All the Pretty Horses pgs 132-180

I enjoyed these pages.  Also, where we had to stop at 180, I think it was because the guy didn't shoot Blevins.  I really don't care if he did or not, I personally don't like Blevins at all.  He's basically a diva, I think so at least.  Alejandra's aunt seemed cool at first, then when she told Grady that he couldn't be seen with her, I didn't really like her anymore.  I still don't really even understand why he can't be with her.  Well, actually I do, I just think its dumb.  This doesn't have to do with the book, but this chair I'm writing this is in super high and I don't know how to lower it.  Anyways, it really stinks that the guys are in jail now for, well I don't really know what.  I'm not following whats going on in this book too well.  I'll re-read it eventually because, at the moment, nothing makes sense to me.  Maybe its not supposed to make sense.  I hope not, it'll make me feel better.  The book just seems to jump subject to subject fast.  I still like it though, and I want to see what happens in the next part we read.  

All the Pretty Horses pgs 97 to 132

These pages are definitely my favorite so far.  Here, they talk about horses, which I didn't think I found very interesting, but found out that I actually do like.  I enjoyed reading about Rawlins and John Grady breaking in the 16 new horses and how the other people on the ranch came by to watch them be broken in.  I'm also confused.  When did John Grady invite Alejandra to the dance?  That part just seemed to come up all of a sudden, or maybe I just wasn't paying enough attention.  Also, did Rawlins leave the ranch because
McCarthy just all of a sudden just stopped talking about him.  I don't know why, but I started feeling sad when the ranch asked who John Grady rode up with and he doesn't even say anything about Blevins.  I liked Blevins so I don't like that he's gone, or that Jon refuses to talk about him.  I like Alejandra though, except for the fact that she leaves for Mexico at the end of the reading. 

Emily Dickinson's "Hope" is the Thing With Feathers

The expressive diction used by Emily Dickinson in "Hope" is the Thing With Feathers expresses the complex meaning of hope.  Dickinson explains hope to "sing the tune without the words."  By personifying hope, Dickinson has made it to be something tangible, more than just an emotion, but something that can be seen and heard.  She goes on to say that "sore must be the storm that could abash the little Bird that kept so many warm."  The storm may be a person of ill intent, killing the hope in the people that rely on it to get through life.  Dickinson also states that hope "never ... asked a crumb" of her.  Meaning that, though hope can be the greatest comfort to anyone in a bad situation, it will never want anything back.  The descriptive diction used by Dickinson illustrates that hope is more that just an emotion.

Questions For Part One of All the Pretty Horses

Character Questions:
1. Who are Arturo and Luisa?
2. Why does John's mother want to sell the ranch?
3. Is Rowlins white?
4. Where did Blevins get the horse?
5. Why does Rowlins want to ditch Blevins?
6. Why does Blevins feel that he can do whatever he wants to do?
7. Why aren't John and Rowlins trying harder to find Blevins?
Setting/Character Questions:
8. Why do John and Rowlins want to go to Mexico?
9. Why don't the boys look for Blevins horse first thing?
Action/Character Questions:
10. Why does John go to see his mom, but doesn't talk to her?
11. Why did Blevins decide to ride with Rowlins and John?
12. Why didn't the boys try to come up with a better plan other than just splitting up when the other horsemen where shooting at them?
Action Questions:
13. Why do you think the Mexican family just invited the boys into spend the night?
Setting Questions:
14. What year is this set in?
Idea Questions:
15. Why doesn't McCarthy always translate the Spanish into English?
16. How long does Blevins go without pants?
17. Do you think that Blevins actually likes the other boys, or is he just staying with them for protection of sorts?
18. Do you think the Mexican cowboys killed Blevins?
19. Would you try to steal back your horse by climbing into someone else's stable?
20. If you where in John's situation, would you follow in his foot steps, or would you stay in town?

Second Post on All The Pretty Horses

The next 29 page I read of this book I felt where easier to understand.  Because I now somewhat understand how to follow Cormac McCarthy"s writings, the book flows much easier for me.  I have noticed that, though you may have to back track a bit, All The Pretty Horses does contain humor.  Such as when John Grady and Rawlins, whose real name is Lacey, (that made me think he was a girl for a split second) threaten to shoot Blevins, though they are just kidding.  I laughed some, though I'm sure not many other people did.  I was also a bit confused when Rawlins called himself John's "old dad" while he was putting pepper on his eggs at the cafe.  I figured out he was joking though.  I found it ironic that John pesters his dad about smoking, but he smokes himself.  Also, I figure because I wrote about 600 words last time, and we only need to write 150, that I'm going to stop this post here.

First post on All the Pretty Horses

The book All the Pretty Horses is a confusing story in the first read.  The writer, Cormac McCarthy, doesn't use quotation marks and he also doesn't always explain who is talking.  This makes for a very difficult time understanding what is going on in the book.  Because I didn't know what was happening, I read the first thirty pages a second time. After, I understood the story line much better.  It seems to be about a boy, John Grady Cole, and his want to run his family ranch after his mother leaves his father, and after his grandfather dies.  His mother's basis for leaving his father seems to be in his change in personality.  This can all be related back to the time that his father has put in to serve the country in the war.  While sitting at the dinner table, John and his father talk about his grandfathers death.  They get off subject and John starts talking about how his grandfather used to say that he wanted to wait "to have a funeral till they had something to bury, not just dog-tags."  The dog-tags imply that his father was in war, seeing as how it is standard for soldiers to carry such things around with them.  After hearing his son say this, his father states that he "is not the same person anymore" he would "like to think he is, but he isn't."  If he thinks that he had changed, and his wife has left him, it can be thought that the wife's reason for leaving is the change that she has seen in her husband.
Because the wife and husband are divorced, and the wife no longer wants to run the ranch that her father established, she sells it away.  John, her own son, is devastated at this decision, so much so, that he goes to a lawyer to try and get him to give him the land.  He says that he "isn't a liberty to advise" him in a situation like this.  He also claims that he and his father may have been able to keep the ranch if his father had gotten a lawyer during the divorce.  After, he tells him to go and talk to his mother and see if she will give him the land.  John replies that she "just wants him to go to school."  This statement can be taken two ways, either that his mother wants better for him than working on a ranch, or that she doesn't trust him enough to run a ranch on his own.  Whatever way it is meant to be taken, it still depresses John.  
Maybe to talk to his mother, or maybe just to see her again, John travels to San Antonio, where his mother is staying, and watches her perform in a play that she is in.  He doesn't seem like he enjoys the play all that much, but stays and watches it till the end anyways.  After, he watches his mother take "the arm of a man in a top hat and walk into a hotel with him."  John goes to hotel and asks if there is a Cole registered.  The man replies that there isn't.  Such news leads may hold another reason that his mother in father are no longer together.  Perhaps his mother didn't notice the change in his father at all, maybe she was to busy having an affair with another man.  Or maybe not, and the other man just came along afterwards.  Whatever the reason, seeing his mother with another man doesn't sit well with John and leaves to return home.  The last page I read left off with John saying goodbye to a girl he once went out with because he was getting ready to leave town for good and go somewhere else.