All The Pretty Horses

He walked up and back. His feet left cold wet tracks on the polished stone that sucked up and vanished like the tale of the world itself.
   - All The Pretty Horses

Honestly, how unfair is it that some are blessed with the god-given talent to write words like this? But that is why writers, like Cormac McCarthy, and many other geniuses will continue to get paid to write. Other people get paid to write books, like Lauren Conrad from The Hills and all I have to say to that is FML.

I came across this quote from All the Pretty Horses while going through my notebook of literary quotes that I liked enough to jot down. This quote is actually the one to make me start the journal; I was that struck by it.

All the Pretty Horses, McCarthy's first installment of his Border Trilogy series, is both work of art and a superbly astute and cynical commentary on imperialism/colonialism. If you don't believe me on the second part of my claim, you can read my final Literature Theory paper and then you can beg to differ.

I feel that McCarthy's more popular works among my peer group include The Road and No Country For Old Men. I will help you out here: take the time to read The Road and don't bother reading No Country, watch the movie instead and take that extra time to read All the Pretty Horses and eventually the rest of the Border Trilogy.

However, when you do pick up All the Pretty Horses, make sure you have brushed up on your Spanish. There are lines and lines of dialogue in Spanish, and it's you sort of need a proficiency with the language to capture what is going on during certain parts of the book.

When my friend Emily raved about this book to me, I dismissed it telling her that I didn't like westerns. One, that isn't true, I like Westerns I just didn't like Lonesome Dove, which was the first one I attempted to read in high school. Two, like Emily said, All the Pretty Horses is only a western on the surface.

So, go to the library, book store, used book sale, even borrow my copy (but only if you plan of giving it back in a timely manner) and read All the Pretty Horses, and when you're finished, pick up a copy of my term paper as follow up reading; it's almost at good as the book.