All The Pretty Horses: Cormac McCarthy's love letter to the Old West

Review by Adam Beckett

Cormac McCarthy's quietly beautiful love letter to old fashioned cowboy living, All The Pretty Horses, is exactly what you want it to be if you're a Cormac fan (I am).

"He stood at the window of the empty cafe and watched the activites in the square and he said that it was good that God kept the truths of life from the young as they were starting out or else they'd have no heart to start at all."

Pictured above is the Folio Society edition with wonderful illustrations by Gérard DuBois.

I discovered Cormac McCarthy via the 2006 post apocalypse novel "The Road". I fell in love with how much of an atmosphere Cormac could conjure without spending too many words on doing so. I then began reading him in publication order. What has been the most enjoyable aspect of reading this way is the fact you get to see how his writing style evolves. As time passes it seems he leans more heavily on brevity; you could perhaps say he became more confident in the merit of the oddness of this style. It becomes more and more like a person telling you stories at a campfire.

By the time you've got to All the Pretty Horses you'll have already witnessed just how brutal Cormac can be (looking at you, Blood Meridian) as well as just how sentimental he can be (Suttree, you're up), and so you'll find yourself asking what kind of novel this one will be.

"Long before morning I knew that what I was seeking to discover was a thing I'd always known. That all courage was a form of constancy. That it is always himself that the coward abandoned first. After this all other betrayals come easily."

I think it strikes Cormac's style range right down the middle. There's plenty of sentiment in the sense that I think he wrote this book as a love letter to the old West; it's set in the mid 20th century but the protagonists John Grady Cole and his loyal, less idealistic, more realistic, but still a damn fine horserider friend Lacey Rawlins are chasing a ranch lifestyle that modern society has abandoned. There's also plenty of brutality when our protagonists find themselves in otherworldly territories on the wrong side of the law. At points it was terrifying. Since I was attached to these characters it frightened me when they faced anything bad and they faced a lot of bad things.

I enjoyed both aspects of this novel immensely.

Pictured above is one of the many illustrations inside this Folio Society edition.

The character writing stood out as particularly strong to me. Infamously, Cormac does not let you know what the characters are thinking and instead relies on their actions and dialogue to convey their personality traits. He takes the "show don't tell" writing skill to a level of his own. I couldn't name another author who uses this style to such extent. I think to some people this might make the novel less accessible. Those people have no imagination. The interactions between the two as well as the way they treat other characters and the lengths John Grady Cole will go to to achieve this idealised cowboy lifestyle tell you all you need to know.

"Scared money can’t win and a worried man can’t love."

Location location location! It's no secret that I'm a sucker for Southern Gothic settings. It's something beyond words. A feeling of character more than the aesthetic. In All the Pretty Horses I was swept away once again by Cormac's ability to describe something brutal and make you want to live there despite the fact. Set between the Texas border and into Mexico, the book explores several places from the bleak and lonely to the warm and homely to the downright nightmarish. In the end what makes these settings in the people in them. Mean, sad, pleasant, honourable, curious people. Sometimes all of those things at once.

I'll summarise by saying that I highly recommend this book. I also would recommend--since it's how I did it and I'm having a blast--reading McCarthy in publication order. Don't worry if The Orchard Keeper feels confusing and plotless, it's an important part of the journey.

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