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3.33 AVERAGE
3.33 AVERAGE
dark
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
medium-paced
The prose in this novella is incredible: almost every line captures the main character's, Jody, childhood experiences. It is drenched in his innocence and curiousity, but also in his doubts about whether the adults in his life truly know as much as they try to convince him they have. It felt like an exploration of one of my favourite excerpts from East of Eden:
"When a child first catches adults out -- when it first walks into his grave little head that adults do not always have divine intelligence, that their judgments are not always wise, their thinking true, their sentences just -- his world falls into panic desolation. The gods are fallen and all safety gone. And there is one sure thing about the fall of gods: they do not fall a little; they crash and shatter or sink deeply into green muck. It is a tedious job to build them up again; they never quite shine. And the child's world is never quite whole again. It is an aching kind of growing."
This, I think, is the experience at the heart of The Red Pony. Jody's almost Edenic world, sure and solid and safe and steeped in his parents' authority and knowledge, slowly gives way to a haphazard world of disappointments, 'betrayals' and the knowledge that nobody really knows what will happen today or what will happen tomorrow or why yesterday was what it was.
"He leaned his flail against the steps. ‘That’s to drive the mice out,’ [Jody] said. ‘I’ll bet they’re fat. I’ll bet they don’t know what’s going to happen to them today.’
‘No, nor you either,’ Billy remarked philosophically, ‘nor me, nor anyone.'"
"When a child first catches adults out -- when it first walks into his grave little head that adults do not always have divine intelligence, that their judgments are not always wise, their thinking true, their sentences just -- his world falls into panic desolation. The gods are fallen and all safety gone. And there is one sure thing about the fall of gods: they do not fall a little; they crash and shatter or sink deeply into green muck. It is a tedious job to build them up again; they never quite shine. And the child's world is never quite whole again. It is an aching kind of growing."
This, I think, is the experience at the heart of The Red Pony. Jody's almost Edenic world, sure and solid and safe and steeped in his parents' authority and knowledge, slowly gives way to a haphazard world of disappointments, 'betrayals' and the knowledge that nobody really knows what will happen today or what will happen tomorrow or why yesterday was what it was.
"He leaned his flail against the steps. ‘That’s to drive the mice out,’ [Jody] said. ‘I’ll bet they’re fat. I’ll bet they don’t know what’s going to happen to them today.’
‘No, nor you either,’ Billy remarked philosophically, ‘nor me, nor anyone.'"
emotional
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I loved the first chapter of this story so much, and the third as well. The Red Pony is a very sparse yet intricate novella with wonderful descriptions of the land. More than anything though, I fell in love with the short story at the end, "Junius Maltby" - the last paragraph of which is almost as heartbreaking as when .
Spoiler
Giblian dies
What can I say about Steinbeck that hasn't already been said a million times? He is an excellent writer. Every book of his is a pleasure to read. The way he describes nature and the land is so evocative that it makes me yearn for a place I've never been.
The descriptions of rural life in Steinbeck's work are always unflinchingly brutal and that is absolutely true in this book; life is not kind and animals die, often unpleasantly. But the humanity of the characters is so present that it doesn't feel too dreadful to get through.
I preferred the four stories featuring Jody to the last one, Julius Maltby, which didn't hit nearly as hard and was ultimately very sad. Only reason for a drop from five stars.
The descriptions of rural life in Steinbeck's work are always unflinchingly brutal and that is absolutely true in this book; life is not kind and animals die, often unpleasantly. But the humanity of the characters is so present that it doesn't feel too dreadful to get through.
I preferred the four stories featuring Jody to the last one, Julius Maltby, which didn't hit nearly as hard and was ultimately very sad. Only reason for a drop from five stars.
In this short story the author uses a young lad, Jodi as his protagonist. As in other works I've read by Steinbeck his subject matter is deeper than the pages of the book and when finished I am left with the feeling of watching an Alfred Hitchcock movie......and how did it end? So I have to search the little gray cells of my mind and figure it out. This story has many shades of light and dark, a young boy learning that nothing is guaranteed to have a good outcome and learning lessons though disappointment and from those he comes into contact with. Though the events that occurred in the book, I feel Jodi will find what is most important in the life lessons he learns and will be in the man he will become.
Definitely one that I don't recommend. Especially to people who mind blood and... beating something to death with a rock or a hammer, because BOTH of those happen in this book. So it was much more gruesome than I expected, even though it was within the range of what a boy could have experienced in this time. I'm sure that I will never listen to this story again.
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes