In truth, McCarthy is pointing out that these issues, these cultures, these landscapes and the “hardness” that they demand, never go away. We often think of films and works like The Wild Bunch and others as showing the true end of the American West as being something taking place in the late 1800s or at the latest, very early 1900s, but McCarthy has drawn the closing of the American West forward some 50-80 years to the mid 20th century.

The core of the novel takes place in the ranchland and deserts of Northern Mexico though does venture into the towns and a prison of that same area in the just post WWII period. I won’t get into the exact details, many of which you may know if you have watched the generally detested film version of this novel that came out in 2000 and which I’ll now have to go back and rewatch simply to make my own comparison after having read the book as I originally viewed it some decade or more ago and do not remember any feelings on it one way or another. None escape the impact of seemingly inconsequential actions and associations. From the beginning, no matter how pleasant the scenario (and maybe this is just from knowing McCarthy’s tendencies) the reader can feel the guillotine hanging over the characters, readying its fall at any moment. Now, as for All the Pretty Horses itself, its by far the most “enjoyable” of McCarthy’s works I’ve read so far (others being Blood Meridian and Outer Dark) but still tells the tale of a doomed protagonist. In short? Your modern high school teacher having been “educated” at Smith or Marist or other Liberal Arts junk factories will not only hate it but seek to eliminate it from acknowledgement.

There is no magic-realism, there are traditional male/female roles presented, violence is a way of getting things done, now discarded ideas of independence, stoicism, honor, objective truth, and so on are seen as valuable.

Yes, it is highly likely to be “cancelled” along with his other works in the near future as being a last vestige of an older world version of what is quality writing. Yes it borrows from Hemingway and other “male” authors. Yes its violent and highly masculine in nature. I always continue however simply because the content is just so damn good. statements and viewpoints of the character. It truly does get you to reframe how you read and how you interpret what are the thoughts or descriptions of the author vs. The lack of punctuation, capitalization, and other structure devices throws me for a loop to start and makes me wonder if I really want to continue with the novel. I always seem to have an issue starting Cormac McCarthy works.

Pretty horses book