Justice for Blevins, by the way, because this was arguably his story, or at least, he was the emotional core of it, and the only scenes that really made me feel something revolved around his character.
Having already read 'No Country for Old Men' I came ready for the over-the-top, no-way-do-physics-work-like-this action scenes and shootouts and he didn't disappoint. Maybe this style of writing action bothers some people (I seem to recall a number of enraged gun enthusiasts in the reviews for 'No Country' seething and foaming at the mouth because I guess McCarthy name-dropped the wrong gun a few times???) but frankly, McCarthy isn't trying to capture realism in these novels.
These are yeehaw romances, meaning that guns get to do whatever he wants them to do as long as it's cool, and the hero only gets injured so that he can shrug it off with cool and masculine nonchalance while smoking a cigarette (seriously, there's so much smoking in this. Everyone either has a cigarette dangling from their lips at all times or is thinking about how they wish they had a cigarette dangling from their lips).
Pointing out inaccuracies about physics and gun use and injury in yeehaw romances is the equivalent of asking 'where was the lube?' in bodice rippers -- these are fantasies, guys. Sheesh.
Not a fantasy that is really for me, though, in this case. Like, yeah, I get why some people like books like this, and I did genuinely enjoy some of his descriptions of the land as they plodded across it, and there were some kernels of thought behind certain scenes, but overall, I really don't think that 'All the Pretty Horses' was meant to be taken all that seriously.
A note of caution: if you go into this expecting it to be about horses then you will be disappointed. We are told three ways from Sunday that John Grady loves horses. Loves them, lives for them, breathes for them. But aside from the bit where they're working at the horse ranch in Mexico, they are shockingly absent aside from providing a sort of background aesthetic. Didn't bother me because I, again, am not a 'yeehaw' kind of person, but worth noting.
Overall, I think 'All the Pretty Horses' is worth reading for this quote alone:
"The French have come into my house to mutilate my billiard game. No evil is beyond them." p.146
And no, I won't add context. Read and find out.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other quotes worth reading:
"He said that no creature can learn that which his heart has not shape to hold." p.111
"Americans have ideas sometimes that are not very practical. They think that there are good things and bad things. They are very superstitious, you know. [...] It is the superstition of a godless people. [...] I see them attack their own property. I saw a man one time destroy his car. With a big martillo [...] because it would not start." p.194
"We know there are qualities to a thing. This car is green. Or it has a certain motor inside. But it cannot be tainted, you see. Or a man. Even a man. There can be in a man some evil. But we don't think it is his own evil. Where did he get it? How did he come to claim it? No. Evil is a true thing in Mexico. It goes about on its own legs. Maybe some day it will come to visit you. Maybe it already has." p.194-195
"The country rolled away to the west through broken light and shadow and the distant summer storms a hundred miles downcountry to where the cordilleras rose and sank in the haze in a frail last shimmering restraint alike of the earth and the eye beholding it." p.225
"If you write properly, you shouldn't have to punctuate," he once said.
Yeah, ok, McCarthy.
Don't get me wrong; I'm no language purist, so by all means play with the language, shape it as you will, but for god's sake don't forget utility. If your only reason for dropping punctuation is 'cuz I felt like it' then don't be surprised if a lot of people find it irritating.
In the same vein, I really didn't understand why neither McCarthy nor the publisher of this edition saw fit to provide a translation for the not infrequent conversations held in Spanish. Much like his cavalier feelings about punctuation, I can only assume that McCarthy thought "if you write properly, you don't have to translate." Or something.
At first I thought this would just be an occasional thing, but once they get into Mexico and are (reasonably) having to use Spanish to communicate most of the time, it got incredibly frustrating to have to skim sometimes an entire page and have no idea what just happened. This could have been kind of fine if it felt like this was meant to be disorienting on purpose/in service to the love letter to northern Mexico that 'All the Pretty Horses' so clearly is. But it didn't always feel like that, especially since our POV character speaks the language fluently, so it doesn't give readers a second-hand version of the experience he has of being isolated linguistically, nor does it really add to the love letter vibe because most of the time the conversations recorded in Spanish could have been skipped by just including the information in the descriptive prose sections.
I dunno, it just, once again, felt like a thoughtless stylistic choice.
As far as my feelings about the actual story are concerned, I'll be upfront in saying that books that fall into what I call the 'yeehaw' genre just aren't really my thing. I've never been a big fan of American literature in general for this reason (Faulkner, my guy, I'm looking hard at you, and Mark Twain too while we're at it).
However, all that about the technical aspects of the writing being said, I was pleasantly surprised by 'No Country for Old Men' and so I tried to keep an open mind when I was reading this one.
The verdict? It was a'ight.
The pacing was a bit all over the place in large part because McCarthy seemed unable to write anything that wasn't a plodding along of characters through the desert or a fast-paced (somewhat improbable) action scene. Like, there was nothing in between. Certain things, like the 'love story' fitted in to create drama while the plot caught up with the characters went by with so little detail and fanfare that I couldn't feel anything about it. Were those two people supposed to be in love? I guess.
The best characters were easily the side characters. Rawlins and Blevins and the aunt Matriarch of the family our two protagonists worked for were really well fleshed out and distinct and I enjoyed the sections with them in it.
John Grady on the other hand not only didn't feel like a teenager, he didn't even feel like the protagonist since he did absolutely nothing to drive the plot until the very, very end, and even that only came about because of action taken earlier in the story by Blevins.
Justice for Blevins, by the way, because this was arguably his story, or at least, he was the emotional core of it, and the only scenes that really made me feel something revolved around his character.
Having already read 'No Country for Old Men' I came ready for the over-the-top, no-way-do-physics-work-like-this action scenes and shootouts and he didn't disappoint. Maybe this style of writing action bothers some people (I seem to recall a number of enraged gun enthusiasts in the reviews for 'No Country' seething and foaming at the mouth because I guess McCarthy name-dropped the wrong gun a few times???) but frankly, McCarthy isn't trying to capture realism in these novels.
These are yeehaw romances, meaning that guns get to do whatever he wants them to do as long as it's cool, and the hero only gets injured so that he can shrug it off with cool and masculine nonchalance while smoking a cigarette (seriously, there's so much smoking in this. Everyone either has a cigarette dangling from their lips at all times or is thinking about how they wish they had a cigarette dangling from their lips).
Pointing out inaccuracies about physics and gun use and injury in yeehaw romances is the equivalent of asking 'where was the lube?' in bodice rippers -- these are fantasies, guys. Sheesh.
Not a fantasy that is really for me, though, in this case. Like, yeah, I get why some people like books like this, and I did genuinely enjoy some of his descriptions of the land as they plodded across it, and there were some kernels of thought behind certain scenes, but overall, I really don't think that 'All the Pretty Horses' was meant to be taken all that seriously.
A note of caution: if you go into this expecting it to be about horses then you will be disappointed. We are told three ways from Sunday that John Grady loves horses. Loves them, lives for them, breathes for them. But aside from the bit where they're working at the horse ranch in Mexico, they are shockingly absent aside from providing a sort of background aesthetic. Didn't bother me because I, again, am not a 'yeehaw' kind of person, but worth noting.
Overall, I think 'All the Pretty Horses' is worth reading for this quote alone:
"The French have come into my house to mutilate my billiard game. No evil is beyond them." p.146
And no, I won't add context. Read and find out.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other quotes worth reading:
"He said that no creature can learn that which his heart has not shape to hold." p.111
"Americans have ideas sometimes that are not very practical. They think that there are good things and bad things. They are very superstitious, you know. [...] It is the superstition of a godless people. [...] I see them attack their own property. I saw a man one time destroy his car. With a big martillo [...] because it would not start." p.194
"We know there are qualities to a thing. This car is green. Or it has a certain motor inside. But it cannot be tainted, you see. Or a man. Even a man. There can be in a man some evil. But we don't think it is his own evil. Where did he get it? How did he come to claim it? No. Evil is a true thing in Mexico. It goes about on its own legs. Maybe some day it will come to visit you. Maybe it already has." p.194-195
"The country rolled away to the west through broken light and shadow and the distant summer storms a hundred miles downcountry to where the cordilleras rose and sank in the haze in a frail last shimmering restraint alike of the earth and the eye beholding it." p.225