Customer Reviews
Spellbinding .. what a story - By: A. J. Sudworth, 21 Jul 2008 
I've read 'The Road' & 'No Country' but this is better - much better.
On the face of it its a road movie (on horses) but this is also about love, friendship & a strength of character that you just don't seem to see these days. This was an absolute pleasure to read, just taking you there & making you part of the story. I read this is almost one sitting I was so taken with the story. Its not action packed but its a compelling story about a boy growing up. He leaves his family ranch as its sold off & rides down to Mexico with his best friend to find another life.
There are shootings, a picture of Mexico that has long gone, injustice , being falsely imprisoned & surviving an attempted knife attack, & a love affair with the daughter of the ranch he ends up working on that has heartbreak written all over it
But its written so well that you just get suckedin & the conversation with the judge at the end of the story is just spellbinding
I've got all threein the Border Trilogyin one volume but I had to write a review of the first part at once - its that good
Astonishingly good - By: Melmoth, 06 Jul 2008 There is a powerin the words of Cormac McCarthy, a power that can take a reader up to the high ground & show him the land around & the peoplein it & make that reader know those people as he knows the scars on his body & the old achein his limbs & the cold & lonely feeling that comes upon himin the middle of the night.
McCarthy ropes & ties his powerful words with the skill of a man born to the task, dancing nimbly through the herd, spying out his chosen phrases with an easy & accustomed eye & bringing them down with one swift movement, all the while whispering to them of the place he will give themin his great work & of all the things he & they will do together & of the wonders they will create.
There is a rhythm about All the Pretty Horses that belongs to mighty rivers & the slow, dignified dances that old men makein far-off lands. It pulls the reader along through a tale such as they say isn't told any more, a tale of friendship & of love & of honour & of death. As the wild horses move out upon the plains & sierras of Mexico, so young John Cole roves from his mother's fading Texas ranch to the strange, sad land to the south. In that land he finds fear & friendship & a large capacity for loyalty to his friends, his beliefs & the young woman he believes he loves more even than the horses, whose hoofbeats match the pulsing of the bloodin his veins.
All the pretty horses is a rare & magnificent book, a genuine modern masterpiece.
A lot - By: Mark Dickens, 06 Jul 2008 
I yawned a lot, there was a lot of going to sleep & waking up. There was lot of walking for miles on horseback, dropping rifles, picking them up again & I yawned a lot. The novel has a deliberate tick-tock-drip-drop-plod to it. There is a plot however, it captures the scene & that is it a lot.
Western for the 20th century - By: reader 451, 02 Jun 2008 
Adventure, full-hearted love, revenge, the majestic wilderness, & of course horses: the western-movie staples are what moves this novel. Yet if All The Pretty Horses is a classic cowboy story, it is also that of a dying world, & all the more accessible to us that it is setin the post-war era.
John Grady Cole, a young man of 16 years, leaves the country for Mexico together with his friend Lacey Rawlins, both on horseback,in search of a life that has become inaccessible to themin Texas. A cruel but romantic saga of tests & tribulations awaits them - which I won't spoil by giving too much of it.
The dialogues are suitably laconic. The characters are frank & unambiguous, except for one key exception. Nature is reserved the richer, more complex, & admiring language. While the novel begins at a slow pace, making the reader wonder whether this is really a back-to-the-wild story, the action later quickens to a satisfyingly gripping climax. One warning: a good part of the dialogue isin Spanish, untranslated; though this won't throw you off the plot, if you don't understand Spanish, it may get annoying.
Evocative account of boys, horses etc - By: Jezza, 24 Mar 2008 Beautiful style, wonderfully told story. Not as tremendous as some reviewers seem to have thought, but well worth reading & has made me want to do the rest of the trilogy.
