As if the rain were electric, had grounded circuits that the electric might be

Quotes from All The Pretty Horses, continued:

Firstly, I love this quote, for an obvious reasons.

The comparison - mice and humans. Experiments and reality. Clever point made beautifully. He is right, of course: there is no "might have been" and reality is the only absolute. Knowing is scrap because "green and foolishness and a love of blood" cannot escape a man and has never escaped a man.

When I was in school I studied biology. I learned that in making their experiments scientists will take some group--bacteria, mice, people--and subject that group to certain conditions. They compare the results with a second group which has not been disturbed. This second group is called the control group. It is the control group which enables the scientist gauge the effect of his experiment. To judge the significance of what has occurred. In history there are no control groups. There is no one to tell us what might have been. We weep over the might have been, but there is no might have been. There never was. It is supposed to be true that those who do not know history are condemned to repeat it. I don't believe knowing can save us. What is constant in history is greed and foolishness and a love of blood and this is a thing that even God--who knows all that can be known--seems powerless to change.

Sort of sad to acknowledge the quote below but I've seen it to be true.

The closest bonds we will ever know are bonds of grief. The deepest community one of sorrow.

The two quotes below speaks to me, it is what has been expected of me, and why? I used think so too, yet I think empathy can never reach out to somehow who attempts to create a bond of grief as compensation.

I'd of thought maybe the disappointments of your own life might of made you more sympathetic to other people.

You would have thought wrongly. I guess so. It is not my experience that life's difficulties make people more charitable. I guess it depends on the people.

True: death cures all.

Those whom life does not cure death will . . . In the end we all come to be cured of our sentiments.

 This is beautiful... all the trouble of the world to produce a flower? All unity?

He thought that in the beauty of the world were hid a secret. He thought that the world’s heart beat at some terrible cost and that the world’s pain and its beauty moved in a relationship of diverging equity and that in this headlong deficit the blood of multitudes might ultimately be exacted for the vision of a single flower.

And last but not least... this is witty:

The trouble with a liar is he cant remember what he said.

Obama

Looks like his votes will begin to climb -- is that why he made the decision?
Romney's made a brave argument, too. Wonder what will pan out!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/mitt-romney/9256317/Mitt-Romney-disagrees-with-Barack-Obama-on-gay-marriage.html

Mad Girl's Love Song

Nearly done with The Crossing. Lots of quotes already, yes. In the meantime:

I fancied you’d return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

Sylvia Plath!

All the Pretty horses

I finished All the Pretty Horses, and I LOVE IT and I've collected a swarm of quotes that I've decided to upload in batches whilst reading The Crossing which is also stunning. I've finished Part 1 already.

So, here's how the procedure should progress in terms of writing a review of ATPH and updates for The Crossing; they are going to overlap. Here's the official in retrospect review for ATPH:

If William Faulkner and Toni Morrison had a love child, he'd go by the name of Cormac McCarthy. He executes a similar style; writes of harsh truths, a loss of innocence, wry dialogue... yet McCarthy whips in his own input into these qualities. There is something about his writing, that despite however the story may end, one does not aspire only to curl up in a blanket and weep, but more strongly so a push to seize a horse (or wolf) and gallop away to the mountains, to the acacia, the lake, the moon...

That is precisely what ATPH succeeds to do. It tells the story of a boy, John Grady Cole, who runs away from home in hopes of finding himself and the country, and he soon winds up in Mexico. John and his friend Lacey find work as cowboys. They also encounter a curious young man: Blevins, who brings them a fair amount of trouble later, yet later showcases a deeper -- or more necessary -- understanding under his layer of juniority. John meets Alejandra and this is where the fiery romance starts, unlike all his previous works. However, before their match can succeed, John is taken to an entirely new country... only after all his experiences does he eventually comprehend that one does not really know a country until one's down there in it.

It is this revelation that makes it such a beautiful book to me despite the evils in it. Also, it does begin and end in a similar way, wrapping the story up nicely and reminding us of where John began.

Apparently, Marcus Mumford loved it too! He rambled about it on his book blog here.

The title of the book most likely comes from this familiar lullaby (an extract below):

Hush-a-bye, don't you cry, 
Go to sleepy little baby. 
When you wake, you shall have, 
All the pretty little ponies. 
Blacks and bays, dapples and greys, 
Daddy's boy Mama's joy 
Go to Slumberland my baby 
When you wake, you shall have, 
All the pretty little ponies. 
Hush your cries 
Close your eyes 
Dream of pretty little ponies 
Darkness falls and man calls 

Oddly seems to be referencing death and the heaven that awaits; given the love for horses shown in the book, I see how McCarthy may have transformed this childhood lullaby into a harsher concept: proof that his book is, after all, a bildungsroman.

The quotes I shall later upload will explore the themes he wanted to portray. This is a strongly recommended read.

May the 4th be with you