All the Pretty Horses (The Border Trilogy, #1)

The terrible cost of the world's heartbeat

After reading the synopse and a few reviews I was not expecting too much from this book, and I say that with the three previous books I've read of his establisling him as one of, if not my favourite writer.

I was happily surprised. While "The Road" has an unrelenting visceral horror, "No Country for Old Men" has a pulsating crime story, and "Blood Meridian" has unbounded violence, this book has elements of each encased within a more 'normal' setting, paired with some quite beautiful prose, especially about the titular horses!

It's a little slow to start with, you may not have known it was McCarthy if not for the vivid imaginings of the American Southwest. Later it becomes unmistakably his, the pace increases and we have flashes of violence, paired with musings on history, politics, beauty, religion, and death - much of it through the razor sharp character of the Señorita.

This is all hinted at as parts of the story, at times hitting you almost like zen koans.

There is a scene when the protagonist is simply eating a meal at a diner when the owner casually throws away the line while looking at newlyweds "it's good God keeps the truths of life from the young as they were starting out else they'd have no heart to start at all" - ouch.

There is a slightly strange allegorical ending, big themes of justice and God. Ripe for interpretation unlike the rest of the novel. I liked it though.

I'll end with a few classic McCarthy quotes just because they are so brilliant, the last one the best.

"Greed foolishness and a love of blood are the only constants in history, even God who knows all cannot change it"

"The closest bonds we will ever know are of grief, closest community those of sorrow"

"He felt wholey alien to the world allthough he loved it still, he thought that in the beauty of the world there hid a secret, he thought the world's heart beat at some terrible cost, and that the worlds pain and beauty moved in a relationship of diverging equity. And in this headlong deficit the blood of multitudes might ultimately be extacted for the vision of a single flower ...when he woke knew his father was dead."