All the Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy

Date: Jan 3, 2008
Meeting venue: Devonshire Arms, Bath.
Present: Steve, Rob, Will, Mark T, Mark Th, Chris

Rob's notes (more or less):

The general view of Pretty Horses was highly positive - with it ending up as the third highest-rated book in the illustrious history of our esteemed group (having to go the three decimal places to separate it from Kite Runner).

Looking back on Thursday night's discussion, after the initial round of comments, I think there was actually less discussion about the book and issues emanating from it than usual - hence this note will be briefer than other occasions. General opinion was:
- excellent writing style. Very atmospheric. In particular was good at descriptive writing that conveyed both the picture and the atmosphere of locations and good at describing nothing happening - as well as a lot happening. The lack of punctuation was felt by most not to be an issue and by some as being a positive asset.
- Fantastic evocation of landscape, almost tangible textures
- Some discussion about the Spanish text - Steve found a website with translations, but only after he'd finished reading it - with some concern about how it seemed to contain important information, but generally people were OK with it
- Different settings and scenes strong in their own right (though some felt the second scene with the great aunt was a bit out of kilter).
- the Quest/moral story element of it felt to work well
- Generally positive feedback about the central character of Grady and how it was developed.
I suspect I've missed things (as I was disagreeing with most of this) so please feel free to add.

Overall mark: 7.1/10