Book review: All the pretty horses

First up, well done to Cormac McCarthy for writing a book. It must be hard. I only get round to writing a few paragraphs every couple of days. So let's not overlook the fact that he wrote the book at all. In fact, let's not overlook the fact that he has written a bunch of books. Good for you, Cormac!

The book is well-sized. There's nothing more annoying than a 500-page monster that you just know is going to get tedious. (Although it's well-known in these parts that "Lonesome Dove" by my good friend Larry McMurtry is the exception that proves the rule. And yes, I do know that "prove" used to mean "test".) Conversely, it's hard to shell out your hard-earned cash for a 120-page novella that will be gone in 90 minutes. Even second hand I wouldn't be willing to pay more than, say, 8 cents per page.

Another plus is that the cover has neither Matt Damon nor Gwyneth Paltrow on it. Many fine books have been spoiled by having movie edition covers featuring lollipop-headed actors on them. Even "The Name Of The Rose" has been defiled like this, although since it was Sean Connery we can probably afford to not get too upset by this. I have no idea if a movie has been made of "All The Pretty Horses" but I wouldn't put it past the publishers to find some clear-skinned, blond-haired, squirrel-toothed model to put on the cover to make you think it WAS a movie and thus was popular and worth reading.

The text inside, once we're done with the cover, is good. But it is not perfect. Unfortunately, Cormac eschews the use of quotation marks to delimit speech. This sometimes makes it hard to figure out if the words represent speech, thoughts, or actions. This is compounded by referring to the characters only by "he" more often than is usual, despite there being multiple male characters in the scene. A typical example:

You gonna ride out and see?
Could be.
He might be there.
He might.
He ate more of his beans.
Or he might not.

I made that up just to demonstrate the point and to avoid being bankrupted for copyright infringement, but you get the idea right? Did "he" eat the beans? Or were they talking about a third party eating more beans? It's usually clear from the context, but when I'm reading a novel, I don't want to be a fact-checker, I want a story.

Another thing that bugged me about this otherwise good book was the lengthy exposition by one of the characters concerning Mexican political history. Yawn. If I wanted to find out about Mexican history I would read ... (google google...) Octavio Paz. Anyway, never in my life have I been subjected to an hour long lecture like this, except in an actual education institution, and the great advantage to them is that if you fall asleep the lecture goes away. In a book the lecture stops when you drop off, so you still have to wade through it anyway.

Apart from these quibbles, the blame for which I am ascribing to Cormac's editor rather than him, the book is good. It's kind of like a Western (ie: cowboy, not Renaissance) version of "Into The Wild". Young bloke, disillusioned, breaks free for better life in rugged conditions, bad things happen, lessons are learned, young bloke keeps his integrity and becomes sadder but wiser.

There's quite a bit of wistful contemplation of the great virtues of horses, of the "they'll never let you down, they're so honest and true" variety, which in my opinion ends up sounding like it's written by a closet misogynist. I'm sure that Cormac is not like this, he's probably just like Eminem, and it's the character who is.

What's the book about? I'm not sure to be honest. Maybe it's about the virtue of the simple life, or perhaps it's about the strength to be found in adversity. Neither of these quite fits. Maybe it's just a hymn to the myth of the American west. Or maybe it's just a long character sketch. I got the feeling that he ran out of things to write about. The main character returns home, visits a bunch of other minor characters who all proceed to praise him in words drawn from Johnny Cash songs, (make me as honest and as open as the plains) and then you're looking at cardboard and the book is over.

I was left wanting more. 6 out of 10