Yee-Haw!

I'm reading a Western novel right now. A little uncharacteristic, I know, but I'm really enjoying it. It's called All the Pretty Horses, and is the first book of a trilogy by Cormac McCarthy. It was made into a movie with Matt Damon and Penelope Cruz...maybe I'll rent it after I read the book. I probably won't like the movie nearly as much, though, because my favorite parts of the book are the physical descriptions and writing style. Take these passages, for example:

"They slumped bleary-eyed in their saddles and looked at one another. Shrouded in the lack thunderheads the distant lightning glowed mutely like welding seen through foundry smoke. As if repairs were under way at some flawed place in the iron dark of the world."

"The grasslands lay in a deep violet haze and to the west thin flights of waterfowl were moving north before the sunset in the deep red galleries under the cloudbanks like schoolfish in a burning sea and on the foreland plain they saw vaqueros driving cattle before them through a gauze of golden dust."

So gorgeous! His descriptions are rustic and lovely at the same time. This book makes me want to hop on a horse and venture out into the wilderness. It's too bad that I have no idea how to ride!