A Great Horse and a Great Book

Well, I finished Seabiscuit this week and I was wowed! What a story that is, and what a horse! Ms. Hillenbrand did a great job of bringing it all to life: the era, the horse and the people who cared for him.

For me, the book was like a great novel.  I got deeply involved in the lives of all these people and their beloved horse to the point where I got quite emotional at the end when their deaths were described.

Seabiscuit was apparently a horse like no other.  Not only did he have lightning speed and tremendous heart, he was also calm, friendly, and tolerant of all the excitement that swirled around him throughout his life.  All the people who worked with him fell in love with him, especially his owners, his jockeys, and his trainers.

The public was especially enamored of Seabiscuit.  His humble beginnings and eventual triumph was just what the country needed during the dark years of the depression.  His was a rags-to-riches story that people could connect with.  Though Seabiscuit was descended from royalty (his grandfather was Man O'War), he was early on thought to be a mediocre horse, short-legged with a funny gait who showed no promise of racing greatness.  It took a visionary (but initially unpromising) trio of owner, trainer and jockey to bring Seabiscuit to his full potential.

The story Hillenbrand tells is thrilling, filled with treachery and love, amazing races and horrifying injuries.  You'd think it would be tailor-made for Hollywood.  And indeed, there was more than one movie made about the horse's story.  The latest, Seabiscuit, starring Tobey Maguire, Chris Cooper and Jeff Bridges, probably did the best job of the three.  But there was something missing.

I saw the movie again after I finished the book and was disappointed to see that the filmmakers completely missed the point of Hillenbrand's book: the horse. Oh, sure, they had the horse there and told his story, but the emphasis was upon the three people involved rather than the horse.  While their story is interesting, it wouldn't be without the horse. He was the reason for their being there and doing what they did and caring so much about the outcome, but Seabiscuit kind of gets shoved aside.  The horse in the movie version of Seabiscuit just doesn't seem all that special.

I guess there just wasn't enough room in the movie to bring out the greatness of the horse.  It's a shame, really, because people who saw the movie without reading the book might believe they don't need to read the book.  But they do, because in the book is the whole story, the great story of a great horse.

And, I hasten to add, a great writer. I am ready now to read anything by Laura Hillenbrand.  The story of the Olympic athlete in World War II (Unbroken) is one I bought for John.  He declared it a great book, so I may get around to reading that one in the future.

What to read next?  I haven't decided yet, but I think it will be another book of non-fiction.

I'll let you know what I choose in my next post.

History and a Famous Horse

This week I continued my new campaign of reading my magazines the first week of each month.  I finished American Heritage, and then Smithsonian, and finally Colonial Williamsburg magazine.  As you can see, most of my magazines are history-centric.  I learned a number of things, but I can't remember them too vividly at the moment, so I'll just say that they proved to be interesting reading and reminded me that there is a great deal of good writing being published out there.

Following my magazine interlude, I started reading Seabiscuit, by Laura Hillenbrand.  It is a very interesting and well written story of the fabled horse who achieved fame in the 1930s. It's filled with details about horse racing, horses, jockeys, and the era.  I've already learned quite a bit and I've barely begun the book!

One of the things I've learned so far is that Seabiscuit was the son of a horse called Hardtack, which is what people call the rock-like biscuits given to soldiers and sailors to carry with them on long campaigns or voyages.  Seabiscuit, incidentally, is another name for such difficult-to-eat fare. Hardtack was an unruly horse, apparently. (Seabiscuit was just the opposite, however.)

Oddly, one of the magazine stories I read this week told of how much Civil War soldiers hated hardtack, to the point that a song was penned, "Hardtack, Come Again No More," sung to the tune of Stephen Foster's "Hard Times, Come Again No More," a popular song of the times.  Interestingly enough, that song, sung by James Taylor, is on the album Appalachian Journey (featuring Yo Yo Ma) that I've lately been using for my morning dance exercise. 

From Seabiscuit I've also learned about the transition from horse transportation to automobile transportation, and how that impacted horse racing.  Hillenbrand also details the grueling life of the jockey, especially those who worked the lesser known races for smaller purses.  Jockeys put up with a great deal of abuse, it seems, from the trainers and the horses as well as the other jockeys during the race.

So, I'm looking forward to finishing this one.  I've seen the movie, and I'm trying to remember how close it was to the book.  I may have to see it again once I finish Seabiscuit.

Tune in next week for more about the famous horse!

Worth Dying For Worth Reading?

This week I read Lee Child's Worth Dying For, and though I enjoyed it while I was reading it, disturbing questions about it changed my ultimate judgement.  It turned out to be a story in the revenge genre.  People who are evil get their just deserts, delivered at the hands of the avenging angel from out of town, Jack Reacher.  And although I disapprove of vengeance and vigilantism, in fiction I can tolerate it to some extent because I know it's not real.  It also has to be well done.

It seems to me that a revenge story has to draw clear lines between good and evil.  The evil people need to be really evil so the avenger's actions make sense and are fully justified.  Otherwise the reader might start to wonder if a less lethal alternative might have worked just as well to stop the evildoer and bring him to justice in our courts.

Worth Dying For did not meet these criteria, in my opinion.  When I finished the book and all the bad people were dead, for some strange reason the writer chose not to show us the "unretouched photo" of their evil deeds, preferring to hint at the horror instead of describing it, demurring that the details were too ghastly to reveal.  This was a major mistake, I think, since it was necessary for us to "see" the horror so that when Reacher murders all the perpetrators, we would feel he was justified. 

Not only does he murder a number of baddies (with the help of a few of their victims), he also does it in a very cold, efficient, skillful way that does not show his outrage and anger at their inhuman actions over the course of twenty years. (I'm not revealing their deeds now because someone might want to read this book.) 

Added to that was the general implausibility of his campaign.  He starts out meddling in something he doesn't understand, then ends up getting caught by the bad guys and hurt a few times, mostly because of bad luck.  But then his luck turns and his foes are all themselves caught and fairly easily dispatched.  It's a bit anti-climactic by this time, really, because we can see they're no match for our hero.

At that point the book is not over, though, and what follows is as unbelievable as it is morally ambiguous.  Our hero, after littering the countryside with bodies (without the county sheriff finding out), then leaves his accomplices, the inhabitants of the little town, to clean up the mess, which they do without compunction or worrying about cops carting them off to jail. Apparently, we're to believe they get away with it.  But I thought, "Nah, I'm not buying that." 

That's not the way I want to feel at the end of a thriller/murder mystery novel; I want to feel that justice has triumphed and evildoers will answer to the law.  But lately I've noticed a trend in mysteries toward ambiguous endings and the lack of moral neatness. Perhaps it's what writers think readers want these days--hit-man heroes, high body counts and no reason to believe law enforcement will intervene or care.

I'm not one of those readers, obviously, so I can't recommend this book. And I won't be reading any more of Lee Child's novels, either.

After Worth Dying For, I was going to move to a non-fiction book, but I'd promised myself that I would devote the first week of every month to reading my magazines, which have been piling up for years unread.  So this week I've been reading American Heritage and Smithsonian. The American Heritage had several articles of interest; one of them involved the pre-Civil War panoramic daguerreotype of Cincinnati that has been restored and enhanced and is currently on display at the Cincinnati library. John and I went to see it there recently so the article was very timely for us.  There were other interesting articles that I won't describe here but if you look at the link you can see what they were.

Since last week was a short week, I'm going to devote a few more days to magazines before turning back to non-fiction books, this time Seabiscuit.

Join me next week!