Cormac McCarthy – All the Pretty Horses

From Publishers Weekly
McCarthy’s language, others will find his voice completely transporting. In what is perhaps the book’s most spectacular feat, horses and men are joined in a philosophical union made manifest in the muscular pulse of the prose and the brute dignity of the characters. “What he loved in horses was what he loved in men, the blood and the heat of the blood that ran them,” the narrator says of John Grady. As a bonus, Grady This is a novel so exuberant in its prose, so offbeat in its setting and so mordant and profound in its deliberations that one searches in vain for comparisons in American literature. None of McCarthy’s previous works, not even the award-winning The Orchard Keeper (1965) or the much-admired Blood Meridian (1985), quite prepares the reader for the singular achievement of this first installment in the projected Border Trilogy. John Grady Cole is a 16-year-old boy who leaves his Texas home when his grandfather dies. With his parents already split up and his mother working in theater out of town, there is no longer reason for him to stay. He and his friend Lacey Rawlins ride their horses south into Mexico; they are joined by another boy, the mysterious Jimmy Blevins, a 14-year-old sharpshooter. Although the year is 1948, the landscape–at some moments parched and unforgiving, at others verdant and gentled by rain–seems out of time, somewhere before history or after it. These likable boys affect the cowboy’s taciturnity–they roll cigarettes and say what they mean–and yet amongst themselves are given to terse, comic exchanges about life and death. In McCarthy’s unblinking imagination the boys suffer truly harrowing encounters with corrupt Mexican officials, enigmatic bandits and a desert weather that roils like an angry god. Though some readers may grow impatient with the wild prairie rhythms of endures a tragic love affair with the daughter of a rich Spanish Hacendado , a romance, one hopes, to be resumed later in the trilogy.

My Thoughts: I’ve heard people call McCarthy the great American author. His books will be studied years and years from now.

All I can say is in 2007 My Favorite book: The Road and My Favorite Film: No Country for Old Men where both written or based on a novel written by Cormac McCarthy .

So over the holidays I was given a B&N card (Thanks sis) so I went and bought what I’ve read is one of Cormac McCarthy’s top novels.

I know there is a movie (which I have not seen) so far the novel reads well and seems to be a fast read.

Once I finish I’m sure to post my review.

-DH

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Sunshine – Danny Boyle’s 2001

Sunshine(2007)

Plot Synopsis: 50 years into the future, the Sun is being destroyed from inside out by a type of highly stable form of matter that renders nuclear fusion impossible, by turning common matter on its own kind. The only hope is to send a team of astronauts to detonate a massive, highly energetic bomb, able able to destroy this strange matter and restore Sun’s natural state.

My 2 Cents: I have been a big fan of Danny Boyle since the college days with Trainspotting. I had never seen anything like it. I had a friend at the time who from that moment on was “Sickboy”

My next experience was The Beach (better book than a movie but still fun) then 28 Days Later which I consider the top Zombie movie of my generation.

Warning : Sunshine is not a Summer Blockbuster Popcorn Dumb people movie -I like those kind of movies but this isn’t one of those. This is a more thinking man’s movie and you really need to be in a certain mood to experience it correctly.

That brings me too Boyle’s latest: Sunshine. How can I describe it? I think it’s 2001 for our generation. I went through the entire gambit when it came to emotions with this one. I was intrigued, I was bored, I was scared, I was …..(you name it).

It works really well as a “Space Movie”. It fells vast yet confining. And it’s the first “Space Movie” that makes me question a trip to space. It’s dangerous to travel in a space ship, I’m not sure I ever thought about it that way before.

Overall I am still thinking about the film so that says a lot I think. I wanted more character development but I’m happy to have gotten what I did. The conversation about Darkness vs Light at the beginning during the meal was so good that I had to check it out twice.

For me Danny Boyle and Alex Garland have created with Sunshine the best secular movie I have ever seen on “Sacrifice” ever.

And I question myself a little ….would I do the same.. in an effort to accomplish the mission. Not sure I would.

DEEP, I know. Sorry

Hope you enjoy it as much as I think I did.

-DH

PS I can’t wait to see this in High Def -It will be awesome.

“We are all made of Stardust“

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