After embarking on this journey, John Grady and Rawlins are no longer children. The journey, or quest, theme is very important to the book (Cervantes' Don Quixote, another story about a horseback journey of two men, is the only work of literature mentioned in the novel).

Loss of innocence and loss of the past are two parallel themes in the novel. In the rich story of All the Pretty Horses, the variety of themes adds complexity and allows room for multiple interpretations. But it is the events of the entire book that fill in his character, and, even then, we must wait for the third book of the trilogy to get the complete picture of who John Grady is. For example, we don't learn John Grady's name until the fifth page of the book. In the first mention of a character, we see the surface skin and perhaps a description or action later, we learn the character's name and finally, the story unfolds. McCarthy's technique of introducing characters only as 'he' or 'she' and not naming them for several pages, if ever, can make the story difficult to follow and warns us not to assume that the characters are easy to understand. To the contrary, the first 30 pages may require two readings in order for the reader to get into the story. But the book's accessibility should not lull the reader into thinking that this is a simple novel. In addition to telling the story of the boys' adventure, McCarthy introduces a love story between John Grady and Alejandra, reminiscent of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.Īll the Pretty Horses is perhaps the most readable of McCarthy's work. The story begins with the wake of John Grady Cole's grandfather and takes us through the two friends' adventures, from beginning to end, when they return to the San Angelo area from Mexico.

Structurally, All the Pretty Horses is quite simple. Both boys are mature for their age and successfully negotiate their adventure south. John Grady is identified by his mother as 'only sixteen,' and we can assume that his good friend, Rawlins, is a similar age. From there, they ride approximately 180 miles farther, to a well-situated hacienda, where they land jobs as cowboys. They start near San Angelo, Texas, and travel approximately 130 miles to near Langtry, Texas, where they cross the Rio Grande River into Mexico. The tale is about two young men, John Grady Cole and Lacey Rawlins, who run away from their hometown on their horses and ride across Texas and northeastern Mexico. Set in west Texas and northern central Mexico in l949, All the Pretty Horses is subtitled 'Volume One, The Border Trilogy,' indicating that it is the first of three books in a series.

All the pretty horses author