{"id":1732,"date":"2010-12-01T21:09:26","date_gmt":"2010-12-01T21:09:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2018\/11\/28\/1010-revision-v1\/"},"modified":"2019-07-09T11:54:03","modified_gmt":"2019-07-09T11:54:03","slug":"all-the-pretty-horses-br-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2010\/12\/01\/all-the-pretty-horses-br-2\/","title":{"rendered":"All the Pretty Horses (BR)"},"content":{"rendered":"

What he loved in horses was what he loved in men, the blood and the heat of the blood that ran them. All his reverence and all his fondness and all the leanings of his life were for the ardenthearted and they would always be so and never be otherwise.<\/em>\u00a0Ch.I<\/strong><\/small><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

All the Pretty Horses<\/strong>\u00a0is a novel by\u00a0American\u00a0author<\/a>\u00a0Cormac McCarthy<\/a><\/strong>. The novel was published in\u00a01992\u00a0and won the\u00a0National Book Award\u00a0and\u00a0National Book Critics Circle Award and seems to be the book that brought McCarthy into the public\u00a0limelight, which may or may not be\u00a0important.<\/p>\n

The plot is simple; deceptively so. The blurb might read: “Two boys run away to Mexico where they discover a horse thief, fall in love with the daughter of a rich landlord only to find themselves incarcerated for this crime”.<\/p>\n

[…] they ran in that resonance which is the world itself and which cannot be spoken but only praised.<\/em>\u00a0Ch.III<\/strong><\/small><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Comments:<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are a few notable quirks that justify calling this summary misleading. The first is the style of plot development. Given the above summary, it would be reasonable to expect that A leads to problem B which is resolved by C. As those who’ve read McCarthy before will already know, this author’s stories tend to evolve out of themselves. It feels like everything’s progressing naturally, without tending towards some sort of expected three-act format. Some might argue that this would result in a lack of focus, but those people obviously have not read\u00a0McCarthy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the end we all come to be cured of our sentiments. Those whom life does not cure death will.<\/em>\u00a0Ch.IV<\/strong><\/small><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One plot surprise is the age of the participants. They’re both teenagers. This feeds into what I wanted to say next: McCarthy’s novels tend to evoke feelings of Biblical intensity. The simplest things can weigh down on their participants and\u00a0audience<\/a>. The young age of the protagonists\u00a0contrasts<\/a>\u00a0that intensity, bringing a strange\u00a0innocence<\/a>\u00a0into their trials. There is something of a tremendous tension in the simplicity of McCarthy’s\u00a0world<\/a>, and even a minimalistic scene may threaten to rupture due to its power.<\/p>\n

[The old man] asked that God remember those who had died and he asked that the living gathered together here remember that corn grows by the will of God and beyond that will there is neither corn nor growing nor light nor air nor anything at all save only darkness. Then they ate.<\/em>\u00a0Ch.IV<\/strong><\/small><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What he loved in horses was what he loved in men, the blood and the heat of the blood that ran them. All his reverence and all his fondness and all the leanings of his life were for the ardenthearted and they would always be so and never be otherwise.\u00a0Ch.I All the Pretty Horses\u00a0is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[159,198,204],"tags":[],"metadata":[],"class_list":["post-1732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-book-review","category-everything2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":39995,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2011\/03\/20\/fortunes-light-tng-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":1732,"position":0},"title":"Fortune’s Light (TNG)","author":"pastfarpoint","date":"March 20, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Fortune's Light is the 15th numbered TNG novel, written by the now well established Star Trek author Michael Friedman. Riker gets a message regarding an old friend who it seems has stolen a politically-significant artefact from the planet Imprima. The minor plot thread sees Data running a holodeck program of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Detail from \"Fortune's Light\" cover","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/fortunes-light-cover.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1729,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2010\/11\/29\/the-algebraist-br-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":1732,"position":1},"title":"The Algebraist (BR)","author":"Pala","date":"November 29, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The Algebraist\u00a0is a science fiction novel set in the unfathomably far future and is penned by the established author\u00a0Iain M. Banks. The plot concerns a star system being attacked by some force, (I would have written \"alien force\" but by this stage in the universe's history to define something as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1776,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2011\/05\/03\/mere-christianity-br-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":1732,"position":2},"title":"Mere Christianity (BR)","author":"Pala","date":"May 3, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Editorial notes: This Book Review was found as a 'draft' entry in Everything2 with the Summary section missing. It was last updated on 03\/05\/2011. C.S. Lewis\u00a0is the British\u00a0author\u00a0best known for writing the\u00a0Narnia\u00a0series of books, but he also authored a number of books that discussed his religious beliefs, including this one\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":68,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2010\/01\/10\/strike-zone-tng\/","url_meta":{"origin":1732,"position":3},"title":"Strike Zone (TNG)","author":"pastfarpoint","date":"January 10, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Strike Zone by Peter David the fifth novel in the TNG series. The plot involves the Kreel (who apparently are the most hated enemy of the Klingon due to their [thickly laid on] dishonourable nature) discovering an ancient stash of weapons, attacking the Klingon, etc., the Enterprise is called in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Detail from \"Strike Zone\" cover","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/strike_zone_cropped.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2592,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2013\/03\/15\/borrowings-scribbles-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":1732,"position":4},"title":"Borrowings: Scribbles","author":"Pala","date":"March 15, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Here some Notes are taken describing books acquired, thus possibly illustrating motivations, etc., which may serve Bibliome growth. 2013_03_01: A book by Cicero and by Drabble, via the Philosophy and Literature Bibliomes. 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