Pretty Horses 1

I prefer not to give my official opinion on a book until I have read more than one quarter of it, because one does not get the true feel for a story until they have read a good portion of it. But so far, All the Pretty Horses seems like it is not difficult to read, and is actually very interesting. There hasn't been a lot of plot development yet, but the story still captures my attention. I am intrigued by the fact that the spoken words of the story are not marked by punctuation, and one has to figure out when the words are being spoken. And there are hardly any description or tone words. But this style gives a unique feel to the story. The reader has to interpret the scene more on their own. For example, in one instance between the boy and his father, when they are at a diner, the father's actions and words are written, but there is little description of how they occur. So the reader is left to interpret the scene. It says that "his father nodded" and then "he smoked," and then they watch "two horsemen" pass by outside. The reader knows what is happening, but there are almost no tone words in the passage. It is left up to interpretation whether the father smoked with a depressed look, or perhaps a contemplating one. And when the horsemen pass by, it does not say if they ride majestically or even clumsily, they just pass by. This lack of description may seem like a loss to some readers, but I think that it is actually an advantage. It allows the imagination to take over and really forces the reader to pay attention to the setting and context to figure out how the scene should be.