Bibliofemme Bookclub An Irish Bookclub

January 10, 2012

The Red Pony by John Steinbeck

Filed under: Book Reviews,General Fiction — The DJ @ 12:55 pm
The Red Pony Book Cover The Red Pony
John Steinbeck
General Fiction
Penguin UK
Mar 3 2011
128

Short novels are something of a rarity these days. The modern paperback usually weighs in with a respectable minimum of 200 pages. Dipping into Steinbeck’s back catalogue, you’d be hard pushed to find such an average size book from the tome-like East of Eden to the brilliant short novels that made his name. The Red Pony is one such and despite its brevity, it’s an acutely observed piece of writing. Steinbeck is an amazing scene-setter and in the opening pages he immerses the reader in the routine, sounds and smells of a small country farm. We meet Jody Tiflin, a sensitive boy, very aware of his surroundings. He epitomises the minuteness of childhood, where the end of the garden is a far enough place to stray. Intuitive and introspective, he is a classic only child who adores his father, an old-fashioned man’s man with no time for softness.

The book opens with The Gift, where Jody is given the beloved pony of the book’s title. Excited beyond words, he is devastated when Billy, the trusted cattle hand, forgets to bring Galiban in from the rain. The pony catches a cold and never recovers. In The Great Mountains Jody begins to question the world outside the farm. His grief at Galiban’s death makes him restless and he takes his anger out on the farm animals and his dog in petty acts of cruelty. He even kills a vulture out of his inexpressible hurt. A mysterious old man comes to visit claiming he once lived on the farm. Carl Tiflin is unkind and condescending, as he is to most of the people around him. In The Promise, Jody is promised another Colt if he looks after Nellie the pregnant mare and again things don’t turn out as expected. The book culminates with The Leader of the People where Mrs Tiflin’s father comes to stay. Carl is as unwelcoming as he was to their recent old visitor and Jody has become obsessed by killing mice now that he hasn’t got the pony he craved.

The book is divided into four sections with the third and first sections and fourth and second sections mirroring each other. In terms of form it’s brilliantly constructed. After the first pony’s death, the second chapter is filled with despair, cruelty and violence. When there is hope again in chapter three, Jody is the boy he was when he had Galiban. In the closing section, hope fades with the second colt’s death and again Jody becomes hardened and bitter.

At some point in the story, all the males on the farm – Jody, his father, Billy the cattle hand – have their feelings hurt. All react with acts of violence or are verbally cruel to one another. Steinbeck’s characters are often people who are emotionally damaged and, as a result, go on hurting other people as a way of protecting themselves. Jody is on the precipice of learning to love and nurture or following the same emotionally repressed route as his father.

Steinbeck is a genius at this sort of emotional microcosm. He hones in on small group of people, living in the one place and holds up a timeless mirror to all that is good, and bad, about society. The Red Pony is typically understated brilliance from the American master. The DJ

June 2004

 

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Leave a comment

Powered by WordPress