Hello, I'm David Kern.

I'm Heidi White.

And I'm Tim McIntosh.

And you were listening to Close Reads, a podcast for the Incurable Reader in which we are discussing

Kormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses.

We have come to the penultimate episode of our discussions about the book, the text itself,

you know, before we get to the Q&A.

So really, it's a third to the last episode, but you get what I'm saying.

And in this section, we're going to be discussing John Grady Coles returned to the Hacienda,

his journey there and then his conversation with Alejandra's great aunt and then the very beginning of his reunion with Alhandra.

But I cut off the reading right in the middle of that, sort of on purpose, and I'll explain

why later.

But let's get right into it, because one of the things that we have talked about is the way this book becomes,

it changes with each, I don't know, each new section. And here in the third part, we get

an entirely different book than we got in the last part where we got this sort of prison novel with

this gruesome experiences that John Grady Cole has lived through. And here in this part,

we got what the best I could come up with was a Dostoevsky and philosophical novel here

for about 35 pages. This becomes a very philosophical novel. And my question

for you guys is, well, it has been noted that we have not criticized this book much on these

episodes in part because, you know, we love it. But I'm wondering if that is jolting for you or,

you know, Heidi, I'd be curious to know what you think,

what you think of that. Like, is this, this shift from this, like, gruesome, intense experience

...