Author: Cormac McCarthy Year: 1992
Cormac McCarthy seems to be everywhere right now—Oprah’s book club, a recent Coen Brothers film adaptation, one of the top novels of the past quarter-century. I decided it was time to check out his work, since he’s considered the modern Faulkner, and a great depicter of the violent and beautiful American southwest. All the Pretty Horses both lives up to my expectations and kind of frustrates them. The novel starts out gloomy with the funeral for protagonist John Grady’s grandfather, turns comedic when Grady and his friend cross the border into Mexico in search of adventure, then shifts into a semi-melodramatic romance, finally returning to a state of pitch-black gloom and despair. All throughout, McCarthy retains a distance from the world of the novel, coldly surveying the raw beauty of the Mexican landscape and stubbornly refusing to enter the heads of his equally stubborn characters. In some ways, this narrative distance works quite well, amplifying the frankness and simplicity that Hemingway is known for. But it also prevents the novel from striking home on any real emotional level.
The most problematic part of the novel is Grady’s passionate love for a ranch owner’s daughter, Alejandra. The two are a sort of Romeo and Juliet pair, deeply desiring one another, but knowing that their love can never be allowed to flower. The romance, however, is jarringly out of place with the events in the rest of the novel, and feels a little bit contrived. Especially irritating is the lack of insight into Alejandra’s character; she is given no more than a handful of lines, and it is never really clear what she sees in run-down, dirt-poor Grady.
Minor criticisms aside, the icing to top off this striking novel is McCarthy’s metaphysical musing that underlies all the events of the novel. Most profound is his consideration of the workings of Fate in human activities. One of the best passages in the novel occurs when Grady confronts Alejandra’s grand-aunt for the second time. She is determined to prevent him from stealing off with her protégé, but respects him enough to deliver a haunting and thorough account of her reasoning. She expresses her deep frustration with the randomness of life, describing a coin minter who arbitrarily decides which way to press each coin he makes, blindly affecting countless coin flips down the road. She laments the inability of mankind to ever know the alternative course that their actions could have taken; for a history that never sees the light of day, and can never be judged against what actually transpired. Building off this theme is Grady’s fascination with the long-dead frontier of the American West. Early in the novel we see him wistfully imagining the hunting parties of the glorious and departed Native American tribes, disappearing in the red light of the setting sun. At the end of the novel, Grady likewise disappears, fading into history like so many movements whose splendor the world will never see.
The most problematic part of the novel is Grady’s passionate love for a ranch owner’s daughter, Alejandra. The two are a sort of Romeo and Juliet pair, deeply desiring one another, but knowing that their love can never be allowed to flower. The romance, however, is jarringly out of place with the events in the rest of the novel, and feels a little bit contrived. Especially irritating is the lack of insight into Alejandra’s character; she is given no more than a handful of lines, and it is never really clear what she sees in run-down, dirt-poor Grady.
Minor criticisms aside, the icing to top off this striking novel is McCarthy’s metaphysical musing that underlies all the events of the novel. Most profound is his consideration of the workings of Fate in human activities. One of the best passages in the novel occurs when Grady confronts Alejandra’s grand-aunt for the second time. She is determined to prevent him from stealing off with her protégé, but respects him enough to deliver a haunting and thorough account of her reasoning. She expresses her deep frustration with the randomness of life, describing a coin minter who arbitrarily decides which way to press each coin he makes, blindly affecting countless coin flips down the road. She laments the inability of mankind to ever know the alternative course that their actions could have taken; for a history that never sees the light of day, and can never be judged against what actually transpired. Building off this theme is Grady’s fascination with the long-dead frontier of the American West. Early in the novel we see him wistfully imagining the hunting parties of the glorious and departed Native American tribes, disappearing in the red light of the setting sun. At the end of the novel, Grady likewise disappears, fading into history like so many movements whose splendor the world will never see.
Value: Brass
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