The Horse Whisperer

Hello Possums. Do you belong to a book club? Mine has been going for over ten years. We meet in the evening once a month in the lounge of a large hotel in Melbourne, order drinks (sometimes hot chocolate and sometimes wine), lounge back in the comfortable winged arm chairs and sofas and talk about our latest book and each other’s lives.

Amongst the individuals in my book club, I have a reputation for an ability to remember books. We discussed this so-called ability of mine once in the context of a discussion about reading speed:

Fran: Oh I just skimmed that bit because I didn’t think it was important.

Me: Do you skim sections of books?

Vicki: I read quickly and skim occasionally.

Fran: Yeah, I did a speed reading course once. I read quickly because I can’t wait to uncover the plot. That’s why I often reread books: so I can take it more slowly the second time.

Janine: I’m a fast reader too.

Me: Wow, I read every bit, and concentrate on every word. I can’t bear to skim. If I find myself not concentrating on a page I reread it – sometimes more than once.

Lucy: I never reread pages. If I’ve tuned out over a paragraph or so, then I just think it mustn’t have been that important. I often reread entire books though.

Jane: I reread my favorite books over and over again.

Lucy: Me too.

Janine: If I don’t have anything new to read I just reread what’s on my shelf. I can’t bear to have nothing to read.

Me: I never reread a book, because I remember it and I have a reading list stacked to the ceiling anyway.

Fran: It must take you ages to finish a book.

Me: Yeah, I’ve always been a slow reader.

Fran: Well, that’s probably why you always remember the books so well.

It became obvious to me that I was unusual amongst our book club members. I was the only person who never reread books, and I seemed to be the only one who lingered on words and phrasings and could remember books beyond twelve months.

I mention this ability of mine because I want to talk to you about what I remember from reading The Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans, even though it was three or four (or more) years ago that I read it. I also saw the film, but the book was better and the scenes I remember are not from the film, but from the book as they impressed me at the time of reading. Overall I did enjoy the book.

An overall impression of the book is that you can tell it was written by a man. It has a masculine quality that is hard to define in words. It is the way he attends to various scenes, what he focuses on and what he leaves out. This is not a criticism, but a point that I found interesting, as a reflection upon my own sensibilities in relation to the author’s.

There are three scenes in the book that stand out to me in my memory of it: The crash at the beginning, the sex scene and the death scene at the end.

The crash at the beginning was so graphically described and so suspenseful that I couldn’t put the book down. It caused a pit in my stomach and when the truck hit the girls and the author described the slow, gruesome, drawn-out aftermath, I cried and cried. Because of this first scene and the consequences, I put my life on hold for that day and sat at home on the couch by the bay window in the lounge room and read the entire book in one sitting. This is not usual practice for me. I generally read in the evenings in bed, and only during the day when I’m on holidays.

The sex scene struck me because, as I said to Miss M, as far as female fantasy goes, the author lost the plot here. Let me see if I can find a direct quote for you. I have remembered the gist of it, but word for word might be more fun…

Bindi takes a short break grabs the book off her shelf and flicks through to about where she would expect to find the sex scene, about half way through…

OK, I found it, pp410-414 of the Corgi edition, 1996…

Phew, maybe I was wrong! It’s definitely more steamy than I remembered, and I now think I’ve been conflating this with the scene on pp388-89, which really was penis-centric (but for a good reason, I now see, hmmm). Too graphic to quote here…

Wow. I might have to reread this!

But before I do, I better finish this post. Yes where was I…

The last scene, oh yes. At book club, we discussed the logic of killing him off in the last scene. I thought it was futile and too dramatic and that making a martyr of the Horse Whisperer was not necessary to the thread of the story. For me, such an esoteric ending didn’t gel with the gravelly, realistic quality conjured in the rest of the book. Fran thought that it was necessary for him to die, as a sacrifice to the well being of the family unit. She also felt that it was a correct ending for the the Horse Whisperer himself, who now found himself incomplete without Annie. After discussing this at length she and I agreed to disagree. Martyrdom makes me cringe, big time. And I believe there is always a life to live, even after love and loss.

Now back to that section of the book, see ya.