All the Pretty Horses is a novel by U.S. author Cormac McCarthy published in 1992. Its romanticism (in contrast to the apocalyptic bleakness of McCarthy's earlier work) brought the writer much public attention. The novel was a bestseller and won the U.S. National Book Award. It is also the first of McCarthy's "Border Trilogy." For the musician, see Cormac McCarthy (musician). ... For other uses, see Country (disambiguation). ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... For other uses, see Novel (disambiguation). ... A publisher is a person or entity which engages in the act of publishing. ... Colophon of the publisher Alfred A. Knopf. ... Hardcover books A hardcover (or hardback or hardbound) is a book bound with rigid protective covers (typically of cardboard covered with cloth, heavy paper, or sometimes leather). ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ... ISBN redirects here. ... All the Pretty Horses is a 2000 film, directed by Billy Bob Thornton and based on the novel of the same title by American author Cormac McCarthy. ... For other uses, see Novel (disambiguation). ... For the musician, see Cormac McCarthy (musician). ... Year 1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1992 Gregorian calendar). ... Romantics redirects here. ... The National Book Awards is one of the most preeminent literary prizes in the United States. ... For the musician, see Cormac McCarthy (musician). ...

The book was adapted into a 2000 film with the same name, All the Pretty Horses, starring Matt Damon and Penélope Cruz, and directed by Billy Bob Thornton. All the Pretty Horses is a 2000 film, directed by Billy Bob Thornton and based on the novel of the same title by American author Cormac McCarthy. ... Matthew Paige Matt Damon (born October 8, 1970) is an American screenwriter and actor. ... Penélope Cruz Sánchez (pronounced ; born April 28, 1974), better known as Penélope Cruz, is a Golden Globe- and Academy Award-nominated Spanish actress. ... Billy Bob Thornton[1] (born August 4, 1955) is an Academy Award-winning American screenwriter, actor, as well as occasional director, playwright and singer. ...

Plot summary

The novel tells of John Grady Cole, a sixteen year old cowboy who grew up on his grandfather's ranch in west Texas. The story begins soon after the death of John Grady's grandfather, and John Grady learns that the ranch is to be sold. Faced with the prospect of moving into town, John Grady instead chooses to leave, convincing his best friend, Lacey Rawlins, to accompany him. Traveling by horseback, the pair travel southward into Mexico, where they hope to find work as cowboys. For other uses, see Texas (disambiguation). ...

They encounter, among others, a young boy, Jimmy Blevins, whom they befriend, and a young aristocrat's daughter, Alejandra, with whom John Grady Cole falls in love.

Style

All the books of the "Border Trilogy" are written in an unconventional format, omitting traditional Western punctuation, such as quotation marks, and making great use of polysyndetonic syntax. The reason for this type of syntax is to help with the flow of the passage; such as in the passage about John Grady's return crossing of the border. Here the syntax leads one to the idea that John Grady Cole is one with nature, as his tears blend into the rain. This page is a candidate to be moved to Wiktionary. ...

Examples

Although the night was cool the double doors of the grange stood open and the man selling the tickets was seated in a chair on a raised wooden platform just within the doors so that he must lean down to each in a gesture akin to benevolence and take their coins and hand them down their tickets or pass upon the ticketstubs of those who were only returning from outside. The old adobe hall was buttressed along its outer walls with piers not all of which had been a part of its design and there were no windows and the walls were swagged and cracked. A string of electric bulbs ran the length of the hall at either side and the bulbs were covered with paper bags that had been painted and the brushstrokes showed through in the light and the reds and greens and blues were all muted and much of a piece. The floor was swept but there were pockets of seeds underfoot and drifts of straw and at the far end of the hall a small orchestra labored on a stage of grainpallets under a bandshell rigged from sheeting. Along the foot of the stage were lights set in fruitcans among colored crepe that smoldered throughout the night. The mouths of the cans were lensed with tinted cellophane and they cast upon the sheeting a shadowplay in the lights and smoke of antic demon players and a pair of goathawks arced chittering through the partial darkness overhead.

• McCarthy, Cormac (1993). All the Pretty Horses (1st Int'l Vintage ed.). New York: Vintage Books/Random House. ISBN 0-679-74439-8. p 122.

Such descriptions transcend the scenes they are describing and bring into play McCarthy's deeply spiritual ruminations. In this passage, McCarthy reflects on the nature of evil.

He imagined the pain of the world to be like some formless parasitic being seeking out the warmth of human souls wherein to incubate and he thought he knew what made one liable to its visitations. What he had not known was that it was mindless and so had no way to know the limits of those souls and what he feared was that there might be no limits.

• Ibid. pp. 256-257

External links

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All the Pretty Horses

• Photos of the first edition of All the Pretty Horses

v • d • e Works of Cormac McCarthy Novels The Orchard Keeper (1965) • Outer Dark (1968) • Child of God (1974) • Suttree (1979) • Blood Meridian, Or the Evening Redness in the West (1985) • All the Pretty Horses (1992) • The Crossing (1994) • Cities of the Plain (1998) • No Country for Old Men (2005) • The Road (2006) Screenplays The Gardener's Son (1976) Plays The Stonemason (1995) • The Sunset Limited (2006) Adaptations The Gardener's Son (1977) • All the Pretty Horses (2000) • No Country for Old Men (2007)