The Horse Whisperer (Penguin Readers, Level 3) | Evans

The Horse Whisperer (Penguin Readers, Level 3) | Evans | The Horse Whisper

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The Horse Whispere...

	The Horse Whisperer (Penguin Readers, Level 3) Evans Pearson ESL, 2000 - 86 pages average customer review:based on 634 reviews view larger image
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He is the stuff of legend. His voice can calm wild horses and his touch heal broken spirits. For secrets uttered softly into pricked and troubled ears, such men were once called Whnisperers. Now Tom Booker, the inheritor of this ancient gift is to meet his greatest challenge.

The Horse Whisperer paperback

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The Horse Whisper

I loved this book, and was thoroughly delighted with it as excellent fiction. I was impacted from start to end, even after treasuring the film version. I saw different character development, which was fine for these imperfect people. They healed while the horse did; that was the point. The love affair was poignant, and I felt both Tom and Annie fought their passionate emotions for each other as long as humanly possible. They were both so flawed in their love lives' history of the past, that of course they would get desperately hooked on each other. And none of the surrounding family members blessed it; indeed they were appropriately alarmed at this in their near presence. I thought all of this possible and more realistic that the movie version. Of course, Annie is a cold career person without much of a soul. Montana's scenery, the ranch's wholesome life style, and the injured horse bring about their romantic connection rather deeply. While we think Annie will finally make the right commitment and move towards Tom after a divorce, he has it figured right. These two know they are screwing around, and there are eventual penalties for so doing. Offering himself up sacrificially at the end surprised me, but the guy doesn't want to live without his chosen woman this second time around either! He checks out; doesn't have to, but surprises Grace and the reader completely--with "his choice". We are stunned but there is a baby son as a remainder, instead of an unwanted, surprise pregnancy. They all turn out okay, even if there is still work to be done. These are not perfect people but they are more alive at the book's end than they were at its origin. We have faith that they are better off. Tough stuff; loved it all. And great writing; I don't know why there are any slams at all towards the author's talent. Own this book.

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"I Hear You've Found Me a Whisperer..."

I can easily see why "The Horse Whisperer" became a bestseller. It is a poignant story of tragedy and healing, one that moves at a quick pace, manages to be both predictable in its overarching story, yet surprising in its details, and is told in clear - though somewhat bland - prose. It is by no means great literature, but as a holiday or `cold winter night' read, it fits the bill.

Thirteen-year old Grace Mclean is the victim of a horrific horse-riding accident (involving ice, a truck and two panicked horses) that claims the life of her friend and leaves her with an amputated leg. Damaged almost beyond repair, her horse Pilgrim is deranged with terror and pain - but Grace's mother Annie refuses to put the animal down, instinctively feeling that her daughter's ability to heal her body and soul is somehow connected to that of her horse.

Finding no support from any of the local vets, Annie tracks down a man named Tom Booker who is renowned throughout Montana for his skills as a "horse whisperer," a man who seems to instinctively understand and heal damaged horses. When Tom initially refuses to help, believing it to be too late for Pilgrim already, Annie (a business woman who is not used to getting no for an answer) packs up the horse and her daughter, and makes the drive to the Booker Ranch to demand the help that her entire family desperately needs.

It's an intriguing premise, and Nicholas Evans expertly creates the loving but tentative bonds between Annie, her husband Robert and their insightful, but rather sullen daughter Grace. Likewise, the disintegrating relationship between mother and daughter (which was never particularly strong to begin with) is poignantly portrayed as both Annie and Grace attempt to define, and then grasp what they each want from one another. Paralleling this internal struggle is Tom's work on Pilgrim, as he gradually leads the creature back to sanity, with Grace looking on in wonder. Added to the mix is the rest of the Booker family: Tom's brother Frank and his wife Diane, and their three children. Of these three, twelve-year old Joe (who would appear to be more Tom's son than Frank's) forms a sweet bond with Grace and coaxes her back into the saddle.

Out of all the characters, it is Grace that comes across the strongest and most sympathetic. Surviving her traumatic ordeal, the young teen struggles with the burden of her new body and the inevitable change in the way other people treat her. Determined never to ride again, she is furious when her mother drags her across the country in the attempt to save Pilgrim, and it is a very rewarding reading experience to find this young woman find herself again. It is surprising that a male writer can capture the nuances of a teenage girl so well, but I'll vouch for the consistency of her character since I was her age when I first read this book!

The book is at its strongest when dealing with this slow emergence of self-worth, love and redemption between mother, daughter and horse, but unfortunately Evans looses control of his own story when he introduces a love affair between Tom and Annie. In short, it just doesn't quite work. There is no sense of a lead-up to their sudden attraction to one another, and when it does come, it feels more like lust than any sort of meaningful romance. Likewise, some of the prose used in their love scenes is downright cringe-worthy: "To have her so close and yet so inaccessible was like some exquisite form of torture." Yeesh.

This also puts an even more traumatic spin on Grace's recovery. For two adults to act so irresponsibility when a child is involved erases all sense of sympathy I might have felt for their attraction, not to mention the fact that Annie is committing adultery. And since Robert is portrayed as nothing but a good, decent man, the whole thing becomes even more incomprehensible. The forced love-affair would have worked better had Annie and Tom reigned in their emotions (which interestingly enough, is what happens in the movie adaptation) - or if the whole relationship had simply been based on a platonic growth of mutual respect between them.

When the truth inevitably comes out, the resulting chaos is too abrupt and then just as quickly brushed under the rug again. It would be wrong to give away the ending, but it takes only a glance at the other reviews to see that it feels like Evans has taken the easy-way out of a difficult situation. It disregards the feelings of several characters (especially Grace's) and an "epilogue" set several months later tries too hard to convince us that everyone is coping just fine with the upheaval in their lives. There is a phrase that Tom uses during his healing sessions with Pilgrim: that the darkness comes right before the dawn. In the telling of this story, Evans seems to leave us in the darkness, before quickly reassuring us that the dawn did indeed come - without precisely *showing* us.

Evans is sincere in the messages of hope, healing and the worthiness of life that he captures throughout the course of the novel, and despite the unsatisfactory conclusion, there is enough here to recommend "The Horse Whisperer." It's certainly not a book that will change your life, but it is memorable and the characters and their situation are compelling enough to hold your interest throughout.

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