All the Pretty Horses
by Cormac McCarthy · first published 1992
71% recommend26% neutral3% critical
Why HN recommends it
Beautifully written coming-of-age story of two teenage boys chasing a vanishing way of life on the US-Mexico border; often named the most approachable McCarthy and a good starting point, less brutal than Blood Meridian.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
All the Pretty Horses is a novel by American author Cormac McCarthy published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1992. Its romanticism (in contrast to the bleakness of McCarthy's earlier work) brought the writer much public attention. It was a bestseller, and it won both the U.S. National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Along with The Crossing (1994), and C*ities of the Plain (1998), it constitues McCarthy's "Border Trilogy", an elegy for the American Frontier, written in an unconventional format which omits traditional Western punctuation (such as quotation marks) and makes
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…mentioned so far. Fiction: 1. Ubik - I read a bunch of Philip K. Dick this year, but this was my favorite. It's delightfully mind bending and left me thinking about it long after the book was done. 2. All the Pretty Horses - Beautifully written. McCarthy has an uncanny ability to paint with words. 3. Cannery Row - Short, witty, and full of interesting characters. Nonfiction: 1. The Idea Factory - A dive into how Bell…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2017?” ↗…language. Don't miss this just because of the creepy subject matter or because you saw one of the movies. This is an incredible read and one of the English languages greatest books. Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses -- I initially put off reading this by McCarthy's singular use of punctuation and his long, spare sentences. But I picked up the audiobook from Books on Tape (pre Audible) and fell into it. When read…
on “Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life?” ↗…consider great in other genres include Memoirs of a Geisha, Cold Mountain, REAMDE, The Son, The Road, the lighter but still version of that post-apocalyptic concept The Dog Stars, City of Thieves, and All the Pretty Horses and its sequels. It's probably symptomatic of a major flaw in my character that despite also buying dozens of nonfiction works (Lincoln, On China, and so forth) over the past few years, I haven't finished…
on “Ask HN: What literature do you read?” ↗Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian, All The Pretty Horses, etc. His writing is incredible.
on “Ask HN: Good books?” ↗The Road is probably his most "accessible" book (it was recommended by Oprah after all), second being All the Pretty Horses, which is a modern and romantic western written in his style. But you might just not like his stylistic tics. His lack of quotation marks is a stylistic move that repeats across all of his books.
on “Cormac McCarthy's Sideline: Freelance copy editor” ↗…yell at me for not achieving enough. Any book depicting a parent who sat their child down to give them sage advice about life was completely foreign to my experience. You might like Cormac McCarthy's "All the Pretty Horses" [0]. The prose style is idiosyncratic, but also arguably his most accessible. It's about a 16 year old crossing over into Mexico and with little else but the clothes on his back and love for horses,…
on “Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun” ↗I started the year reading Demons by Dostoevsky. Seemed prophetic in a lot of ways about what was coming about 40 years later in 1917. At the beginning of the summer I read All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy. I'm not into westerns, but I really liked that one. A modern classic. Just finished The Memory of Old Jack by Wendell Berry. Such a gorgeously written book.
on “Ask HN: What are you reading?” ↗…strongly suspect that Patrick Süskind read "Child of God" before he wrote "Perfume: Story of a Murderer"). "No Country For Old Men" is also a great book. A bit more challenging, but a beautiful read: "All the Pretty Horses". "Blood Meridian" is simply in another league and one of the best novels of the past century. It also contains one of the greatest characters ever, Judge Holden [0] He wafts his hat and the lunar…
on “Early Cormac McCarthy Interviews Rediscovered” ↗…unrelentingly bleak and grim. I needed to lie down after reading it. Again his detachment from the events happening make it bearable. Worth it IMO. Assuming you haven't read them, I'd recommend digging into All The Pretty Horses or No Country For Old Men. Both are incredible stories that have the same scenes of elemental good vs evil that crops up in McCarthys work over and over again but are less... intense.
on “Cormac McCarthy Explains the Unconscious” ↗Haven't read that one yet, but his _All the Pretty Horses_ was one of the highlights of the year.
on “Ask HN: Please name two of your most favorite books.” ↗The Border Series (All The Pretty Horses, The Crossing, etc) is riddled with inaccessible scene description (non-stop landscape lexicon) and bouts of Spanish, only barely detracting from each story's general awe-inspiring quality. No Country…
on “Ask HN: Interesting (Non software) books?” ↗From McCarthy ? I'd start with his Border Trilogy which is 3 books sold together. Or just All The Pretty Horses if you want to dip your toes to see if you like his writing. I've also enjoyed Elmore Leonard quite a bit recently. More pulpy I suppose, but well written. Out of Sight is a good one with a somewhat…
on “Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?” ↗…human nature just a much as extending help to one another. To me CM's work explores the duality of beauty (in the most expansive sense of the word) and tragedy that exists in the world. I recommend All the Pretty Horses if you want something less intense than The Road or Blood Meridian but no less powerful. One my favorite quotes: “He thought that in the beauty of the world were hid a secret. He thought that the world’s…
on “Early Cormac McCarthy Interviews Rediscovered” ↗I’d recommend reading his Plains trilogy, it starts with all the pretty horses. Fantastic books all the way through.
on “Cormac McCarthy's Olivetti Lettera 32” ↗…When reading it, I remember thinking during certain sections that if I wasn't already a McCarthy fan, I might just abandon it. Suttree is my favorite of his, and I recommend it to everyone, but I think All The Pretty Horses is part of a Trilogy of books that might be a good place to start.
on “Subterranean Treasures: Cormac McCarthy’s late style” ↗