# All the Pretty Horses- place your bets/opinions **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 19, 2000, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-the-pretty-horses-place-your-bets-opinions/46324 "2000-12-19T09:20:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![cornflakes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@cornflakes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cornflakes)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2000, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-the-pretty-horses-place-your-bets-opinions/46324/1 "2000-12-19T09:20:58Z")
Okay, the release date is only a week away, but do you think Hollywood can pull off the movie version of this novel? They might… maybe. I could see them using long shots, panoramas, montages and the like to play up the imagery, sort of like in _A River Runs Through it_. On the other hand, the story reaches its climax pretty early, and you generally know what is going to happen by the midpoint of the book. I don’t think they will tack on a “happy ending”, but they probably will rewrite the ending. FWIW, the [movieCONNECT](http://movieconnect.com/moviedetail.cfm?movieid=1992) synopsis hints that Grady will “persevere.” Somehow, I missed the emphasis on that when I read the book. So has anyone else been wondering about this movie, or am I the only one? ---
**Author:** ![ageless6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@ageless6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ageless6)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2000, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-the-pretty-horses-place-your-bets-opinions/46324/2 "2000-12-19T09:39:34Z")
Unfortunately I can’t see it working. I love McCarthy and indeed the whole border trilogy, but he writes in thoughts and images that don’t convert to film. Much of his writing is pure philosophy. I’ve read everything he’s written except his stage play. (At least twice.) Try anything by him. I think he’s in the top five American writers. ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2000, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-the-pretty-horses-place-your-bets-opinions/46324/3 "2000-12-19T16:06:48Z")
I can’t imagine how this one is going to work. Granted, it might turn out to work very well, but personally I just can’t envision a film that is both true to the book and a good movie. I’m picturing lots of dramatic landscape shots. The reader learns so much in the book from the characters’ inner voices, I think it would be goofy if too much dialogue was added to the film communicate these things to the viewer. I am very curious to see the film because it is one of my favorite books. ---
**Author:** ![CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crankyasanoldman/32/11670_2.png) [@CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrankyAsAnOldMan)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2000, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-the-pretty-horses-place-your-bets-opinions/46324/4 "2000-12-19T16:12:35Z")
All I know is, I see HUGE potential for a pornographic parody involving bestiality ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2000, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-the-pretty-horses-place-your-bets-opinions/46324/5 "2000-12-19T16:19:33Z")
It probably will not work to well because most people think it is a story that takes place on the plains when in reality, it has most of its plot in prison. ---
**Author:** ![ageless6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@ageless6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ageless6)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2000, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-the-pretty-horses-place-your-bets-opinions/46324/6 "2000-12-19T21:00:54Z")
Cornflakes and Delphica: If you want down and dirty McCarthy, try SUTTREE. It also has two or three really funny scenes in it. It may be my favorite book by him. ---
**Author:** ![Necros](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/necros/32/11086_2.png) [@Necros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Necros)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2000, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-the-pretty-horses-place-your-bets-opinions/46324/7 "2000-12-19T21:06:29Z")
Interesting that you pick that one. My call is **Blood Meridian**. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2000, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-the-pretty-horses-place-your-bets-opinions/46324/8 "2000-12-19T21:33:44Z")
Loved **Suttree** , but finally had to start skipping over those impenetrable stream-of-thought vocabulary flexing passages. If it weren’t for **Blood Meridian** , I wouldn’t have the peasure of being hauted by that image of the dead babies impaled upon the thorn bush. For my money, **The Orchardkeeper** may well be his best story telling. I found the Border/Crossing trilogy nigh unreadable. Re the OP, I fear ATPH will be presented as a pretty boy buddy picture, which is not how I read it. Who will play the amusing second banana? ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2000, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-the-pretty-horses-place-your-bets-opinions/46324/9 "2000-12-19T21:46:45Z")
It may not live up to the novel, I can deal with that, some novels are cinematic in nature and some just aren’t. But I would see anything with Penélope Cruz, just to see Cruz is reason enough to go. I’ve been hot for her since my first glimpse of her in _Jamón Jamón_. ---
**Author:** ![ageless6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@ageless6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ageless6)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2000, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-the-pretty-horses-place-your-bets-opinions/46324/10 "2000-12-20T04:28:59Z")
It is interesting that when I mentioned down and dirty I forgot the downest dirtiest book Cormac ever wrote. Blood Meridian is enough to give Dracula day-mares. I stand corrected on that,but I still like Suttree more. However,for guts,gore and insanity… ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2000, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-the-pretty-horses-place-your-bets-opinions/46324/11 "2000-12-20T18:49:50Z")
I liked reading _All the Pretty Horses_ so much, it was so tough but heartfelt, such an astounding evocation of being in a place and time. Castaneda’s Don Juan would have called it “a path with a heart.” Gritty and mean as all get out, but satisfying on many levels, tough but bracing. The human spirit triumphing over adversity is not a cliché in this book. McCarthy makes that feeling run in your veins, in your very marrow. So when _The Border_ came out, I grabbed it up eagerly. God! I wish I hadn’t. The most gruesome damn thing I ever read. Makes H. P. Lovecraft read like _Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm._ It was enough to give **Pol Pot** nightmares. I hope they never make a movie of it. Although I would be tempted to check out the nude soprano in the river, the grim memory of certain other scenes would definitely keep me away. Thanks for the heads-up on _Blood Meridian_. I remember walking out of Clint Eastwood’s _Unforgiven_ shaking my head and thinking, If the West was really like that, this nation has a curse upon its soul. Still & all, I understand the significance of deconstructing the cowboy mythos. There’s a lot of that going on nowadays. [http://sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu/~jmitchel/critique.htm](http://sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu/~jmitchel/critique.htm) I consider it the antidote for having Ronald Reagan foisted upon us. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2000, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-the-pretty-horses-place-your-bets-opinions/46324/12 "2000-12-20T20:07:44Z")
Speaking of the Border Trilogy . . . based on my grim experience with _The Crossing_, it never entered my mind to attempt the third novel, _Cities of the Plain_. The very title sounds ominous, chilling. Isn’t that a Biblical allusion to Sodom & Gomorrah? I’ll say one thing for _The Crossing_, it takes several unflinching hard looks right smack into the dark side of the existential abyss. I have read criticism of _Blood Meridian_ that it’s too filled with pointless mayhem. _The Crossing_ does make you think and question universal themes of the fate of puny pathetic man in the face of cosmic evil. Would you say McCarthy is writing in the tradition of American authors like Melville and Stephen Crane? The cosmos as indifferent or hostile to humanity? He has all the bitterness of Ambrose Bierce but without Bierce’s sardonic sense of humor. _The Unforgiven_ is a good example of a film that’s focused on a man’s inner struggle, but it works as cinema nonetheless, because Eastwood’s inner struggle is played out in action. The action scenes are taut and meaty. It was a very well-directed film, but depressing as hell.