The horse whisperer

The story is about life, tragic and happy at the same time. The narrative is permeated with deep sense of love and understanding.

The author teaches us to see "clearly the way life is, accept this way. It's about being true to it, never mind the pain. Because the pain of not being true to it is far, far greater..." This is the leitmotiv of the story.

There are several important story lines running through the book, contradicting with each other and depending on each other at the same time. The be­ginning is tragic. Drama touches upon the MacLeans whose daughter Grace is badly hurt in a riding acci­dent. She is between life and death; her leg is taken off. Annie,, her mother and Robert, her father, are sitting in turn at her hospital bedside. Pilgrim, her horse, is badly wounded too. "The terrible cuts on his face pulled his mouth back, showing his teeth. He acts strangely, his eyes are bloody and crazy." Pilgrim is to

be killed, but Annie, being interested in horses and the riding world, wants him to live.

Meanwhile, Grace is getting better, but everyone realizes that "things are never going to be the same".

She is living in hospital "sad and empty". Annie understands that something inside Grace is wrong. She is broken. Annie has to choose between her daughter and her career. She needs action to solve her problems. The world is focused on her daughter. Since now her prestigious job for a top magazine in New York seems unimportant Now she is crying for Grace, Pilgrim and herself. Grace's feelings about her mother are mixed. She loves her, but she feels "crowded by her". Gradu­ally, step by step, the author shows how the feeling between a mother and daughter change and grow.

Annie believes that Grace will recover only if Pil­grim's "troubled heart" is calmed. She hears that there are men who understand horses and calm them just by talking to them. Such men are called whisperers. Tom Brooker is one of them. He never refuses to help people with their horses, but he never takes money for his work, because he is sure that he does his work for horses whose "feelings and language" he values most of all. Tom looks after horses in California. He is noble, generous and ready to help, but this time, when Annie asks him to help with Pilgrim, Tom says that he can't do anything for him. Only after Annie's "crazy journey halfway across America", he under­stands that Annie, Grace and Pilgrim are "all joined in suffering". And "if he could help the horse, he could help them all." Therefore, Tom decides to act. He speaks quietly to Pilgrim. The author describes the scene of calming the horse with great emotion. Tom is a skilled whisperer. He is a magician. Now Grace can ride her favourite. Pilgrim is hers. She feels no

fear. The horse is strong and trusting again. Pilgrim's show of trust changes everything: "At that moment Grace felt many things come together... She was friends with her mother again".

Meanwhile, a very important love story line is coming to its peak. Annie and Tom fall in love with each other: "It was simple. He loved her deeply." The author reveals their great feelings through either a short look, or a short touch; the language is simple and true to life. And again the writer makes Annie choose, now between Tom, the whisperer, and Robert, her husband. Annie has a strong and willful person­ality. She accepts life with Tom, though "it will bring pain and suffering to others". She can't lose Tom Brooker. Thus she has chosen Tom with his loving heart. The whisperer deserves her love, because it is Tom who sacrifices his life for the sake of love; it is Tom who saves Grace. The final scene of his death, when without any sign of fear he walks towards the frightened horses, is very impressive. Tom stops the running wild horses, pushes Pilgrim away from them, offering himself instead of Pilgrim, ready to die. And Tom dies.

Grace is the witness of his death. This tragic event stays with her for ever...

The idea of the book was borrowed by Nicholas Evans from his friend who told him about a horse whisperer who lived in England. Nevertheless, the story doesn't take place in England. The action is set against the open spaces of Montana in the USA, where the author spent much time travelling and making notes for his book.

As the result, the book and the author became famous.

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' The story of English poetry in the 20th century is the story of individual figures, though there are several common features in their work.

The poets of the Second World War were very dif­ferent from those of the First World War. They did not go to fight with the same hopes as those of World War I. Neither did they feel that their job was to warn and inform the people at home. The time for heroic patriot­ism was over for ever. The poetry has become essential­ly a private art form. The strongest poems are often those which describe personal experiences rather than world events.

Philip Larkin (1922-1985)

Philip Larkin, the follower and admirer of Thomas Hardy and William Butler Yeats, writes in the tradition of quietness; he looks back to the past with a sense of sadness and transience of things:

It will be spring soon, It will be spring soon — And I, whose childhood Is a forgotten boredom Feel like a child Who comes on a scene Of adults reconciling And can understand nothing But the unusual laughter And starts to be happy.

Real happiness seems only to have happened in the past. The song of a bird of spring, singing outside his window at the end of winter, makes the poet under­stand his life as something that has been lost.

Life is first boredom, then fear.

Whether or not we use it, it goes,

And leaves what something hidden from us chose,

And age, and then the only end of age.

Among the "tireless campaigners" for the cultural revival of Scotland, the Scottish Renaissance of the 20th century were Hugh MacDarmid and Sorley MacLean.

Hugh MacDarmid (1902-1978)

Hugh MacDarmid was born in Langholm, but worked in Edinburgh as a school teacher and journalist. His most important work is "A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle", a long poem on Scotland. It was published by "Blackwood's Magazine", the most influential literary review in the English speaking world.

— Drums in the Walligate, pipes in the air,

Come and hear the cryin, o, the fair.

A as it used to be, when I was a loon.

On common — Ridin Day in the Muckle Toon.

Drums in the Walligate, pipes in the air,

The wallopin thistle is ill to bear —

The last years of his life Hugh MacDarmid spent in Biggar, some 20 miles to the South, but he was a frequent visitor to Edinburgh.

Sorley MacLean (1911-1996), one of the first poets of Scotland, combined modern poetic form and the ancient poetic tradition closely connected with the Gaelic language which was once spoken in most of Scotland:

— If we had Scotland free,
Scotland equal to our love,

a bright spirited generous Scotland, a beautiful happy heroic Scotland;

In Gaelic it sounds like that:

— Nan robh again Alba shaor,
Alba co-shinte ri ar gaol,
Alba gheal bheadarrach fhaoil,
Alba gheal shona laoch;

Sorley MacLean glorified his country and contribut­ed to the literary revival of Gaelic.

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