All The Pretty Horses Part 41

2. What other events in this novel occur more than once? How does McCarthy use repet.i.tion as a structuring device?

3. How does the author establish John Grady's character? How has he changed by the novel's end? At what points in the book do we see him change?

4. What attributes does McCarthy seem to value in his characters, and how can you tell he does so? Do these traits always serve them well, or are the boys in All the Pretty Horses All the Pretty Horses victims of their own virtues? victims of their own virtues?

5. On the hacienda an old man named Luis tells the boys that "the horse shares a common soul and its separate life only forms it out of all horses and makes it mortal...that if a person understood the soul of a horse then he would understand all the horses that ever were" (p. 111). "Among men," Luis continues, "there was no such communion as among horses and the notion that men could be understood at all was probably an illusion." How are these statements borne out or contradicted within the novel? To what extent does the author allow us to "understand" his horses, while keeping his human characters psychologically opaque? What sort of contrasts does McCarthy draw between the communal soul of horses (see especially pages 103-107) and the profound solitude of men? What role, generally, do horses play in this book?

6. On page 89 Rawlins says: "A goodlookin horse is like a good-lookin woman . . . They're always more trouble than what they're worth." How does this statement foreshadow events to come? Where else in the novel do casual statements serve as portents?

7. How does the author establish the differences between the United States and Mexico? How do their respective inhabitants seem to view each other?

8. Alejandra's aunt offers two alternative metaphors for the workings of destiny, comparing it both to a coiner in the moment he places a slug in the die and to a puppet show in which the strings are always held by other puppets (pages 230-231). Which of these metaphors seems more apt to the narrative as a whole? Is what happens to the boys in the course of the novel the result of character or fate?

9. Do the boys' journey and subsequent ordeals ever seem foolish, futile, or anachronistic? If so, how does McCarthy suggest this?

10. All the Pretty Horses is spare in exposition (note the economy with which McCarthy establishes John Grady's situation at the book's beginning) yet lavish in the attention it devotes to scenes and details whose significance is not immediately clear (note the description of the cantina on page 49 and the scene in which John Grady and Rawlins buy new clothes on pages 117-121). Why do you think the author has chosen to weight his narrative in this way?

11. Although John Grady and Rawlins are innocent of stealing horses, McCarthy suggests that they are culpable of other crimes. At different points in the book he compares them to "young thieves in a glowing orchard" (p. 31) and "a party of marauders" (p. 45). When John Grady makes love to Alejandra, we are told that it is "sweeter for the larceny of time and flesh" (p. 141). What kinds of theft might McCarthy be writing about? Might the boys' suffering be seen as warranted by earlier transgressions? What sort of moral system applies within the universe of this book?

12. Is All the Pretty Horses All the Pretty Horses a violent book? How do the novel's characters feel about the deaths they cause? At a time when graphic and gratuitous descriptions of mayhem are standard in much popular fiction for purposes of mere shock and t.i.tillation, does McCarthy succeed in restoring to violence its ancient qualities of pity and terror? How does he accomplish this? a violent book? How do the novel's characters feel about the deaths they cause? At a time when graphic and gratuitous descriptions of mayhem are standard in much popular fiction for purposes of mere shock and t.i.tillation, does McCarthy succeed in restoring to violence its ancient qualities of pity and terror? How does he accomplish this?

13. What role does history play in McCarthy's narrative? To what extent are his characters products of a particular era?

14. Although the occurrences in All the Pretty Horses All the Pretty Horses are, strictly speaking, plausible and its human voices, in particular, are nothing if not realistic, the book also contains a strong mythic component. How, and where, does McCarthy introduce this? What specific myths and fairy tales does the book suggest are, strictly speaking, plausible and its human voices, in particular, are nothing if not realistic, the book also contains a strong mythic component. How, and where, does McCarthy introduce this? What specific myths and fairy tales does the book suggest

Cormac McCarthy is the author of eleven novels. Among his honors are the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Books by Cormac McCarthy The Road The Sunset Limited (a novel in dramatic form) No Country for Old Men Cities of the Plain The Crossing All the Pretty Horses The Stonemason (a play) The Gardener's Son (a screenplay) Blood Meridian Suttree Child of G.o.d Outer Dark The Orchard Keeper

BOOKS BY C CORMAC M MCCARTHY.

"McCarthy puts most other American writers to shame." -The New York Times Book Review -The New York Times Book ReviewTHE ORCHARD KEEPERSet in a small, remote community in rural Tennessee between the two world wars, this novel tells of John Wesley Rattner, a young boy, and Marion Sylder, an outlaw and bootlegger who, unbeknownst to either of them, has killed the boy's father. Together with Rattner's Uncle Ather, they enact a drama that seems born of the land itself.Fiction/Literature/978-0-679-72872-6 (trade) 978-0-307-76250-4 (eBook)OUTER DARKOuter Dark is a novel at once fabular and starkly evocative, set in an unspecified place in Appalachia around the turn of the century. A woman bears her brother's child, a boy, whom he leaves in the woods and tells her the baby died of natural causes. Discovering her brother's lie, she sets forth alone to find her son. is a novel at once fabular and starkly evocative, set in an unspecified place in Appalachia around the turn of the century. A woman bears her brother's child, a boy, whom he leaves in the woods and tells her the baby died of natural causes. Discovering her brother's lie, she sets forth alone to find her son.Fiction/Literature/978-0-679-72873-3 (trade) 978-0-307-76249-8 (eBook)CHILD OF G.o.dChild of G.o.d is a taut, chilling novel that plumbs the depths of human degradation. Falsely accused of rape, Lester Ballard-a violent, dispossessed man who haunts the hill country of East Tennessee-is released from jail and allowed to roam at will, preying on the population with his strange l.u.s.ts. is a taut, chilling novel that plumbs the depths of human degradation. Falsely accused of rape, Lester Ballard-a violent, dispossessed man who haunts the hill country of East Tennessee-is released from jail and allowed to roam at will, preying on the population with his strange l.u.s.ts.Fiction/Literature/978-0-679-72874-0 (trade) 978-0-307-76248-1 (eBook)SUTTREEThis is the story of Cornelius Suttree, who has forsaken a life of privilege to live in a houseboat on the Tennessee River. Remaining on the margins of the outcast community-a brilliantly imagined collection of eccentrics, criminals, and squatters-he rises above the physical and human squalor with detachment, humor, and dignity.Fiction/Literature/978-0-679-73632-5 (trade) 978-0-307-76247-4 (eBook)THE STONEMASONThe setting is Louisville, Kentucky, in the 1970s. The Telfairs are stonemasons and have been for generations. Ben Telfair has given up his education to apprentice himself to his grandfather, Papaw. Out of the love that binds these two men and the gulf that separates them from the Telfairs who have forsaken-or dishonored-the family trade, McCarthy has crafted a drama that bears all the hallmarks of his great fiction.Fiction/Literature/978-0-679-76280-5BLOOD MERIDIANThis is an epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America's westward expansion. Based on historical events that took place on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, it traces the fortunes of the Kid, a fourteen-year-old Tennesseean who stumbles into a nightmarish world where Indians are being murdered and the market for their scalps is thriving.Fiction/Literature/978-0-679-72875-7 (trade) 978-0-307-76252-8 (eBook)ALL THE PRETTY HORSESAll the Pretty Horses tells of young John Grady Cole, the last of a long line of Texas ranchers. Across the border, Mexico beckons-beautiful and desolate, rugged and cruelly civilized. With two companions, he sets off on an idyllic, sometimes comic adventure, to a place where dreams are paid for in blood. tells of young John Grady Cole, the last of a long line of Texas ranchers. Across the border, Mexico beckons-beautiful and desolate, rugged and cruelly civilized. With two companions, he sets off on an idyllic, sometimes comic adventure, to a place where dreams are paid for in blood.Fiction/Literature/978-0-679-74439-9 (trade) 978-0-307-48130-6 (eBook)THE CROSSINGIn the late 1930s, sixteen-year-old Billy Parham captures a she-wolf that has been marauding his family's ranch. Instead of killing it, he takes it back to the mountains of Mexico. With that crossing, he begins an arduous and dreamlike journey into a country where men meet like ghosts and violence strikes as suddenly as heat-lightning.Fiction/Literature/978-0-679-76084-9 (trade) 978-0-307-76246-7 (eBook)CITIES OF THE PLAINIt is 1952 and John Grady Cole and Billy Parham are working as ranch hands in New Mexico. Their life is made up of trail drives and horse auctions and stories told by campfire light, a life they value because they know it is about to change forever.Fiction/Literature/978-0-679-74719-2 (trade) 978-0-307-77752-2 (eBook)NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MENMcCarthy returns to the Texas-Mexico border, the setting of his famed Border Trilogy. A good old boy named Llewellyn Moss finds a pickup truck surrounded by dead man. A load of heroin and two million dollars in cash are still in the back. When Moss takes the money, he sets off a chain reaction of catastrophic violence that not even the law can contain.Fiction/Literature/978-0-375-70667-7 (trade) 978-0-307-39053-0 (eBook)THE SUNSET LIMITEDA startling encounter on a New York subway platform leads two strangers to a run-down tenement where a life or death decision must be made. In that small apartment, "Black" and "White," as the two men are known, begin a conversation that leads each back through his own history, mining the origins of two fundamentally opposing world-views. White is a professor whose seemingly enviable existence of relative ease has left him nonetheless in despair. Black, an ex-con and ex-addict, is the more hopeful of the men-though he is just as desperate to convince White of the power of faith as White is desperate to deny it. Their aim is no less than this: to discover the meaning of life.Fiction/Literature/978-0-307-27836-4 (trade) 978-0-307-49812-0 (eBook)THE ROADA father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food-and each other.Fiction/Literature/978-0-307-38789-9 (trade) 978-0-307-26745-0 (eBook)