#4 Cormac McCarthy - All The Pretty Horses

All right, welcome back everyone to Good scribes only, I'm Daniel Breyer and I'll be joined in a minute by my co-host, Jeremy Strike. In this episode, we'll be discussing Cormac McCarthy's 1991 book "All the Pretty Horses." Thanks to everyone who has liked and subscribed on Apple and Spotify, those reviews meet a ton to us, and if you haven't rated us yet or written a review, then shame on you. I hope you end up like Jimmy Blevin's, one of the most unlucky characters in this book, and this book is filled with supremely unlucky characters. I guess you'll find out more about that soon. But now on to Cormac McCarthy, who might be my favorite author, I almost named my dog after him, but faced too much opposition. My mom and girlfriend, and mostly everyone I spoke to, said that Cormac wasn't a fitting name for a fluffy Samoyed, and so I begrudgingly agreed to the name "Knocko." That's not really the type of name I was going for, and I clearly have less influence in my life than I thought I had. But that's neither here nor there, and frankly, I don't think "Knocko" is smart enough to be a worthy heir to the great Cormac McCarthy. We started off this episode with a discussion about which actors we would cast, and then "All the Pretty Horses" movie, assuming, of course, that we had an unlimited budget, and that the Matt Damon version had never been made. We then moved through the plot, discussing things like Western tropes, honor, honesty, and, of course, horses. We hope you enjoy, and here we go. All right, Dan, who you got for your cast? We're going to do this for every book you read. Your casting actors, or actors, and actresses, of course, in "All the Pretty Horses," what you got? We picked a hard book to do this with, because these characters are 13, 16, and you can age them up a little bit. Like Game of Thrones style. I got creative. For my John Grady Cole, our protagonist, our hero, I went with the late James Dean at his peak. I think, you know, I just rewashed Rebel without a cause when I think of the rugged, somewhat stubborn, stoicism of this character. I think James Dean would do a fantastic job for John Grady's best friend, Lacy Rollins. I went with Lucas Hedges, he's a terrific young actor. You can look him up. He was a man she survived the sea, and was really talented, and to me, you know, tall, flaky, serious, but more, I also can kind of play the more of a jokester role. Lacy is the more talkative, the little bit more insecure of the characters. For Jimmy Blevin's 13-year-old, or at least he looks 13, I had to go real young. So I thought, who are the really young actors I know, who are very good, and I went with Jacob Trembley. He was a very young actor in a movie called The Room, and I just remember thinking he was really, really good. Now I looked at his age. I think he was born in 2002. He'd be about the right age to play this character. So I went, you went, you went, you went, you totally went, took this more seriously than I did. So I'm going to be the mainstream guy here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can do my, the only other two I casted. I casted the captain, and I casted John Grady's love interest, Alejandra. So Alejandra, I did Anna DeArmis, who's perhaps the most beautiful woman acting today. And I don't think she has much of a character in this book other than her striking beauty. So perhaps this would be too easy or all for Anna. And for Captain, I went with Javier Bardem. Me too. Hell yeah. We got one. That's great. Oh, with all the actors, it had to be Javier Bardem, and especially like he had such an incredible role in no country for old men, the other Kormack McCarthy move, like I think that one best picture actually. Yeah. And he was like, oh my god, a haunting, haunting antagonist in that. And in this, I mean, we'll talk more about it as we go on. The captain's not like, as antagonistic as really, I mean, at least to me, John Grady Cole, the lead character. It's more of like a situational antagonist. There's no like straight. This is my enemy sort of character, like you see classically in literature. And I guess the cap, would you say the captain is the antagonist if you have to choose one? I think you've put it in a good way. He's an antagonist. He's not a great guy to be around. And yet his circumstances and John Grady's circumstances, they're much more representative of the fate and what has happened in the circumstances of the novel than any character who might be overtly malicious. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay. So I'll give you mine. I'll give you mine. All right. So I did the same thing with the age kind of aging people down. So all right, Lacy Rollins, I felt like has to be some kind of like irreverent, wacky, slightly charming, definitely like cowboy. So I just went with the easy Matthew McConaughey like younger. I feel like it would make a great Lacy Rollins, be a good Rollins. Yeah. Yeah. He's like kind of a jokester, but he also gets annoyed and he like, he's no stranger to like fuck somebody up. So I thought that was straight on. Sevens, the little one. I feel like Lucas Hedges, your mention would be a good blevins. I don't think he's the best Lacy Rollins. I think that, yeah, I was thinking you have to cast a 13-year-old. I think in reading the book, you forget just how young this character is. So we have to go real child actor here. Yeah. Yeah. So for blevins who came to mind for me was Tom Holland. Yeah. I think that's his name. Now that I'm saying aloud, maybe it's not. Is that the guy who plays Spider-Man? Yeah, it is. It is. Yeah. I thought he would make a good one. Because blevins is kind of like whimsical, not saying Tom Holland is an idiot, but he could probably play an idiot if he needs it. Tom Holland's a good actor. You'd have to go back to Holland. Yeah. I think Holland's like 25. So you'd have to go back 15. But he looks like he's not, you know, so it's, oh, or Shiloboff, young Shiloboff could play blevins. I like that. I really like that one. Yeah. And Shiloboff would like that too. Okay. And then, so I had Havier Bardem also for the captain. I thought Havier Bardem would be captain or he could be the guy in the prison, the really rich guy. I forget his name. Perez. I was like, he could play either one of those two. And then so for John Grady, oh, so for the love interest, I just took the cheesy, I said young Penelope Cruz, she was like the first one that came off the top of my head. And then our lead, John Grady Cole, this would be a little, I don't think a ton of people would love this casting, but I think once he did it and they saw the movie, Adam Driver would kill this role. And I'm like, he's very good. He's, he's grown on me too. Like I really didn't like him when I first saw, I was like, this guy's too intense and he's just like, got that face, you know, it's like really. And John Grady Cole is not serious, but I felt like first of all, he's got the kind of Adam Driver's got the probably the right complexion for it. And he's got like the dark hair and he's like super honorable John Grady Cole. And I feel like Adam Driver can play that like stoic, like do the right thing sort of actor pretty well. At least that's how I would imagine it. Ironically, he also was a villain in Star Wars, but like, that shows that he's a, you know, what's, what's funny is, so they made the movie all the pretty horses. It's, I haven't seen it. It gets panned by a lot of people, but Alejandra is played by Penelope Cruz. So you got the correct, you had the same casting decision as Billy Bob Thornton who directed that one. He directed that movie. And they had it. Did he act in it? I don't, I don't know. I haven't said, I don't think he acted in it, but they had Matt Damon as John Grady Cole, 30-year-old. I was thinking about that. 16-year-old. Yeah. So maybe if I haven't noticed, who's Rollins? Rollins was an actor named Henry Thomas. He was also an ET legend of the fall. Interesting. I'm so bad that this movie sucked or at least people didn't like it. Well, yeah, I'm scared to watch it. I hear there's like a three-hour cut out there that hasn't been released. That's actually pretty good. And the studio essentially came in, cut it down, and ruined the movie. If that's the case, I would love to see the unreleased director's cut. But until then, I don't want to ruin this amazing book, which is one of my favorites, probably in my top 10, top 15 books of all time. I don't know exactly where it would rank there, but really happy we had the chance to read it. Yeah, it was amazing. And you used this word and nearly made like a little blog post. And you said that Corn Mac McCarthy is peerless. And I love, first of all, that's a great turn of phrase, Daniel. Good work. It's clear that you've read every one of them, Corn Mac McCarthy's books. But I really do think you're right. You could argue, let's like, F. Scott Fitzgerald, he has peers, right? Like he has people that write in a similar style, a similar beauty in his writing, so to speak. This guy, this part of all the books we've read. I would recommend this one first no doubt it was I'm so glad you chose it. Yeah, he's a very special author. All of his books are terrific and he gets compared most commonly, at least stylistically to Faulkner and then thematically to Hemingway. Those are always the comparisons but I think peerless is the right word because you can see his influences for sure in the writing. I think you wrote to me you saw some of the Hemingway early and uh you know but what he like there's no mistaking a Cormac McCarthy novel. If you were to hand me this novel and I never seen it before but I had read his other novels I would know within a couple paragraphs who was writing this and if somebody else to try to imitate it I would be sure to spot that too as uh as a failed attempt at matching McCarthy's brilliance and just to like give if anyone hasn't read uh McCarthy I don't know honestly I don't remember the road like I read the road a couple years ago I don't remember if he did it the same way at least it didn't strike me now now that I'm writing more seriously so McCarthy his kind of like signature and I find this brilliant he uses the word and more than any author I've ever seen and it it works too it'll be like he walked to the beach and he took off his shoes and he stuck a toe in the in the water and it felt wonderful and he was happy to have stepped away from his family and all of the commotion that there is it was literally something like that yeah it's like he walked he walked to the beach and he went in the water and he looked around and he noticed that life is filled with suffering no matter what he did or didn't do he would always end up back in the place he started before time and after time and for all time you know it's something yeah but it really is like he doesn't use commas or very rarely uses commas yeah yeah and and once I saw that it kind of for me just like I was like you know we both right that sort of clicked to me like and so in applying for some of these like I'm working on like for an MFA and I've read some other people and reread myself and everyone uses commas like crazy and now reading McCarthy who uses no commas I'm like oh that's what separates the men from the boys yeah like if you can write a great story with minimal commas I think Hemingway has a quote he's like the comma is the weakest punctuation mark or something uh if you can avoid the I don't know have you had any experience with your writing like do you do you notice do you overuse commas do you try to overuse commas for sure um my I I just gave my the draft of my second book to an editor and she had terrific notes and her main note stylistically was you overuse commas and I reflected your exactly right you know it's easier said than done the comma is a fantastic way to keep a sentence going when you kind of need a way out but it takes much more skill to do what McCarthy does and avoid the comma and yet make sure that his writing makes sense and you can follow along see I don't agree with you that it takes more skill I think it takes more balls yeah okay like all you have to do is just say and kill the comma and say and and continue because it's technically a run on sentence like for sure these are run on sentences from like grammar perspective but that's the beauty of uh I forget who said it but it was like you need to learn the rules so that you can break them and that's why we read like strung and white or whatever the elements of style you read that and learn the rules and then you fuck them up you know and that's how you make something like really interesting so I mean just my call to action for you and for me to no doubt is just like add an ant like kill the comma and say whatever like I'm just gonna add a couple ants in the sentence it's not copying he doesn't own the word ant you know he he maybe uses it a lot he has his own style like the one that you mocked but I think it's for us to have learned that I'm just it was a example of my appreciation you know is no mod yeah yeah right little mod so all right so let's let's talk about the um like get into the plot a little bit in the characters and so it starts in Texas and it's like truly it's like a western novel all the pretty horses definitely like a west like a old classic western but less so on the like I don't know how it's an anti-western because yeah on the surface all the surface elements point towards western gunfights and horses and you know camping out in the wilderness and men testing their limits and yet the it's an anti-western as well because there isn't the same payoff that you would typically get in a western where you know there are these great adventures that come to a place where these characters have overcome these obstacles and we can talk more about that but it's really a western landscape beating them down in the submission and maybe John Grady doesn't get beaten down as much as the other characters and we can talk about that but I do think it's it's not your typical western you wouldn't find this book in the western section among the others it wouldn't fit to the same degree it's more complex than that yeah I think complex is the perfect word for it like most westerns are kind of like tropy you know thematically similar like just lots of stereotypes and I think McCarthy does a great job of avoiding those like of course there's Cowboys they're saying partner and stuff like that but even that he I noticed like he doesn't say howdy partner like P-A-R-T-N-E-R he says howdy partner P-A-R-D-N-E-R so I think he does whatever he can to just kind of step away from those cliches yeah I think what he's doing is he's these characters believe in the idea of the western right they want to go be Cowboys they have that dream there's that romanticism that is aligned alongside with their idea of western when in reality what actually happens to them it's it's never as neat as they would have wanted so even when they go about saying partner and I can get used to a Cowboys life and so on the reality of their situation it just doesn't translate to the dream that they had of what it would be that's great point I mean it is sort of like a microcosm of what we think he's kind of arguing or when he writes this like so so John Grady Cole is the the lead and there's Lacey Rollins is like his best buddy like think they're technically cousins or something but they're just like you know they grew up together they've they've done everything and they just decide and I actually missed this do they just do they there was someone alluded to that they were in trouble like they were running away from the law to go to Mexico but I never actually thought that was true no more just people think that because like why would these two Americans think that they should go off to Mexico so everybody's assumption is they're running from something but in reality what they're running from it seems like for John Grady he's had this ranch in his family forever and the ranch is about to be sold and this life that he envisions for himself as a cowboy is about to slip through his fingers and he's gonna have to move back into town and for Rollins I think it's less of there's an impetus for him to leave and go be a cowboy but there's nothing keeping him in town either and he feels this loyalty and the sense of adventure and in a very you know idealistic and optimistic way they decide what if we leave and go off to Mexico to be cowboys yeah so that plays exactly straight into like the classic Mexican western I guess they're more not Mexicans more like Texas but then they leave Texas and that's exactly when the story becomes it diverges from the classic sort of yeehaw gunslinging tropes so what did you how did you feel about like the the characterization of Texas versus Mexico like the land in Mexico and how do they how do you what do you think like John Grady Cole and Lacey Rollins do they get what they expect do they like what do they expect out of that trip yeah I think for them and in United States history the West has always been this place where you can go test your manhood make a lot of money push the boundaries the negative sides of that right the massacre of so many Native Americans the death and toil that hasn't been talked about the same degree until more recently relatively and you know in their minds they're imagining a West of folklore as Mexico this place where civilization hasn't been hasn't touched it to the same degree I think what they're seeing already in Texas is that that time and age of the cowboy is coming to an end but they hope that in Mexico this lawless land where that life might still exist that they hope that they can take a part in that so I think what we'll find is in the beginning of their journey there is some of that in fact Rollins remarks as there as they're riding towards Mexico I could get use to this life and then you know it doesn't take very long for them to start getting into trouble and realizing that it's not all fun and games and just because in a cowboy novel you can have a shootout and everybody will end up okay in this novel they're real calm And Mexico isn't necessarily this dream land for cowboys, but rather a harsh reality where a lot of negative things can happen to people who aren't prepared and who didn't necessarily prepare themselves for inevitable sufferings. So what happens, so like early on in the novel, they leave Texas, they cross the Rio Grande. I don't think he actually ever even says the Rio Grande. I think they just cross the river. Yeah, again, because that would be too trope, you know, like Rio Grande. So they cross the Rio Grande, they get into Mexico. I think a family, just like a random Mexican family, they like pull up to their house and disfamilies like, yeah, come eat dinner with us, that sort of thing, they get taken in, which is, I mean, that's something we could talk about the Mexican values versus if there's any commentary Mexican values versus American values. So maybe put a button on that and you can comment, but what happens immediately after, like what's the first trouble they get it? It's, did they need counterblevens? Yeah, so everything is going well. They encounter blevins. Rollins, blevins is this, he says he's 16. He looks closer to 13. He is raggedy, run away, just totally dishevelled. And yet he's riding this terrific horse, this horse that no run away could possibly be running. So immediately, Rollins, and for that matter, I'm sure John Gray are suspicious, thinking how did this guy get this horse, blevins is insistent that it's his horse, you know, he more or less follows them and eventually, John Gray decol convinces Rollins, fuck it, let's just let this guy ride with us, you know, it's okay. And they, they end up encountering a thunderstorm, blevins he's 13 is terrified of thunder, like he says he's been struck before as whole families cursed. So he gets off his horse, he strips all of his clothes off. And of course, the horse runs away to a small town. So that's their first piece of trouble. Blevins says, I need to go get my horse back, I need to get my gun back, which is with the horse, they go into the town, they steal the, our blevins steals the horse and the gun back. Rollins and Grady are implicated and just caught up in the mess. And the three of them are running away, rather, rather riding away with people chasing after them. So the people pursuing them, they end up going after blevins and John Grady and Rollins split off on another side. And for a while, that's the last we hear of blevins, but that was kind of their first dose that things are a little bit tougher here, and we might think. And blevins is a very eccentric character, like they wager about his, he says it's like the best shot, they throw a wallet up in the air and blevins shoots it straight through the middle. So this character has like a lot, he's, he's kind of mysterious in his own way. Yeah, it's a, it's a bit of humor, early on in the novel before things get much, much darker, and it's that there's still in this period where there's a lot of joking and banter back and forth and Rollins can't believe that this blevins kid can actually shoot his gun well, but it turns out that he Rollins throws up his billfold into the air and blevins hits it perfectly in the middle with his shot. And you know, it's, it's this moment where we're thinking as readers, maybe things will be okay for these guys, you got some of the tropes, you got these gunslingers, one of them's really, really talented, and you know, they can probably figure out whatever's coming their way. So of course, as we find out, that's not the case and as blevins leaves and John Grady and Rollins decide that they're going to find work in Mexico at a ranch. So they actually get hired and it's in this sequence, and we can talk more about it. That kind of two themes in the plot emerge. The first is we find out just how gifted John Grady is with horses, right? It's he has a predator natural just ability to connect with horses, and he really speaks to them like their people and understands them and contain them in ways that nobody else can. And the other thread throughout the sequence is he John Grady Cole falls in love with Alejandra, the, the woman or the daughter of the person who owns the ranch. This is a very wealthy family and obviously John Grady is not her typical suitor, the poor cowboy who came riding in to do ranch work. Yeah, it's, I think one of the marks in this, you'd know better than me from McCarthy in general. It's like he's extremely unpredictable, but it's not like M Night Shyamalan unpredictable where it's like, all right, you think it's going straight. We're not even going to go right or left. We're literally going to turn around like he just does, there's some writers and filmmakers who will just go like, okay, they'll never expect this. And then they just follow it because it's surprising. Whereas McCarthy, it really flows. So like when they got that job at the, I see, what was it? And I see, I think they called it or yeah, because the guy was an Ascendado. So the I see and that's like basically a big farm. It's a big ranch. Yeah, big ranch. So he, so they get this job and they like settle down. You know, that's not what you expect from like this cowboy jerk, like it's been all on the move thus far, this adventure, they're riding around. And then they just like, they're content with, you know, being with horses and whatever, I don't even remember what Roland. Roland's kind of helps John Grady Cole with the with the, yeah, John Grady Cole is kind of the favorite. He gets promoted. He gets to do more and Rollins is kind of working with the day to day laborers a little bit more. But it's interesting. I made note that Roland's a little bit later in the novel. But when John Grady Cole, I won't spoil anything. Yes, we continue. He's longer to call returns without Rollins there. And he makes a comment about how the people like the Vakeros, the cowboys, there's a ton of Spanish in this novel, which I loved, loved. But they didn't really connect like they were respectful to John Grady Cole, but Rollins was their friend. He's not really friends with them. I think there's working with them, you know, he was there day to day grinding out this hard work. And John Grady was the pretty boy of sorts who got to go play with the horses. So there was definitely not to vibe with how the power was distributed at the ranch. And I think John Grady Cole will continue, this will make more sense as we continue, but he sort of like represents he's like purely moral. Like he does not do anything that the worst thing he does is like fall in love. And you know, like do all that stuff with with Alejandra, you know, that's where he does the most immoral. You know, he has a code, right? Like his code is so strict to himself. And we talked about it in remains on our last podcast. And that code was a lot about honor. And you know, dignity and here it's similar themes and Cole embraces embraces this code. And even when he really shouldn't, you know, he sticks with it because it's what he thinks is code. What's this code? Yeah, it's not mapped out specifically like this is how I live or this is what I do. But I think, yeah, yeah, I think he has a pursuit of truth that maps on to experience and actions right action. And this is contrasted so severely in the novel with words. A lot of the antagonists or negative characters in the book that affect their journey negatively, they are filled with long monologues and speeches and words twisting the truth. John Brady is a man of very few words. He is a stoic and a and his main, you know, he thinks that his actions and how he leads his life and his experiences have so much more to do with what he says about them. And at the end of the day, it comes down to what is right and doing what is right, how he defines it versus doing something wrong and twisting it and manipulating it and messing it up with language. So I think that's the, that's a place where he takes a very, very strong stance as opposed to many other characters in the novel. Yeah, he's very stoic. He has sort of like a like Buddhists taint to him where it's like, if that happened, it's like, all right, can't change it, you know, it's happened. Like there's we might as well just like, you know, it's water and we just got like flow in the net new direction. Exactly. There's a conversation he has with Rollins and it's early on, it's about his John Brady's ex girlfriend and Rollins says something like girls aren't worth it. And like, and you know, that's like a normal, you'd expect the boys to ban to be like, yeah, screw that. And John Brady cold just very like quietly is like, yes, they are, you know, and it's like in his mind, it's like he has these clear lines of what's right and what's wrong and nobody can convince him otherwise. Right. He is truly led by his own independent spirit and this own inherited idea of what it means to be a cowboy and what it means to be a man in the old West. So, okay, so they're in the Hassan Dotto, they're on the big branch. He meets like, I think Alejandro just kind of like rides in on a stallion, like, and he sees her and she's like, what is that creature? And immediately, like, she's just beautiful. It's like the only young girl around and they, he like kind of tries to court her. I think there's like a party that he goes to is like a dancing town or something. Yeah. like sort of winds her a little. bit and they start sort they start they sort of start a relationship and then what what what what happens from there so they end up lovers and they're doing this all very secretly meanwhile there's a essentially somebody finds out one of the ranch hands and that gets leaked of course to Alejandro's aunt who's a character we can talk more about as well as her father and they essentially the people who chased away blevans originally the these agents and they they've been looking for who else is involved and that horse the horse theft and they end up taking away Rollins and John Grady in the night and it's from here that we meet the captain or Javier Bardan yeah that was that was another moment where it's like all right I didn't expect them to settle down but and then they do and then I did not expect the like you have to you know that when they steal the horse and they get chased like you know that's not the end of those the the you know the Mexican police whatever you know that's not the end of them but I didn't expect the I think we later find out who can talk about it here it's Alejandro's dad is the one who he called the police on on John Grady Cole and what Rollins because I don't know how that connected he probably got wind of it somehow and then he was like all right screw this kid you know he's he's trying to steal my daughter away we want her to mayor because he John Grady Cole is a no but earth they don't know they just like a land yeah Alejandro we have a quick scene where Alejandro describes it later to John Grady and she actually ends up telling her dad she goes we're love we were lovers and in typical like rich dad like fashion he's like I'm gonna mess these guys up so yeah he almost he goes out to actually kill them in the night and in the scene where Rollins and John Grady they're camping out and they hear these dogs barking these hounds and they're like is this guy gonna come kill us and then it's like he doesn't actually end up killing them he's afraid that if he does that then Alejandro might kill herself from grief but he does make sure that the captain and his underlings take them away to be tortured and and imprisoned that was an amazing scene I because I don't think they knew yet yeah I didn't Rollins so that was him Rollins and John Grady Cole were up in the mountains camping and these gray hounds his bloodhounds just come up to them out of nowhere and they're like smelling and I was just like this is like what like you know something's about to happen and then nothing happens and you're just like left to wander like why did he do that and then you learn later on it's like one of those moments wall it's like whoa that's why that happened yeah and that's like in hindsight in hindsight right like their life flash before their eyes but they don't even know that at that point it's just they they came so close to both being killed and Alejandro is like this she's one of those so she's the son of a very wealthy they're like very wealthy right because they have connections to like the Mexican Revolution and like there's it's one of those intensely not aristocratic families but like she goes to boarding school and they're like they spend time in France and stuff like that I think she speaks French yeah they're they're an educated elite for sure in Mexico and obviously have tremendous resources and yet she she has a character I don't we we don't really get that much about her I'd say we know she's beautiful we know that John Grady calls obsessed with her they have passing dialogue I think the most dialogue we have is later in the novel when they reunite for the last time but I don't I think at this point we just kind of take John Grady Cole's word for it that she's really sub big and he's deadly in love with her right and I think what the story has going for it is we know like John unlike Stevens from remains of the day Stevens is like not necessarily a reliable narrator John Grady Cole is deaf like you you can you know you can rely on him you know like he tells the truth when he does something wrong he admits it he's like you you're you're hard pressed to find a moment where he does something truly wrong so when he says Alejandra is smart and beautiful and honest and caring it's like okay she probably is that because John Grady Cole wouldn't make it up he sees the bestener I think that again there's this layer of romanticism in the novel like and it's like and I think Cormac McCarty's doing this very intentionally that at his core John Grady is romantic he still looks for this belief that there's a magical west out there that he can find and you can reclaim and I think in the same way that he's chasing the dream of being a cowboy he's chasing the dream of true love and even if both are impossible in the novel and can't actually exist he refuses to he refuses to understand that they aren't possible he will continue to be stubborn and pursue them and even at the novel's end perhaps we'll continue to pursue them okay so he they get taken by the captain and the they both I think they're separated they both wake up actually I think they're jailed together for like a short period yeah they're jailed together at first and they reunite with blevins and this is where they find blevins again yeah and you know it's it's pitch black they don't really see anything but they know it's blevins he can't walk he was he was eventually found and tracked down for you know going back to get his horse and and I think why it we it's a very sad couple of pages here where it's obvious that blevins time on this planet isn't going to last for much longer and they're all kind of aware of it but nobody wants to say it out loud they they discuss it and they they're never willing to give it the absolute but in a matter of days as they're being transported to a larger prison the captain marches blevins out of the truck and then and with two quick bullet shots that John Grady Cole and Rollins here we know that blevins has died yeah I think there's even a maybe I'm conflating to two minute moments but is there a point where blevins the captain talks to John Grady Cole and they come and he goes back and blevins is like did you speak do you tell him I'm a good guy like do you speak on my behalf and then is either Rollins or John Grady Cole is like no I didn't and blevins is like why didn't you do that and just like it because it wouldn't make any difference yeah yeah there's a lot of that again truth in this scene this torture scene it plays such a big role and we can talk more about that as a theme throughout the novel later and I I have some quotes but it was you know they they keep torturing these guys wait like in the captains just like just admit that you were these horrible horse thieves that you were the killers he calls Rollins the wrong names he's like you are the criminal smith at one point and and then Rollins says you know eventually it's tortured enough that he's like I told them everything they wanted to hear and then he's like you will too it doesn't it doesn't matter and it's just the truth at this point against torture doesn't doesn't hold up the way that John Grady imagines that it could and that it should yeah I mean this is too much of a non-sequitur but it's not like I've read a lot of things lately about how it's very common for people like even in today's justice system like someone who didn't commit a crime is told so many times that they committed a crime that they eventually admit that they committed the crime and like actually believe it and it's just like I think the judge at the end of this book actually makes a comment about the justice system being totally screwy and I wonder if like I wonder if we asked McCarthy if there was any maybe it was a little too early for because this was written in what 93 or something he would he would I think he hasn't understand he writes a lot about justice and he thinks a lot and that's obvious in his novels about you know how we should judge each other how the law judges us the role of law enforcement the and in this novel you know you have a very negative portrayal of that but you also have a positive portrayal in the judge at the end in no country for old men you know you have a very positive portrayal of law enforcement so it's not consistent novel to novel but he understands that there's a lot at stake here and that people's fates you know hanging the balance based on what people perceive the truth to be and you're right like we know that interrogation if forceful enough and long enough and there's enough sleep deprivation people will admit to things that they never did and it's a there've been a lot of people have gone to prison and worse over the years because of that so what is McCarthy so you've read a ton you read all of his books and you've probably read about like about him as well I imagine what is what what's his background what how does he know like one thing that I thought was incredible is he is such a ridiculous command of this environment and by this environment I mean like the old west like he literally well the picture he paints but in the words he uses the geology like the he talks about like Bajadas and Criasote and like the Arroyos and these are things that I like had to look up every single one what they met. And one of them's like, you know, a patch, a certain type of a patch of grass. Another one is like, in between two mountains, like the patch through. It's this just like incredible thorough knowledge of what it would be like to be a cowboy, almost at that point where it's like, you think he was there. So I'm wondering, like, what is he from Texas? Like, what's, what's his deal? I think he spent some time there. He was born in Rhode Island. Um, so I was born in Providence. Yeah. Let's go. Let's, that's where you're from. You have the McCarthy in your, in your city. Yes. Yeah. Well, okay. He's a, he says, and he's been quoted that he, he likes to like spend time with scientists more than writers. He's obsessed with science and he's obsessed with truth. And I think that comes across in his writing in the ways you describe. He's probably a very diligent, um, very careful researcher about everything he does. Blood meridian, which is maybe his, at least it's his most appreciated by critics novel. Um, there's a whole companion guide that's massive about all the research and all the historical notes that went into and he gets the minutiae correct in that novel going just so carefully into the details and I think that comes through like in this novel. There's nothing that doesn't belong. You know, you're not going to read a McCarthy novel and there's going to be a mistaken piece of technology in there that you're in like, this wasn't around then and I caught my car. You're not going to catch McCarthy on any of that stuff. It's, um, he's too good and he cares too much. Yeah. I think it takes, it goes to like a whole other level like I obviously, he's not, you're not going to make a mistake. But just the fact he'd like writes about, yeah, I guess you're right. It's just being very, very research. So specific. Brides and like, even the words he was like, he stogged his boots like he'd done before. I was like, what does that mean? Like, I literally can't even, what does a stogging mean? He has. He has an impeccable command of language. And he, you know, he's not, when he's writing, I think he just, he's not pulling words out of the sorceress and saying, like, oh, there's words, it's, it's obvious that everything is so carefully placed and that it's a rising, I don't know if it's naturally or if it's just a rising as the right word at that right time for him, but they're, you know, they're McCarthy sentence, the best ones, you, you feel like if you would alter it even slightly, it would be magnitudes worse. And I mean, that's interesting to, to think about with respect to the characters in this novel that are bad, like you pointed out, are the ones who are the most articulate? Like they're the ones who have the, except maybe the captain, because, but the captives speak English through so long speeches, though, I have a quote here, I don't want to read all of it now, but I'll just read this end and he's talking about truth and like, you're right. Like these, the philosophical characters are the negative ones, including the captain, who's talking about truth and says, you have the opportunity to tell the truth here here. In three days, you will go to Salteo and there you will have this opportunity. It will be gone. Then the truth will be in other hands. You see, we can make the truth here or we can lose it. But when you leave here, it will be too late, too late for truth. Then you will be in the hands of other parties. So this character is literally saying, like, we're going to make up the truth, right? Like this is where we decide it. And that goes against everything John Grady believes, but he doesn't have the ability to make a long speech about, this is truth and this is, that's up to the other characters, the ones who want to twist truth and who want to, who want to abuse it at the end of the day. Yeah, I think it goes to show like, I would imagine what, like if you asked Cormac McCarthy what he admires about like, great writers or like, what does the make of a great writer? I think not that this book is short, but I think he would say brevity and like succinctness. And I think he would put on the other end of the spectrum like being overly wordy. Like it would be interesting because you can't say, and if he read infinite just, he wouldn't be like, oh, that sucks because it's so wordy. But I do think he, at least for his style and what he goes after. And like, you can see it in John Grady Cole, John Grady Cole is just like, straight to the point. Yes, sir, like five word sentences and he values the kind of succinctness and brevity and honesty. And then these characters, like the aunt who is kind of, I think she's the first one that we're introduced to. He bisk, she bisk, it takes John Grady Cole and they play chess. And then John Grady Cole beats her the first game. And then she wins, I think, the second game. And by like some really wild sneak attack that he'd never seen before. Which there's probably, if I know McCarthy, not as well as you, I bet he did that for reason. I don't know exactly what he's getting out there, but there was like a name to the sneak attack move. And she says something like, if you had known this move, it never would have worked. But if you don't recognize it, it's like an automatic victory. And I don't know, that actually goes over my head a little bit. I don't really know. It speaks to her personality and it speaks to the contrast to the characters. And John Grady is living from his heart. He's living in the present moment. He's living with a sense of right and wrong, whereas the aunt, especially, is living in a world where she's trying to be the chess master all the time, right? Thinking through her moves, thinking way in advance about how different things are going to go planning and plotting and scheming. I think in the way that they play chess, even, there's that clear contrast between what they represent. That's a great point. They sort of, this is something I've thought about. I might have even mentioned it in a previous podcast, but I just think about it a lot in the last year or two is the differentiation between like being insightful and insightfulness and intuition and intuition to me is kind of like all the senses and I say sense condensed. It's like your sense and your experience is all condensed into this one, it's just like a feeling. It's subconscious. You can't rationalize it. And that's so John Grady cold to me kind of represent after you say this. I wouldn't have said it five minutes ago, but he represents this like intuitive, fiercely, romantic. Go with what you love, do what you feel. He also like tends to work, things tend to work out. So he sort of implicitly, I don't think Core Mac McCarthy was like, I'm going to use these characters to intimate that intuition, follow your intuition. I don't think it's that. But I think you can sort of read behind the lines. And like Core Mac McCarthy obviously likes this John Grady cold character and thinks like he leads a good life, which I would agree and I think you probably would too. He does the right things a lot of time. Okay. What? You know, commenting on my face, which was somewhere between incredulous and agreeable. Because I kind of, I understand what you're saying. He's a sympathetic character. He's someone that like met like we as readers, we would aspire to be. We appreciate his choices. And yet what he gets for those choices in the novel is just a lot of pain, right? He time and time again goes out with this passion, this intuition for what is right. But because of the time period that this book takes place, perhaps, perhaps the age of Cowboys is too long gone, perhaps because of human nature that is just at its core possesses too much evil for his best dreams to be possible. He time and time again encounters obstacles and is beaten down and he continues to persevere. But you know, we're the final scene of the novel when we'll kind of add up to what gets here. But he just continues riding his horse west. He's just on the path, he's continuing on and what does he have now, you know, at this point. I'm going to read a quote, it's about one, like a third of the way through. I do it on Kindle, so I can't tell you the page. But you mentioned like human nature. And I, okay, I'm sorry, no editorial before I read it, no creature can learn that which his heart has no shape to hold. Even the souls of the horse are terrible things to see and could be seen under certain circumstances, attending the death of a horse. This is like his dad is kind of telling him this lesson, John Green Cole's dad. In the soul's horse, the souls of a horse are a terrible thing to see and could be seen under certain circumstances, attending the death of a horse because the horse shares a common soul because the horse shares a common soul and it's separate life only forms out of all horses and makes it mortal. He said that if a person understood the soul of a horse, there would be, there would be events that would understand all horses that ever were. So the nerd in me was like, all right, I started thinking of a manual cot. And I was like, he's talking about like horse-ness, like what it is to be horse, like what it is to be mug, there's like a mug-ness, there's horse-ness, and there's also what that what it is to be human, like a human nature. And I think there's a comment there about human nature a little bit. And I think he sort of uses horses, like there's three horses in this story. And one of them is kind of ridiculous. Blevin's horse is like super afraid of everything and very eccentric. And there's the two other horses, Redbow and Junior, which are more normal, but also have their own personalities a little bit. And I think the horses are like a motif and a symbol in themselves. Well, I don't know, what do you make of that passage? Yeah, there's a lot there. It's an important passage. It's perhaps like the title passage. This book is called "All the Pretty Horses." And I think that passage is the best example of what's going on here. And the reverence that this book has and these characters have for the horse and what it represents. There's this quiet shared intelligence among these horses that John Grady certainly notices and appreciates. And I think in contrast to humanity here, where there's a purity and action to these horses, there's an impurity in humanity. And John Grady aspires for the purity of the horse, right? He is closer to the horseness than perhaps any other character in this novel just in terms of the shared goodness and the romanticism that that represents. Whereas the people on the furthest side are about as anti-horse as you can be, you know, standing so far apart from the rest of their humans, separated an idea, trying to control the destiny and the fate of others as opposed to being a part of one inclusive whole. So I think the horse and John Grady have a lot more in common than perhaps most humans and horses do. - Yeah, and I mean, I don't mean to, oh, here's a great pun. I don't mean to beat the dead horse, but I really think that. I mean, again, this is just me 'cause this is what I've been thinking about a lot lately. But it's so to your point, like John Grady Cole, probably the most intuitive character, closest to horse, horses and animals are very much, they're just all intuition, they don't have any thinking. And then you see the kind of inimical characters like the aunt, like Captain Perez, that's the name, which we haven't met yet, which we'll get to soon. But they're the ones who are intellectual and they're these high society creatures. And they're the ones who are very up in their head. And I think this is 'cause I've had lots of experience of being just trapped in my own noggin too much. And I think that's kind of why I put it on like a, that's the enemy, like I wanna get out of my head and into my body, into like the intuition side of life. And I think that's a little bit what the story is kind of impelling. You know, it's like John Grady Cole, he's won with the horses, like he talks to them, he understands them. And these other people are very devoid of that intuition and they're just, they're doing this kind of like human nature. It's almost like a bastardization of human nature, the desire to control. Like I don't think original humans were like trying to, they weren't like yelling at a tree to grow, you know? Like whereas we're effectively yelling at trees to grow, you know, like that's, we're doing those sorts of things where we really mechanize nature. And I mean, again, I would love to ask McCarthy, I feel like he would probably be like, "Yeah, we'll go with that." Like that's a nice, like he probably didn't actually mean it that way. But that's just how I'm reading into the story. - No, I think, I think, I think that's, there's something there for sure. And he has an appreciation for the characters that live the way that John Grady Cole does, but also an appreciation understanding that that doesn't necessarily translate to a life well lived. You know, you might be a hero inside, but society might not be the best place for those types of heroes. And you know, the people who are most successful in the novel and who are going to, who have found success are the people who like to give us long monologues about how they twist, manipulate the truth then. It's, meanwhile, John Grady and his friends, it's not always such a pretty trip. - So they're living, there's a, there were a few quotes about like directly about society. Like they use the word society in it. I didn't mark any down, but I remember thinking like, okay, this is some interesting commentary, but we might take us off, if you have one read it, but it might take us off on a tangent. I actually didn't love the, what I, okay, I'll tell you something I didn't like about this. The, it probably needed to be in there to be honest, but I did not like the Mexico, and like I'm a big, I love history, like you, you studied history more than I do, but I like history. I did not really like the aunts retelling of the, it was kind of like the Mexican revolution. It just didn't grip me. I don't know, I can't really go any further than that. And I just, for some reason, it just didn't, you know, it didn't capture my attention. I was kind of just like waiting for it to end. I don't know, how did you feel about that passage? - I think that's the longest monologue in the book. It's eight or nine pages of the aunt explaining to John Grady once some, he comes back. So how about I just quickly catch us up in the plot here before this? - Yeah, yeah, go for it. - So they're getting tortured by the captain. Blevins is killed. John Grady and Rollins end up in a prison where, they're just getting beaten up all day. Rollins is stabbed, almost dies, and it's taken away. They, John Grady is also in a knife fight where he ends up, the guy in self-defense, John Grady ends up murdering or killing the guy who was trying to murder him, this hitman who was put on him. It's also in this prison where we meet Perez, who, as Jeremy described, is the rich, wealthy person in the prison who the rules don't really apply to him. You know, he also has a few philosophical musings. But eventually, the aunt buys out the freedom for John Grady and Rollins. So let's hold on to that. 'Cause I don't think we would do it right, Justice. This is my fault for asking that question too early. But I feel like we have to talk about the prison scene a little. - Okay. - Yeah. - Because it is like, so basically, he is as close to death as you can possibly get. John Grady Cole. Like, he has every, not every bone. He has most of the bones in his body broken. Every single day, it's like he wakes up and someone beats on him and someone does this or someone does that. He makes a few friends and there's this sort of, I don't even know how to describe Perez. This like, he literally, at least how I envisioned it, they built like a house. It's just like a makeshift house up on top of the roof of one of the buildings in the prison. And this guy bought his way into living on that house and he has like a bodyguard. He's a prisoner, but he lives in this like makeshift house, separate from all the others, all the other prisoners. And John Grady Cole eventually, I actually don't remember why he gets in, why he has the, they could get into the house and they have this conversation. And I don't do, do you remember like what the, there was some philosophical tint to Perez. I don't remember that clearly though. So tell us, just like recap that a little bit. - Yeah, Perez is very interested in, you know, the idea of what's realism, right? It's this contrasting philosophy to John Grady where, you know, in America, you guys dream so much about these experiences and, you know, and your emotions take you over in Mexico. We understand things how they really are. They're true reality without all of the associations you place on top of that. So that's the conversation. It's another antagonist or another thought partner who can contrast the way that John Grady thinks. And Perez is this, you know, he's this rich guy in this prison who might go out at night to see a mistress, we don't really know. And he's supposed to be this ticket out for John Grady, Colin Rollins, but they don't have the money to pay him off to get freed. So when they're both attacked and especially when John Grady, Cole is almost killed, we don't know what role Perez played in that or so on. But he definitely didn't pay for their protection when he could have. - Yeah, it's almost sort of implied that he does the opposite. - Yeah, so I get the feeling that he's like condones, condones their beatings and everything. And he almost like, I think he's kind of testing John Grady Cole a little bit. He's like, so they're in the lunchroom and John Grady Cole sits down next to this guy and then he realizes like everyone in the lunchroom has left. And there's this pretty epic short but epic fight. And it ends in John Grady slashing the guy, ultimately killing him. They're like throwing food trays, hitting each other with food trays, that sort of thing. John Grady Cole also very wounded and he's mentally wounded. for killing someone which is another just another pointer to it wasn't like he killed the guy and he's like all right well it was I had to do it it was self-defense even though it was self-defense even though he recognizes this was not a good guy he feels bad about it and it's just like another point to his like it's not hubris it's not the right word but he's like tragically honorable it's like tragically honorable and then he gets taken in by Perez and I think shortly thereafter is when they're exonerated from prison right yeah exactly so he's he's been healing and the aunt basically pays so that they can leave on the one condition that they and especially John Grady Cole can never go see Alejandra again so she's like I will pay for you to get out of this prison where you will surely die but in return she tells Alejandra like I will pay for your boyfriend but in return like you will never see him again so that's the bargain that they strike yeah so it gets out he's like in tatters basically and Rollins so he and Rollins separate right Rollins goes back to he's like I've had this was fun Rollins cowboy dreams have been beaten up and I don't think he'd say it's fun I think he went from I could do this for the rest of my life or rather I could get used to this life to just like I am slowly gonna drag my bloody body home because this was not what I expected you know so Rollins we're treating this I'm trying to remember so he doesn't John Grady their own horse sorry going no he the aunt gets him a horse and he he rides back to the Hossie and where Alejandra was not there and he meets with the aunt and John Grady that's where we had the monologue where we were originally discussing this right right so yeah and that's where you commented that like she goes on for many pages and she talks about the Mexican Revolution and she talks about her own upbringing and then she talks about why these life experiences influence the way she thinks now about her about Alejandra and she has decided that she should never be with John Grady Cole so I think what we're having here is you have a woman who is incredibly articulate and wise who has lived in amazing history and claims that all of these life experiences has informed her to reach this positive decision that Alejandra and John Grady Cole cannot be together and she takes a lot of words to say it and I don't think it's uh you know I'm not surprised that you were kind of bored by it it's oh I don't know if that I don't know cornback regard they want you to be bored but he definitely wanted to show that this is a woman who can talk your head off and who has thought through everything so carefully and yet John Grady Cole after all of that speech he just feels like this is just a bitter old woman who doesn't want to fall in love you know despite everything she says and she even calls it out it's like I'm not a bitter old you might think I'm bitter it's the opposite I've just learned from my experiences and I know what's best for Mexico and I know what's best um for Alejandra and so on so I think the contrast of the verbosity of the of the aunt to Cole's just like listening to all of that and being like I still reject what you're saying I don't care how many fancy words you use I don't care how intricate your explanation is I know what is right and I'm in love and I'm gonna make sure I pursue that so there's a there's a little section so I think it's towards the end of that uh basically he's talking to the aunt and this is going to be a lot a sort of a long thing to read but it's it's all right she said there's no forgiveness for women she's talking about Alejandra because in this time if Alejandra had you know slept with John or really Cole like she's finished and she can't marry some other rich Mexican gentleman there's no forgiveness for women they may lose his honor again again but a woman cannot she cannot they sat you washed him he tapped the crown of his hat blah blah blah she turned I shouldn't say blah blah cornachem McCarthy but continues continues no she said it's not a matter of right you must understand it's a matter of who must say in this matter I must get to say I am the one who gets to say philosophically pause I need to read the rest a little bit further down on the page because it's so gorgeous on the mesa they watched a storm that made up to the north at sundown a troubled light the dark jade shapes of the lagoon yes below them lay in the floor of the desert savannah like piercings through to another sky the laminar bands of color to the west bleeding out under the hammered clouds a sudden violet colored hooding of the earth they sat Taylor wise on the ground that shuttered under the ground under the thunder and they fed the fire out of the ruins of an old fence birds were coming down out of the half-nark this upcountry and sheering away off the edge of the mesa into the north the lightning stood along the rimlands like burning mandrake come on epic yeah it's it's incredible but I guess the the reason I really read that was because she's talking about it's not a matter of right and wrong and that's sort of summarizes exactly she she doesn't care what's right and wrong she recognizes that it's probably not right what she's doing but it's not it's not a matter of right and wrong right now it's a matter of who gets to say and she's the one who gets to say who gets to say or rather who gets to decide the truth right it's exact same position the captain reaches we will decide the truth in this room where I have all the power and then that will be the truth and for her like it's about who gets to say this is now the truth um you will not be in a relationship with my um with Alejandra so it's uh but that doesn't deter uh John Grady Cole he he reaches out to Alejandra he convinces her to meet to meet him for a day um the aunt tells him like she won't meet you but he she Alejandra ends up coming she arrives on a train and we get a very sad sequence of that that day where you know they're in love with each other and they spend time together John Grady Cole proposes to her but at the end Alejandra must go with her family over him and this romantic dream that is even talked about in the book there's a scene where John Grady Cole talks to some young kids about how he's the poor cowboy and love with the the rancher's daughter right it's that the you can still like there's that romantic ideal like you can overcome this you can win there is true love and these kids some of the kids believe in it some of the kids are a little wiser and realize it's not gonna happen but John John Grady's um he he's not very wise until the last moment where he figures out that it's not gonna happen and this dream he had of true love fades away and all of that scene yeah it's such a good dark scene yeah yeah just that you're I the whole sequence like first of all with with Alejandra it's just like viscerally emotional you know like he it's very clear that they are like meant for each other but the world is not gonna let them that let it happen and then she leaves and he gets into a bar fight and he drinks and gets into a bar fight which is funny and then that the kids the one with the I thought the kids was such a nice touch and it's just like there was little things that McCarthy does that you're just like it didn't he didn't need to have that conversation it could have been with people at the bar someone but just the fact that it was other little kids who were like spewing this wisdom that was past it was like wisdom that's been passed through their family they knew that oh it's like you don't have the grandma's blessing can't happen if you don't have the grandma's blessing it's just that's just the way it works in Mexico I thought that was just like a really gorgeous way of hammering it home like sarjon this is over you have to end us and in a way right showing us his readers that john grady coal is more naive than these young kids right he believes in this possibility whereas they can see very clearly it's it's just not gonna happen or at least some of them can I'm gonna read this passage right as he as Alejandra tells him that she's not gonna be with him and it's I think it might be my favorite quote and I always imagine personally that if something really bad happened in my life like your wife dies a child dies like something this horrible like this is how it would feel he saw very clearly how all his life had led only to this moment and all after led nowhere at all he felt something cold and solace enter him like another bean and he imagined that it smiled at him and he had no reason to believe that it would ever leave when she came out of the bathroom again she was dressed and he made her sit on the bed and he held her hands both of them and talked to her but she only shook her head and she turned away her tear stained face and told him that it was time to go and that she could not miss the train and it's like imagine this this evil force entering you and breaking you apart and you know you'll you'll never be the same again it's uh yeah that was that was one of the the passages I marked down also I didn't put that as my favorite, but that was one of the ones where I was just like, Yeah, puts a feeling in words, which is really challenging and impressive to do. Yeah, yeah, that moment. So this like his world falls apart and yet, you know, we'll continue on with the plot because, you know, John Grady keeps He keeps chugging along. He keeps plugging along. He goes back and finds the captain and at gunpoint tells him, bring me back the horses, bring me back the blevens horse and my horse and the gun. So he forces the captain to give him back these things and he kidnaps the captain and they ride off together and at this point, John Grady calls it's like on this mission of vengeance and hatred, but also righteousness, right? Like he this guy, this captain deserves this based on what he did. So John Grady Cole is shot a few times, I think twice as he's escaping with the captain. He ends up cauterizing the bullet wounds with the muscle of his own gun, which is just a terrible, dark and horrible thing to imagine. And eventually the captain, they run into some, they're called men of the country. It's not really clear what that means, but clearly some bad guys, some bandits out there and they want the captain. So John Grady calls, like, screw it, like you could have this guy. He's not going to be like, he's probably not going to be treated very well with you guys, right? And, you know, after this John Grady Cole returns home, he goes back to, does he go to the judge first and then he returns home or does he go to Rollins and then the judge? He goes to Rollins at the very end, okay, he goes to the judge first. Yeah, so he goes and he ends up because he's carrying, he has his horses in and then he has to go before a judge to explain how he got them. And it's in this scene where he tells his whole story. And again, you know, the judge is impressed and wowed by this guy, the real cowboy, like look how exceptional a story this is. It's you've really lived, you've really lived it, kid, you know, well, you you skipped over a real cowboy moment though. And so when John Grady gets shot and he is with the captain, this was a really cool sequence. So I want to, I want to mention it because it's like, they're in, he goes back to the ASEANDA and he finds the, I forgot the word for the guy. But there's a guy who has, who like handles the horses and they basically, John Grady Cole uses the captain as like a hostage and the guy leads him to this barn where the, where the horse, his horse Redbow and, and junior have been kept and thick blevens horses there too. Yeah, but the three like main horses that are like his cherished prized possessions in this world. And then there's a con fight, there's a gunfight in the barn and John Grady Cole takes a bullet to the leg and the captain seriously hurts his shoulder like it's, it's, and later you'll find like John Grady Cole, he said he considered killing the captain and he doesn't. And he actually takes the time to heal like he, he pops the captain shoulder back in. So it's just another moment of like John Grady Cole, I think this is after he, so he has the bullet, the bullet wound he sticks the pistol in the fire. And then one dance as cauterized wound, he just like stabs the bullet wound with that burning pistol belt barrel. And that's when the captain, the captain takes the rifle that right, the captain like has, has him at gunpoint with the rifle and then John Grady Cole is just like there's no bullets in their body. And, and, and orders restored and then near, your amount of the country come pretty soon thereafter and sort of order is he's on his own again, he's back into Texas. Yeah, and it's good you brought that up because I think as he stands, as John Grady Cole stands before the judge, he feels tremendous guilt for, I guess, two things, primarily the first two that stand out, he feels tremendous guilt over not speaking up when blevens was shot. It's Rollins who tells him in that moment, like, stay quiet. And John Grady Cole knows that he has to, but he's still in his heart wishes he said something, you know, and he also feels bad for killing the guy who was paid to kill him. And prison and the knife fight. So we took this man's life. And I think too that what what you just described with the captain. And that we're deciding to put the arm back, you know, that would have been a third regret like the others, but at the end there, he decides he's not going to take a life unless he really has to. And that's a moment for him to, you know, show that he continues to live by these principles despite all the horrific things that have happened to him. Yeah, and you can tell the judges, like, kind of even beyond the story, he's kind of like impressed by this young man. He's like, so John Grady Cole is like, I'm still, I still feel kind of bad, like, I want, I wish I had the girl and I also feel bad because I wanted to kill the captain. And the judge is like, what you didn't kill him, but it's like, yeah, but I feel bad because I want to kill him. You know, that's like another and I think the judge thereafter is like, yeah, I'm kind of not surprised that bothers you because it's just like he recognized that this is, this is that character, this is the representation of morality in that world. Like John Grady Cole is the perfectly virtuous character in the story. And I don't know. I guess, I guess you're right. Alejandro kind of stands to be the romance, like she doesn't have any other depth to him. But there's, okay, so, so after the judge, I think there's the interaction with the priest, right, is that is the Jimmy Blebin's priest. Yeah, I don't know, but they, I don't think they have to do so much with each other. So it's, it's okay. But now he goes, he goes and looks for, you know, who owns Jimmy Blebin's horse because he wants to return it to the right floater, you know, again, doing what's right. But it turns out that Jimmy Blebin's probably made up that name because Jimmy Blebin's is a famous radio commentator and they find John Grady Cole finds the real Jimmy Blebin's and this guy has no idea about a 13 year old son. And, you know, so that, that journey, he never really finds out who Jimmy Blebin's was or who owned that horse that Jimmy Blebin's came riding into Mexico. That was very, all those months before. Yeah. Do you have any thoughts on why he chose the name Jimmy Blebin's? I think as I just think it's an example of, you know, the young 13 year old Jimmy Blebin's was listening on the radio and this was a voice who brought comfort to so many people. And that's what the wife says, right? Like he, she's like, my husband brought comfort to people in China. Like you wouldn't believe the letters we get. And for a 13 year old who was clearly having a rough time so much so that he would flee home on a horse and a guy and, you know, there was probably a lot to he could look up to in that voice and that he wanted to feel better about. Yeah, I think there's a, there's some kind of commentary here with religion. And I'd be curious for your knowledge of McCarthy, what his really opinions are on religion because there is a scene where he, I think, raw and says to John Grady says you fixing to get all religion on me, and then John Grady is like, no, but sometimes I wonder if I'd be better off if I did. I think about that sometimes, too, to be honest, but it's, it's, it's a good point. And I think there's a, you know, this blevance character, the real, the, the priest blevance, priest blevance is like helping people and he's the one providing hope and like he's a priest. So I don't know, what do you think religion falls in this book? Yeah, and to your first question, like, Cormac McCarthy's view, I'm trying to remember, because it's a religion plays an important role in almost all his books, maybe less so in the road, like it's obviously there's, it's it's an all of them in blood and meridian, it is absolutely central. And you can't have a discussion of that book without having a discussion about theology. Cormac McCarthy, I think, the saddest belief, yeah, he's, he's agnostic, but obsessed with the idea of God and rejects atheism as a ten. So, and I think what you find in his books is many of the people who are a part of organized religion can, can be fools or have negative portrayals like many of the people in his book. And yet, the landscapes in the natural world, they are, they are infused with a God-given majesty, you know, and it's often talked about that way, so it's very interesting how so much of the natural world seems to be derived from a God, whereas so much of the characters themselves are, especially the ones who claim to represent God or to be speaking for God are deeply flawed. So, I do think that's an interesting question to have and I would have to do more work and think more about it, maybe on a future podcast we do blood meridian. And that can be kind of at its core, we definitely will. I think there's, so we should read like our favorite quotes from, you've mentioned one of years before, there was one, I think the ending of this, of the not like the last line, lines of the book, I think relate exactly what you're talking about. Like the, it wasn't my favorite, so I won't, I won't exactly read it, but, is there any, I think the last line, I'll just read the last two sentences, because I think it represents, and we can talk about this, how much has John Grady Cole really changed throughout the novel? And while he's been beaten down and harmed, he's continuing on on this path. He has not relinquished his beliefs and his trust in truth the same way that Rollins had. So the last sentences of the book, he rode with the sun copper in his face and the red wind blowing out of the west across the evening land, and the small desert birds flew shittering among the dry bracket, and horse and rider and horse passed on, and their long shadows passed in tandem, like the shadow of a single being, passed and paled into the darkening land, the world to come. He, he becomes full horse. He does, the horse is, what, one with the horse, it's like a new copga here. Yeah, I mean, it's a good, it's a good last sentence. I don't think he needed to have any, like I think it ends the right way. It doesn't need to end in one of it, his dramatic, you know what I mean, the very philosophical, I think it packs its own punch. Yeah, I thought I'd ever take this in the, yeah, go. I think it just, you know, John Grady Cole is continuing onwards. The other characters have all decided to stop, but he is with his horse, he believes in this idea of the romantic west, and even though everything has told him that he shouldn't believe, that he should stop believing, he's stubborn enough to persist and to keep going. And, you know, he, he comes back in the third book of this trilogy. So this is the border trilogy, all the pretty horses is the first one. The second one is the crossing, and the third one is cities of the plane, or cities on the plane, cities of the plane. And John Grady Cole is back, I think, in his 30s or 40s. So it's a, you know, we're not done with him. And I had no idea that this was part of a series, so to speak. Yeah, the second book, totally different character, but I think all three books are about the shared theme of trying to recapture an idea of the west when industrialization and times have changed enough to make perhaps make that idea impossible. So they're all the books deal with that contrast between the idealization of history and the characters wanting to partake in that, versus the stark reality of changing times that no longer allow. Yeah, yeah, and Rollin says towards at the very end, he's like, yeah, you're going to stick around and go get a job on the rig. And like, yeah, he's like, they pay well. And John Grady Cole's like, nah, I know they pay well, but I'm not gonna. I'm not done being a cowboy yet. Yeah, exactly. You know, we can read some of our favorite quotes. I think the, I just read the way that the book ended, the way that the book starts, the first sentence, I think is also a, just the perfect image to talk about this book. The, it starts, the candle flame and the image of the candle flame caught in the pure glass twisted and righted when he entered the hall. And again, when he shut the door. So when I first read that, I just thought it was some setting, some imagery of a candle flame, but I think what we're seeing here, and the more I've read this book, the more it makes sense, is this whole book is about images and reality. Reflections versus what's actually existing, right? And you have the two sides, the romanticization of everything and the reality, the Mexico that is represented in the book versus the Mexico that the boys dream of. What they expect being a cowboy is going to be like versus what being a cowboy is actually like. It's, so I think starting the novel off like this, showing us the reality of something and then the image that it's projecting back to back. It sets the course for the whole novel that is constantly dealing with these contrasts. So the way things people, the way things actually are and how people want them to be. - That's awesome, I did not catch that at all. The image and then it's cool because it's like, all right, there's the candle flame and then it's twisted through the glass and then it's righted when he enters the hall. So like, oh, and he's on this journey. And again, when he shuts the door. So like, why not, I hear you. I think there's some symbolism there, that's cool. All right, so I'll read the one that I, and it's hard for me. I don't think it's like my exact favorite, but it was just as I was paging through, I was like, all right, this is a really good one. So it's, I don't know, like a quarter of the way through the book, the earth, which was the alone, all right, let me start over. The earth, which alone was dark and no light to it and which carried their figures and bore them up into swimming stars so that road, they rode not under but among them and they rode at once jaunty in circumspect. Like thieves newly loosed in that dark electric, like young thieves in a glowing orchard, loosely jacketed against the cold and 10,000 worlds for the choosing. So I just love that that was, it kind of is explicated of what you were saying. Like they just have this romance for what's to come. And maybe that's what some set says something about me, but it's just like, all right, we're about to go on an adventure here and the dark electric, that was what got me, like young thieves in a glowing orchard. And I think that's how they feel. I feel like these just true vagabond cowboys that are about to go and get their asses beat really. - I feel like you have way more John Grady Cole in you than I have. And I also remember in our first podcast, we talked about Tower of Babylon, where I was like, I would never climb this shit. And you were like, oh, I would do it. You know, I still think after reading this book and seeing how it comes out, if I were to text you, you'd be like, Jeremy, I wanna ride horses into Mexico. I feel like you'd have a good percentage chance to be like, okay, let's go do it. - Yeah, I'd probably say, I'd probably say yeah. As long as we both know if I knew how to ride a horse, I'd be part of the gay plan, it's sweet. So any last words you wanna say, I mean, I know you mentioned you wanted to talk about self forgiveness and kind of like what, what the ending sort of means for John Grady Cole, but any last things that. - I think we got to that. You know, he ends the way that he begins, except I think he's a little bit more beaten down. He's a bit more of a ghost of the man he used to be, but the inner core, the soul of the horse, it still remains a part of him. And you know, we could read our favorite quotes for like eight hours of this book. It's impossible to pick. I don't think many people would tune in. So we're not gonna do that. But it's one of my favorite books. I'm just, I'm so glad that you had a chance to read it for the first time. And I'm so jealous that you got to have that experience. - Yeah, I appreciate you choosing this one 'cause it was really, really freaking good. And I look forward to the next. (upbeat music)