This novel was difficult for me to get through, because of the ambuguity of the characters in the beginning of the novel.  Once I got into it, though, and learned how to read Cormac McCarthy's writing style( and yes, I believe it has to be read a certain way in order to grasp the significance of it all and how it ties together with the plot), I actually enjoyed this Western-ish novel!  That is one aspect of english classes that I can say I love is reading novels that I would not have considered beforehand and actually enjoying them enough to recommend to someone.  I have recommended this book to my brother, who lives in Africa, and my Aunt Betty, who is an avide reader and *loves* John Wayne.

Cover Letter

English 381 Literature and Cinema

Spring '10

Dear Reader,
There is an interesting story behind my enrolling into this class because I had to go through the head of advising to get this class approved for the LA general requirement.  Without this class it was a possibility of not having my requirements to graduate.

My intentions coming in this class was like most students who need to fulfill a Literary Arts General Education requirement along with the attitude of a Senior with one semester left.  The phrase "JUST PASS!" filled my head.  Being that I needed this class to graduate, I had to pass.

Once I signed up for the class I envisioned a class where we just discuss books and their film adaptation.  Little did I know, that we would be doing that but to the farthest extreme possible.

The novel No Country for Old Men was a very good read.  the underlying perceptions that we discussed in class were very interesting and wouldn't have be discovered in just sitting down and reading it.

In Dissecting the characters in and the themes and motifs, it resembled the work All the Pretty Horses.  Theme such as nature, luck/chance, pacts, international relationship and law,blood and violence were significantly present in both works.

The main characters within the works drove both plots to interesting places when comparing and both the film and novels.

Overall I enjoyed both works!

My cover letter and reflections will expound upon parts of this posting in more detail, but I just wanted to reflect on this class as a whole.

As a "pseudo-senior" and business/economics double major, the only "pleasure" reading that I've done over the last four or 5 years is flying through books and articles about financial management, investments, or recent economic information. This class has reminded me that there are works of fiction out there that I can sit down, read, and really enjoy.

Cormac McCarthy's style was incredibly difficult to get used to at first because of its stream of consciousness nature. I’m used to dialogue (if there is any in what I’m reading) breaking up the prose, and instead, McCarthy just lets everything flow together in a big alphabet soup. While I struggled to read through All the Pretty Horses, I finished No Country and really enjoyed a lot of what I read.

With J.D. Salinger's recent passing, Catcher in the Rye is in inevitably on my mind. And so I can't help but see a few parallels between John Grady Cole - the protagonist in All the Pretty Horses - and Salinger's Holden Caufield.

I suppose the first thing in common is the style of the writing. Cormac McCarthy writes without quotation marks and many times we're not sure if we are reading a dialogue or just what John Grady is thinking. Salinger's Caufield is famous for his stream of conscious rambling. In both cases, we feel like we are inside the character's head.

9 Sanders, workshop

11 workshop

Feb 2 Workshop for Web Essays

Feb 4 All the pretty horses