All the Pretty Horses

Cormac McCarthy is a modern American classic of the highest caliber: a MacArthur Fellow “for genius,” a master of complex emotions and unconventional syntax—well known to our readers for the novels “No Country for Old Men” (the Coen brothers’ film adaptation of this book received four “Oscars”), “The Road” (Pulitzer Prize winner and also adapted for film), and “Blood Meridian” (“a kind of mixture of Dante’s ‘Hell,’ ‘The Iliad,’ and ‘Moby-Dick,’” in the words of Booker Prize winner John Banville).

The novel “All the Pretty Horses” (brought to the screen by Billy Bob Thornton, starring Matt Damon and Penélope Cruz) is the first part of the Border Trilogy, which also includes “Outer Dark” and “Sodom and Gomorrah.” It is a magnificent blend of a western, a heroic saga, and a melodrama.

One day, the young heroes of the novel get on their horses and, having crossed the river that separates Texas from Mexico, find themselves in a mythological space… What drives them? A teen attempt to become real men, America’s passion for changing places, or the search for the Holy Grail?