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A review by spenkevich
The Red Pony by John Steinbeck
4.0
Get ready for Sobbing with Steinbeck! The Red Pony is an episodic bildungsroman following the young Jody Tiflin and family as he learns the harsh facts of life on their Californian farm. Written between 1933-36 and published individually in magazines, The Red Pony was published as one volume in 1937 with these four Jody stories that grapple with the big issues of responsibility, disappointment, death, family, and the power and inhumanity of nature. In his small life on the farm, Jody looks to the horizon of the great mountains with a thirst for big adventure and big living and as these stories progress we see him vacillate between being an innocent child and a budding adult being carved out by the grit of the world and we hope he is productively internalizing the life lessons that make the difference between growing up or merely growing older.
‘ I’ll bet they don’t know what’s going to happen to them today.’
‘No, nor you either,’ Billy remarked philosophically, ‘nor me, nor anyone.’
Steinbeck constructs a harsh childhood for Jody, one with a tepid relationship with a father from whom he craves acceptance and praise and one with an early taste for failure and death. The opening story is a tragic tale where his ownership of his beautiful red pony comes to a sad and violent end and Jody, with the reality of death still sinking in, responds with an outburt of emotion doubling down on violence and death. It is his first reckoning not only with grief but shame, ‘He didn't care about the bird, or its life, but he knew what older people would say if they had seen him kill it,’ Steinbeck writes, ‘he was ashamed because of their potential opinion.’ That ‘potential opinion’ is Jody’s social eye awakening, realizing his actions are judged and have a bearing not only on his reputation and future but on his family as well.
Death is omnipresent in this episodic novella, with the rather moving tale of the old man who wishes to die on the Tiflin farm (there’s some hints at land acknowledgement going on here, or at least the old man wishing a white man would) and later on the troubled birth of a horse. The latter is an interesting lesson for Jody about how closely knit life and death are, with life literally birthed from a death. Steinbeck said buckle up, life is some sad bullshit, though this theme of wrestling with the inevitability of death seems to permeate his entire ouvreur. But is it death that is so saddest or is it the living on without (or past) a purpose that seems the most tragic, as we examine in the story of the grandfather coming to live on the farm.
I found the father to be one of the most interesting characters here. He is short on words for Jody and quick on setting him on a course for some life lessons, but when he praises Jody you can really feel the appreciation and dude-bonding going on strong. The coming-of-age dynamics here does have a bit of an uncomfortable tough guy masculinity (but in keeping for the times, I suppose). However, Billy Buck makes an interesting foil character to papa Carl and teases the notion of found families or father figures outside the family. Problem is, Billy Buck can’t keep his promise to save the pony. On the plus side, he sticks up for Jody, even in the face of Carl, and becomes another guidepost on Jody’s path to adulthood.
‘I tell those stories, but they're not what I want to tell’, say the grandfather late in the book, ‘I only know how I want people to feel when I tell them.’ I think this perfectly summarizes this brief book: the emotions and empathy that resonate with the reader vastly outweigh the admittedly slight stories that form a loose narrative here. Steinbeck is great at capturing emotion and feeding it to you as a life lesson while making it seem more like a delightful snack than a take-your-medicine sort of deal. I always picture Steinbeck writing and slapping his knee saying "hoo-boy this is some Great American Novel stuff." He’s literary in the best ways, chock full of symbolism and purpose and historical context, etc., but what hits the hardest is the emotional punches and the way his prose so easily places you in the hearts and minds of his characters. The Red Pony is an early work, which shows, but it also points towards the greatness that would come in Steinbeck’s career, particularly his explorations of families and their influence in coming of age narratives such as in [b:East of Eden|4406|East of Eden|John Steinbeck|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1639969375l/4406._SY75_.jpg|2574991].
This is a short little book that packs quite the punch. It might not be an ideal starting point for readers, but it makes for a wonderful read and expanded impression on Steinbeck as a writer and thinker: you’ll find many of these themes played in variations of the scale in his later novels. I always enjoy sobbing with Steinbeck and this is a quick but powerful little book.
3.5/5
‘ I’ll bet they don’t know what’s going to happen to them today.’
‘No, nor you either,’ Billy remarked philosophically, ‘nor me, nor anyone.’
Steinbeck constructs a harsh childhood for Jody, one with a tepid relationship with a father from whom he craves acceptance and praise and one with an early taste for failure and death. The opening story is a tragic tale where his ownership of his beautiful red pony comes to a sad and violent end and Jody, with the reality of death still sinking in, responds with an outburt of emotion doubling down on violence and death. It is his first reckoning not only with grief but shame, ‘He didn't care about the bird, or its life, but he knew what older people would say if they had seen him kill it,’ Steinbeck writes, ‘he was ashamed because of their potential opinion.’ That ‘potential opinion’ is Jody’s social eye awakening, realizing his actions are judged and have a bearing not only on his reputation and future but on his family as well.
Death is omnipresent in this episodic novella, with the rather moving tale of the old man who wishes to die on the Tiflin farm (there’s some hints at land acknowledgement going on here, or at least the old man wishing a white man would) and later on the troubled birth of a horse. The latter is an interesting lesson for Jody about how closely knit life and death are, with life literally birthed from a death. Steinbeck said buckle up, life is some sad bullshit, though this theme of wrestling with the inevitability of death seems to permeate his entire ouvreur. But is it death that is so saddest or is it the living on without (or past) a purpose that seems the most tragic, as we examine in the story of the grandfather coming to live on the farm.
I found the father to be one of the most interesting characters here. He is short on words for Jody and quick on setting him on a course for some life lessons, but when he praises Jody you can really feel the appreciation and dude-bonding going on strong. The coming-of-age dynamics here does have a bit of an uncomfortable tough guy masculinity (but in keeping for the times, I suppose). However, Billy Buck makes an interesting foil character to papa Carl and teases the notion of found families or father figures outside the family. Problem is, Billy Buck can’t keep his promise to save the pony. On the plus side, he sticks up for Jody, even in the face of Carl, and becomes another guidepost on Jody’s path to adulthood.
‘I tell those stories, but they're not what I want to tell’, say the grandfather late in the book, ‘I only know how I want people to feel when I tell them.’ I think this perfectly summarizes this brief book: the emotions and empathy that resonate with the reader vastly outweigh the admittedly slight stories that form a loose narrative here. Steinbeck is great at capturing emotion and feeding it to you as a life lesson while making it seem more like a delightful snack than a take-your-medicine sort of deal. I always picture Steinbeck writing and slapping his knee saying "hoo-boy this is some Great American Novel stuff." He’s literary in the best ways, chock full of symbolism and purpose and historical context, etc., but what hits the hardest is the emotional punches and the way his prose so easily places you in the hearts and minds of his characters. The Red Pony is an early work, which shows, but it also points towards the greatness that would come in Steinbeck’s career, particularly his explorations of families and their influence in coming of age narratives such as in [b:East of Eden|4406|East of Eden|John Steinbeck|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1639969375l/4406._SY75_.jpg|2574991].
This is a short little book that packs quite the punch. It might not be an ideal starting point for readers, but it makes for a wonderful read and expanded impression on Steinbeck as a writer and thinker: you’ll find many of these themes played in variations of the scale in his later novels. I always enjoy sobbing with Steinbeck and this is a quick but powerful little book.
3.5/5