Final All The Pretty Horses Reading

To my readers of ATPH,

Now that I have finished ATPH I have realized how much I enjoyed the book.  It really has a bit of everything from violence to romance.  I did not expect John Grady to go back to Encantada to take the horses.  Although it was very brave, why did he put himself through that danger?  First of all, John Grady has now come to the realization that he has no idea what he is going to do with his life.  The reader finds this out when John Grady thinks, "all his life led only to this moment [with Alejandra] and all after led nowhere at all."  John Grady failed in his relationship with Alejandra which was a devastation to him.  Also, John Grady may have taken the horses back to avenge his dead companion Blevins and at the same time blow off some steam.  It almost seemed like a heroic but careless act.  Miraculously, he made it out of the situation alive and eventually made it home after consulting the two "wise" characters, the judge and the real Jimmy Blevins.  As our western hero, we know that John Grady cannot stay settled in one town.  He must move on, and like in many other stories about western heroes, he walks off into the sunset in search of a new frontier.  Rawlins watches him disappear as "He stood holding his horse while the rider turned and road out and dropped slowly down the skyline."  This line is filled with visual imagery and truly epitomizes the western hero's figure as an adventure.  With no place to call his home, he must set out again to live in freedom.