Trumpas jautrus klasiko romanas. Skaiciau angliskai, bet neapleido jausmas, kad dalis skaityta lietuviskai. Besiknisinedama internete aptikau, kad "Vaga" 1964 isleido sia knygele. "Berasis ponis".
Taciau ji man nematyta neregeta.Vadinasi teksto istraukas skaiciau kazkur kitur...mistika.

Sure that this was the book I'd read to my grandkids this summer, I quickly discovered this wasn't the one Steinbeck we'd explore together. Though deeply compelling, it was too sad and presented a bleaker picture of childhood than I claimed as my duty to share with my kiddos.

So I finished it, as me alone. Having traveled and wandered through California, especially those valleys loved by JS, I was there again, seeing Jody Tiflin in my mind's eye, not unlike my own scruffy cousins when engaged at earnest play.

Divided into four parts, all are underlaid with the certainty of death and loss faced and experienced and seen through the eyes of Jody in his early pre-teen years. Not just the grisly aspects of physical death are revealed to Jody, but also that astonishment that comes to us as we grow out of our childhoods when we first begin to experience a very adult response - including rage - to those experiences. It is stunning, scary and powerful. All of them caught in the simple words of a brilliant writer.

A worthy read. But not for this grandma to read to my littles - although highly recommended for my olders, when they are ready and braced for hard news.

To Whom It May Concern:

If you don't want people to get upset when they think they're reading a pony book, MAYBE YOUR BOOK SHOULDN'T HAVE "PONY" IN THE TITLE. At this point I'm almost positive the original publisher high-fived the author and everyone else in sight at the awesome practical joke they were about to unleash on the world. It contains nothing but an idiot boy and ponies dying all over the place and I want it weeded from libraries and classrooms forever.

Love,
Traumatized Twelve-Year-Old Me

3.5 stars. As usual, Steinbeck knows how to make you really feel life. Whether good or bad, he makes you feel all those emotions. I had read this in high school but forgot what it was about. I had thought it was one story but it seemed to me to be different stories with the same characters. Probably my least favorite of his so far but still good writing. I am not sure if I will give it a 3 or 4 star rating.

“It was a whole bunch of people made into one big crawling beast. And I was the head. It was westering and westering. Every man wanted something for himself, but the big beast that was all of them wanted only westering. I was the leader, but if I hadn’t been there, someone else would have been the head. The thing had to have a head.
“Under the little bushes the shadows were black at white noonday. When we saw the mountains at last, we cried—all of us. But it wasn’t getting here that mattered, it was movement and westering.
“We carried life out here and set it down the way those ants carry eggs. And I was the leader. The westering was as big as God, and the slow steps that made the movement piled up and piled up until the continent was crossed.
“Then we came down to the sea, and it was done.”

Life is suffering, but we must learn. The journeys of others are not our own.

What I love about Steinbeck is that his simple narrative always becomes multilayered upon its conclusion. Meanings within meanings.

A story about a pretty, pretty precious pony? Hurray! This is going to be giggly-joyous, laughy-good pony times!...What? It's written by John Steinbeck? Fuck. Sorry pony, you or everyone you love is going to die.

Yes, these are tales of living on a ranch in the early days (well, early-ish) of California, but underneath they are more of the same Steinbeck: the vignettes of the hardscrabble life of immigrant farmers.

Specifically, it's second and third generation immigrants, such as seen in Tortilla Flat. The people are established. This is their land. It feels as if it's always been theirs, but there were others before them...ghosts now.

The Red Pony follows a boy, who is coming of age and given the responsibility of raising his own horse. Steinbeck captures well the emotions and perspective of a child feeling his way in a world that is changing for him, new understandings that jab at young folks daily like minor revelations. Will he cope?

Thought I'd give this a read, what with my interest in animals being piqued by Goodreads' recent ads for All Creatures Great and Small. The Red Pony reads like a collection of related short stories. It definitely doesn't feel like a complete novel with a plot, climax and satisfying finish. There's just theme, like viewing a photo album. That can be enjoyable too, after all, every picture tells a story, don't it?

Kroz ovu kratku zbirku priča/pripovedaka upoznajemo dečaka Džodija i njegovu malu, skromnu porodicu koja živi na uspavanom ranču u Kaliforniji. Svaka priča nosi jednu novu avanturu i doživljaj našeg junaka bilo da je u pitanju briga o crvenom poniju kog je dobio na poklon od oca, iznenadna poseta nepoznatog Ciganina koji je došao da umre na njihovom imanju, jer je tu rođen ili kovanje plana istrebljenja miševa koji su se napatili u senu. Opisan kao radoznao, vragolast, ali delom i kao sanjar Džodi je izuzetno živ pred našim očima i njegova dečačka energija je opipljiva. Sumorna atmosfera tipična za Stajnbeka je nešto što mi prija i iako ume da bude i pomalo depresivna ne smeta mi, jer njegov stil pisanja ume da dočara svaku situaciju na pravi način. Čak i gubitak, smrt, bol ne zvuče tako strašno kada izađu iz njegovog pera. Naprotiv, vrlo poetično i tipično Stajnbekovski.

خیلی قشنگ بود....
کتاب مجموعه‌ای از چهار داستان کوتاه به هم پیوسته است که حول محور کودکی به نام جودی و تجربیات او با حیوانات، به ویژه اسبی به نام گابریل، می‌چرخد. این کتاب به طور کلی، نگاهی به گذر زمان، مرگ، بلوغ و گذر از دوران کودکی دارد. جودی، پسر جوانی در مزرعه‌ای در کالیفرنیا، اسبی سرخ به نام گابریل را به عنوان هدیه‌ای از جانب پدرش دریافت می‌کند. او به گابریل علاقه‌ی زیادی پیدا می‌کند و با او پیوندی عمیق برقرار می‌کند. اما گابریل به بیماری‌ای مبتلا می‌شود که به مرگش منجر می‌شود. این تجربه، اولین مواجهه جدی جودی با مرگ و گذر زمان است. در ادامه جودی، با یک سگ پیر و بیمار به نام کولک آشنا می‌شود و در مراقبت از او مسئولیت جدیدی را تجربه می‌کند. این بخش در مورد اهمیت همدلی و مراقبت از موجودات زنده و همچنین موضوع مرگ و میر است و ...
این کتاب به شکل قابل‌توجهی با مفاهیم مرگ و میر و تاثیر آن بر انسان‌ها سروکار دارد. مرگ گابریل، یکی از نقاط عطف اصلی داستان است که جودی را در مواجهه با واقعیت‌های تلخ زندگی قرار می‌دهد....

Somehow Steinbeck weaves spirituality with the land, animals and people… I love his simplicity on life and his approach in treating it with such reverence and dignity.

Μπορεί η ιστορία να μην ήταν κάτι το ιδιαίτερο, αλλά ο Steinbeck έχει ένα ξεχωριστό ταλέντο στο να αφηγείται και να δημιουργεί σκηνικά πολύ οικεία στον αναγνώστη.

Μία πολύ ενδιαφέρουσα και πολύ συγκινητική ματιά στη ζωή σε ένα ράντσο στην Καλιφόρνια μέσα από την οπτική γωνία ενός δεκάχρονου παιδιού που όπως όλα τα παιδιά της ηλικίας σου ακόμα έχει την ικανότητα να βλέπει τον κόσμο πιο αγνό και πιο όμορφο, ένα μέρος σχεδόν μαγικό. Μέσα από τις σελίδες αυτού του βιβλίου βλέπουμε τη ζωή του μέσα στο ράντσο που γρήγορα εμπλουτίζεται από ένα κόκκινο πουλάρι που κερδίζει την καρδιά του την ώρα που το βλέπει και ως ένα μέσο για να περάσει στο επόμενο στάδιο της ζωής του.

Δουλειές, κούραση, αφοσίωση, στεναχώρια πολλές φορές αλλά και χαρά για την δημιουργία της ζωής και τα μικρά επιτεύγματα χαρακτηρίζουν τη ζωή σε ένα τέτοιο μέρος, με τη γραφή του μεγάλου συγγραφέα, πότε ρομαντική και πότε πραγματιστική, να γίνεται το ιδανικό μέσο για να μπορέσουμε να νιώσουμε ότι γινόμαστε μέρος αυτής της εμπειρίας. Ίσως όχι ένα από τα πολύ σπουδαία μυθιστορήματα του συγγραφέα αλλά σίγουρα η ανάγνωση του προσφέρει μία πολύ όμορφη συναισθηματική εμπειρία.

Steinbeck is wonderful in these 4 loose vignettes that make THE RED PONY a small, but powerful novel. He brings his succinct crisp prose to create life lessons Jody Tiflin must learn without supercilious detail. Readers know Jody is a shy, quiet boy whose sensitivity brings tears to our eyes. He just wants his father’s love; barring that, someone or something that will give him affection. He learns that no man is infallible in life, in remembrance, in death, and there is quiet dignity in everything.

In The Gift Jody is ecstatically happy to have a beautiful red pony to care for. Gabilan learns to trust the boy and gives him the affection, Jody desperately needs. But through the sudden sickness, suffering and gruesome, buzzard-pecked death of pony, Jody learns the hardest lessons of life – death and the infallibleness of man. Despondent and growing mean, Jody learns the lesson of quiet dignity in The Great Mountains. When Carl Tiflin refuses to honor an old paisano's, request to live out his remaining years on the ranch near where he was born, Gitano simply disappears into the lonesome mountains towards the west towards his “melted” adobe homestead, riding Carl’s old and decrepit mare ominously carrying only a sharp-bladed rapier.

Against this gloomy backdrop of loss, The Promise brings hope and reaffirmation, but culminates in the harsh choice between life of the birthing mare, Nellie, and her breech-positioned colt. The bittersweet outcome is difficult to accept but does offer at least a glimmer of optimism. The final story, The Leader of the People, neither mentions the loss of Jody's red pony nor his presumed raising of the newborn colt. Instead, the connection to the other stories and unifying message of the novella can be found, perhaps within the final scene "Grandfather was about to refuse, and then he saw Jody's face," leading him to accept Jody's offer to make him a glass of lemonade. Through the simple act of accepting Jody's offer, his grandfather nourished the boy's sense of purpose; while -Grandfather's own life purpose has withered: his unforgettable year leading a group of westward bound settlers decades ago. Steinbeck shows us readers that the boy’s life lays ahead full of potential and purposeful future. Each man must go through darkness before the dawn’s light shines upon his face.