Joy and Resentment in the Public Library
Our reading of All The Pretty Horses
I have a rule. Reading is meant to be a joy. When the joy is gone, I stop reading. When I say I’ve been working on Ulysses for years, it’s because I refuse to power through it and resent the experience as a result. The same is true for the Selected Works of Samuel Beckett. I want to love these works and won’t read them unless I’m in a headspace to do so.
I forced my way through Catcher in the Rye because I wanted to finally finish it, and I knew there would never be a circumstance under which I’d enjoy the experience.
My current struggle is with Absalom, Absalom! There are passages I hate and passages I love, and I’m going to read something else while on vacation because I’m currently close to resenting the book.
Reading All the Pretty Horses was a joy, but that doesn’t mean I like every choice McCarthy makes. Aspects of his signature style grow old, and yet this man remains my favorite author. The denouement of the novel (and by denouement, I include what we’d normally classify as the climax) is the perfect excuse to discuss the strange impact of McCarthy’s prose.
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Now, let’s discuss: Cormac McCarthy.
John Grady picked up the end of the rope the horse was trailing and passed it between the captain's handcuffed arms and stepped forward and halfhitched it to the stanchion the stable door was hung from. Then he stepped out through the door and put the barrel of the revolver between the eyes of the man crouched there.
—Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses
There’s far less agreement on the concepts of climax and denouement than we currently pretend, but that’s not what I mean. Not at all. When we get to John Grady reclaiming the horses and getting a little cathartic vengeance in the process, it felt obligatory. I didn’t want it. The story was over. I didn’t need it.
Now I did eventually get into that part of the tale, and after the captain is taken from him and we get into the actual denouement, I’m all for it. I need his wrestling with all that happened and his inability to return to the Shire. I loved it.
Why the difference? Part of it has to do with the style of the quote above. Don’t hate me, but that’s some boring prose. It’s not entirely ineffectual as there are delicious words within it. I don’t want to overstate my point, so I'll admit John Grady burning out the wound was riveting, and I enjoyed the setting of the captain’s shoulder. Still, it felt like all of that led me to the relief of this paragraph:
In his sleep he could hear the horses stepping among the rocks and he could hear them drink from the shallow pools in the dark where the rocks lay smooth and rectilinear as the stones of ancient ruins and the water from their muzzles dripped and rang like water dripping in a well and in his sleep he dreamt of horses and the horses in his dream moved gravely among the tilted stones like horses come upon an antique site where some ordering of the world had failed and if anything had been written on the stones the weathers had taken it away again and the horses were wary and moved with great circumspection carrying in their blood as they did the recollection of this and other places where horses once had been and would be again. Finally what he saw in his dream was that the order in the horse's heart was more durable for it was written in a place where no rain could erase it.
That’s beautiful and brilliant, and I think I appreciate it all the more because of the prolonged action it took to bring us here. I realize I like that he doesn’t keep up this flavor for an entire novel, but uses it wisely and sparingly, a moment to relax after all that action.
McCarthy’s action is clear. I understand exactly what happened, and when I get to this paragraph, I am reminded why it happened. The obligatory action is of character, not formula. It could have been no other way, not unless Alejandra’s answer had been different—and her answer was never going to be different. Then and only then could John Grady have abandoned the horses to those who wronged him.
This echoes, too, Blevins’s theft of the horse he lost—the only part of his foolishness John Grady agreed to be a part of, the only part in which Blevins found the grace to succeed—and I’ve said previously that I see Blevins as the personification of John Grady’s infatuation with a time that’s spent and left without him. Alejandra was not that past. She was the reality of the present within the fantasy of this moment he desired, and he tried to have it all, past and present, too, and was rejected.
He doesn’t come out of this the way Lacey Rawlins does, shaken clean of his delusions and ready to return to the world as it is. John Grady renews his dedication to a time dead and buried, even if that decision leaves him with no place to call his own.
This is still good country.
Yeah. I know it is. But it aint my country.
He rose and turned and looked off toward the north where the lights of the city hung over the desert. Then he walked out and picked up the reins and mounted his horse and rode up and caught the Blevins horse by its halter.
Catch your horse, he said. Or else he'll follow me.
Rawlins walked out and caught the horse and stood holding it.
Where is your country? he said.
I dont know, said John Grady. I dont know where it is. I dont know what happens to country.
Rawlins didnt answer.
Perhaps, there is… no country for young men.
Pick up a free book.
John Grady’s fantasy isn’t that of the outlaw. He goes out of his way to make a rightful claim to Blevins’s horse and to make his full and open confession before the judge. It’s a reminder that his was not the pursuit of ideals woven on cinema’s silver loom. He worked the land and its animals, and the work suited him. In another time, it would have been his birthright.
It’s easy to scoff at John Grady winning the hearts of the people—and the girl and her father—by being a natural with horses, beyond all others. I scoffed, seeing in it the trope of the preternaturally-gifted white man, but in context, the only country to need and recognize his gift has rejected him. In another time, he would have held onto the honor his talents deserve. In this present day, no honor awaits him, no honor but that which he holds within himself.
Final Thoughts:
I didn’t finish this book the first time I approached it, attempting to listen to the audio book while doing yard work. I caught some passages and missed others, and when Blevins hid from the lightning, naked in a rut, I decided I’d had enough foolishness.
Since then, I’ve read Cities of the Plain, the final book in the border trilogy, and I’m pleased this effort gave me reason to return to Horses.
It’s too early for this to upset my favorite McCarthy books, each of which I’ve read at least twice. Suttree. Blood Meridian. No Country for Old Men. If there’s interest, I’m tempted to continue these readings, perhaps with a return to one of those three—and I’m most tempted by No Country for Old Men, mostly because in my last reading, I tried to understand the differences in the conversation with Ellis Bell as its portrayed in the book and the movie. I came away uncertain but feeling I preferred the movie, which is a position I’d very much like to challenge.
Besides, I’ve read No Country for Old Men more often than any other McCarthy book, and yet I don’t own a copy of my own. It would be a good excuse to remedy that.
Coda:
I’ve reached a point with this newsletter where I need private feedback. Reach out to me via email or DM and talk to me about the weaknesses in my work. Where do I need to improve? What habits do I need to cut? What works and needs protecting?
Six months ago, I committed to a major shift in how I approached the newsletter, and the difference between the two is stark. The quality is so much better, and the work is meaningful.
I’m attempting to make another shift, and I’ve announced a few initiatives that will take place in the coming months, but I long to take another step forward in quality, as well. It seems only right that the inspiration for that change would come from my readers.
— Thaddeus Thomas
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Flash Fiction for Paid Subscribers—I’m busy getting ready for a trip, so I’m pausing my effort to offer new flash fiction with every post, but this is a good opportunity to make sure you’ve read the first two chapters of my flash serial:
“I’ve reached a point with this newsletter where I need private feedback. Reach out to me via email or DM and talk to me about the weaknesses in my work. Where do I need to improve? What habits do I need to cut? What works and needs protecting?
Six months ago, I committed to a major shift in how I approached the newsletter, and the difference between the two is stark. The quality is so much better, and the work is meaningful.”
My honest feedback would be, following your last two sentences here, is that the opinions of others don’t matter. You have your true answer right there. In those words, I think you are saying “you are writing who you are, you are proud of both your writing and how you’re showing up here, and that when the surfacing and acquisition of meaning arrives, everything else is just noise.” Stay away from the noise.
This was a beautiful piece! I’ve read McCarthy, but not as much as you. Blood Meridian, I loved. The Road, much different from his other writing, but only in setting, not in his characteristic savageness and bleakness, I also enjoyed. He’s an acquired taste; but your writing makes me want to read more of him. So, see? You’ve arrived—don’t care about what other’s think. Your audience will find you.
Thaddeus, I love to read you comments on Cormac McCarthy, and your comments on books that you had to fight to get through, like CATCHER IN THE RYE. I think it's insteresting how we all have sweet spots in our brains that respond to different styles of writing. In high school, when we had to read THE GREAT GATSBY, I hated it and couldn't relate to any of the characters or understand their behaviors. Years later, I reread it and found that my brain had changed. I loved the book and understood what Fitzgerald was telling the reader. When I first read BLOOD MERIDIAN, I hated myself for reading such a violent and vicious book, but when I read it a second time, I tightened my mental belt and understood why the violence was there and how history sanforizes all of that for us. Two books that I read as a 12 year old continue to delight me; they are DANDELION WINE by Ray Bradbury and THE ONCE & FUTURE KING by T.H. White. They both satisfy my fantasy craving for heroes, a kinder world, and lofty ideals.