2.5 stars

Its not a bad book, its just also nothing special.

We get four little short stories that all have something bad happen in a way that apparently showcases how a little boy learns and grows up through those horrendous events that happen.

Not my personal favourite kind of read but oh well.

Steinbeck is at least pretty humane in his killings of animals that he does it rather fast and in the way that it hopefully hurt the animal the least. So there is that??

Overall i don't really think its worth the read, since you can summarise this short little book into: animals die, a boy grows up, and people are not the nicest in general.

Thanks Steinbeck, its nice to know that even "Back than" people where not really different or better as they are today. Good to know that at least that is apparently constant throughout time!

It just came up in an exchange and I realised I'd never rated it. Probably because while I absolutely love Steinbeck, I totally hated this for the obvious reasons. It probably didn't help that the first time around I was ten and came across it in an anthology entitled 'Beautiful Horse Stories'. I reread it a couple of years ago by accident and realised that not only is it a horrible story it's kind of also totally pointless, Steinbeck or not. So, no, I didn't friggin like it and, yes, I'll give it just the one star for traumatising me.

Ο Steinbeck είναι συχνά πυκνά σημείο αναφοράς σε βιβλία αγαπημένων μου Αμερικανών συγγραφέων και έτσι μοιραία θα ερχόταν η στιγμή που θα τον έπιανα στα χέρια μου. Το βιβλίο αυτό ωστόσο δεν είναι το πιο αντιπροσωπευτικό του ενώ είναι και αρκετά μικρό.
Ακόμα κι έτσι όμως, μου κέντρισε αρκετά το ενδιαφέρον. Είναι ένα ανάγνωσμα που φανερώνει την ηλικία του, (1933), δίχως όμως αυτό να είναι απαραίτητα αρνητικό. Είναι απλά ένα βιβλίο άλλης εποχής, στην οποία οι προβληματισμοί ήταν διαφορετικοί, όπως και η αντιμετώπιση της ζωής. Έστω και εγκυκλοπαιδικά, αξίζει μια ανάγνωση.

u mnogočemu, svi mi koji smo odrastali s ocem koji je stalno nešto radio, možemo se poistovjetiti s Jodyjem. Steinbeck se kirurški precizno sjeća djetinjstva i emocije oko stvari koje su nam davali stariji ukazujući na povjerenje, a mi smo gorjeli da im dokažemo da to povjerenje i zaslužujemo. Da, to se zove odrastanje, učenje o vrijednostima života... a kad majka vidi da praviš limunadu drugome bez da tražiš limunadu i za sebe, onda joj je jasno da te dobro odgojila i da postaješ dobar čovjek. Obožavam Steinbecka

3 1/2 stars, rounded up because . . . Steinbeck

This novel clocks in at just under 100pp. Maybe novel isn't quite the right word, more like four stories that tell of incidents during a year in the life of 10-year-old Jody Tiflin. The first features the Red Pony of the title and after finishing this sad story, I didn't think I wanted to go further. But I asked my sweetheart if he thought I should finish the book - after all it's only 95 pages long! He gave a resounding yes, and I'm glad I did continue.

Each story starts by introducing us to "the little boy" Jody. He lives in a valley outside of Salinas, California with his dad Carl, his mom and their ranch hand, Billy Buck. I think it's important to note that this was written in the throes of the Great Depression and while the Tiflins do not live in poverty, life is tough, especially on a small farm and during a time when parenting was of the stern variety. These are not heartwarming stories. This is not a coming of age book, per se, as Jody remains 10-years-old at the end, but we see how this one year introduces him to the realities of life - loss, death, perhaps redemption and the need to keep going and learn to trust and rely on himself. Steinbeck's writing is superb. I could see and feel everything this little boy was experiencing in Technicolor and with Dolby sound!

This is billed as "teen fiction" on the library book I borrowed, but I had a hard time thinking it would interest a 21-century teen. Seems far-removed from the lives most kids live these days.

Why I'm reading this: My guy recently checked this out of the library and enjoyed reading it, so handed it off to me. I love Steinbeck's writing and storytelling although I see very mixed reviews of this one. I'm interested to see what I think.

John Steinbeck has a way of getting to the very core of you and stirring up feelings and emotions that you never thought to put a name to. I both hated and loved the first story. It was heart-wrenching, and brought back too much of the raw grief I felt as a child when I frantically tried to nurse dozens of cats and baby calves when they were hopelessly sick, only to come out to the barn and see them lying stiff and dead. We often tend to think that life as a child was simpler and easier, but in many ways it was more intense. Griefs that seem small as an adult were as large as oceans then. John Steinbeck brings me back to the world of a child, and in some ways helps me see myself better as an adult in my interactions with joy and grief now.

I hated this book when I was required to read it, and as it was I remember reading it alone in the library in 7th grade and writing a paper because the class was reading a book I had already read. Suffice to say I'm enjoying Steinbeck more now.

Καλό βρε παιδί μου.....αλλά δεν με άγγιξε....

4 relatos.

La mirada de un niño de 10 años transitando hacia el mundo adulto. El universo rural de los años 30 en la zona de Salinas y Monterrey (California). La especial relación afectuosa con los caballos. La naturaleza siempre presente y cambiante por el paso cíclico del tiempo. El contacto consciente con la vejez y la muerte.


Una reseña que merece la pena: http://www.literaturas.com/v010/sec09...

Sometime in the early 1930's, on an isolated small ranch, in northern California's long, rugged, Salinas Valley, a boy of ten, mischievous Jody Tiflin, lives with his parents, stern father Carl, and the equally tough, but loving mother Ruth, they are poor like everyone else, in the area, yet manage to eke out a living, their only hired hand the very capable Billy Buck, an expert in taking care of horses...Two dogs, four cats, six horses and the same amount of cows, many pigs, and more chickens, various wild critters that roam the land, coyotes, rabbits, gophers, plenty of birds, and numerous rodents, etcetera, a typical place in that era. The lonely boy walks a mile to school every day, nothing changes in the harsh, dull territory, until after his father and Billy Buck, return from a trip to the city of Salinas, to sell cows, bringing a gift to Jody, a beautiful, amazing, red pony, his own horse, the ecstatic child promises to take good care of the animal, with the help and knowledge of Billy Buck. He trains the colt, shows him to his envious friends, now named Gabilan, after the mysterious local mountains, that Jody always wants to explore, asking questions, to everybody around, what's over there, (they don't know, his imagination runs wild) under the wise supervision of Mr.Buck, the kid can't wait until he can put the red saddle , that came with the horse, on the animal... disappointed it will be two lengthy years, until that is possible, still the pony he is constantly thinking about, is kept clean and well fed... a new respect his father shows him, the proud lad is happy, but the future is unclear...A stranger arrives, a very old man named Gitano, who's family had owned a vast ranch , here, until it was broken up into little pieces, in fact born nearby, in a mud house , that has fallen down, he wants to stay , and never leave, besides as a youth, he had once been to the mountains, which fascinates Jody, too ancient to work, and in the great depression, money is hard to make, still insists, he won't take no for an answer... In this episodic novella, Mrs.Tiflin's father, returns for a visit, Mr.Tiflin is not happy, ( but has no choice) since all he does, is tell old stories, how he led a wagon train across the plains to California, during the old wild west days, and the Indians stealing their horses , after many such recitals , they become very boring, and nobody listens other than Jody...A slice of Americana, that has long been gone, the ghosts still haunt the valley , these pioneers can never be totally forgotten, since they made California , what it is today... whatever that is...

WARNING! HORSE-LOVERS: DON'T READ THIS BECAUSE YOU THINK IT WILL BE ABOUT HORSES AND DON'T REVIEW IT SAYING THAT THAT'S WHAT YOU EXPECTED BECAUSE I JUST WARNED YOU. I am sorry if you were forced to read this book for school - it would really take the beauty out of it if someone forced you to read The Red Pony. I feel that way about all Steinbeck books actually.

It is a little difficult to get into in the beginning, but overall, this book shows the raw and unpredicible way people deal with their emotions. It is beautiful, and at times, frightening. I think people who have not been/do not know the midwest or the country well should read this book - it will be a new experience for you, and show you a different way of life.

I read "of mice and men" of John Steinbeck long time back. I immediately fell in love with him & I never stopped after that.

I pick up a book of John's once in while. What is so special about John, you might ask? John wrote beautiful tragedies. Heart wrenching, goose-bumping & tear jerking tragedies & I'm a sucker for tragedies. Big time.

John won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his realistic & imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor & keen social perception."

Coming to the book- The Red Pony is story of a young boy Jody & his pony Giblan & life on the ranch. I won't go much into the storyline but Let's just say that it isn't all rainbows and unicorns (well in this case pony) in Jody's life.

John's writing is so vivid & pragmatic that you can imagine yourself with the characters- Becoming a part of their lives - living their life on ranch, experiencing their pain & joy, hurt & happiness yourself.

If you have read any John Steinbeck books, you will know John's worlds in the books are painfully "Real"- cruel and brutal. There is death, betrayal, sadness and bitterness. John in his crystal clear prose shows the world to us in its naked gory reality. He shows mirror to the world through his stories leaving it bare.

I'm not going to sugarcoat anything, this one like all the other works of John has the mishap, the cataclysm as the center theme. Red pony is about a boy who learns to grow up through his loss, exploring a bond shared between a man & nature with complexity of it.

Yes I would still recommend it, coz even though there are two sides to this world both beautiful and ugly, sometimes facing the dark ugly side of the world is the option you need to choose.

“It would be a dreadful thing to tell anyone about it, for it would destroy some fragile structure of truth. It was truth that might be shattered by division.”