All The Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy - a mini-review

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Although I had heard a lot about Cormac McCarthy's work before, I had never given any of his books a try; I thought they would be too dark and full of desperation for me, even though I do like a challenging, thought-provoking book to get my teeth into. I first came across All The Pretty Horses in one of Waterstones' recommendations, it was a book they suggested you read if you love Mexico and after three years of the book title floating around in my head, I decided to give it a go. 

Firstly, I thoroughly enjoyed this book, a lot more than I thought I would. It tells the story of a 16 year old bilingual Texan who wants to work on ranches, but unfortunately for him, this trade is quickly dying in the United States in favour of a more lucritive business: oiling. Our protagonist, John Grady Cole decides to cross south of the border into Mexico in pursuit of his ideal life, and we see that it's not always that easy. 

Secondly, it seems that All The Pretty Horses isn't quite as dark as McCarthy's other pieces of work, but that's not to say that it's all roses. There are passages and ideas that are, frankly, quite depressing. But not depressing for the sake of making us, people, mankind, feel bad; they are honest commentaries on life and society, and one teenager's romanticised, idealised view of the cowboys' code of honour. It's also a very interesting restructuring of the "American dream": we are used to seeing people in search of the better life in the United States, but All The Pretty Horses presents Mexico as the country to fulfill this dream. 

Another interesting and challenging aspect of this book is McCarthy's writing style. McCarthy doesn't follow standard Westernised punctuation; there are long, flowing descriptions of the countryside that often require a reread. On numerous occasions, one sentence can be as long as a paragraph. However, it's worth taking the time to absorb these incredibly detailed and beautified descriptions of the Northern Mexican States, the desert, and the sierras. One chapter that was particularly special to me was when John Grady visited the city of Zacatecas, a city that I have visited, and the character stayed in the same hotel I stayed in. Reading the description of the colonial city, the winding roads and open plazas made me feel like I was there again, every detail was covered.

There is also extensive use of Spanish in the book; of course, it's largely set in Mexico. For me, I adored this, obviously speaking Spanish made it a lot easier to understand, but I would guess even if you had no knowledge of the language you would be able to understand either from the context or a later description. I loved this detail of the book, I have never read anything like it. Again, the story deals with cattling and the cowboy lifestyle so there are a lot of horse and cowboy related vocabulary but I wouldn't let this put you off, you quickly become savvy with the lingo -both in English and Spanish!

Finally, I was really surprised how much I enjoyed this book. I would never normally pick up a book from the Western genre but it's so well written and distinctive from anything I have read recently. The story displays the strength of human spirit, in spite of belief breaking adversity and how we can hold on to whatever we desire, if we want it hard enough. All The Pretty Horses is part of a trilogy, but I believe the following books are not sequels as much as stories to run alongside this book. All in all, Waterstones was right: if you love or are interested in Mexico, it's definitely worth the read. I should have read it earlier. It's also worth a read if you like a book that challenges you linguistically and questions your ideas. 

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