All the Pretty Horses - Post 1

My first impression of All the Pretty Horses was, "I like this book." Though the lack of an exposition has made the story rather ambiguous thus far, it also has given me the desire to continue reading to find out all the missing information. Each sentence is almost like a mini cliffhanger. Even within the first thirty pages bits of information are revealed and John’s story is becoming clearer. His parts of his past are mainly exposed through character unmarked dialogue (which, at least in my mind, adds to the ambiguity of the story).

            In addition to the vagueness, McCarthy’s imagery also stood out to me. The simple, clear descriptions make ordinary things and events, excuse the cliché, extraordinary. This particular passage caught my attention:

“Sometimes at night after supper he’d walk to the road and catch a ride into town and walk the streets or he’d stand outside the hotel on Beauregard Street and look up at the room on the fourth floor where his father’s shape or father’s shadow would pass behind the gauzy window curtains and then turn back and pass back again like a sheetiron bear in a shooting-gallery only slower, thinner, more agonized.”

The nearly ghostly image of John’s father really demonstrates the brutal effect the divorce has had on him. A combination the uncertainty of the story and McCarthy’s simple yet interesting imagery will certainly have me reading ahead.