Reviews tagging 'Ableism'

Pale Horse, Pale Rider: Three Short Novels by Katherine Anne Porter

1 review

milkfran's review against another edition

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challenging sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character

3.75

Hmmm… a tricky one because I’d give 3.75 for the collection as a whole but the titular story ‘Pale Horse, Pale Rider’ deserves 5. 

A haunting exploration of grief and war and what it means to carry survivor’s guilt that will stay with me for a long time. In fact, I think it’s one of the most poignant reflections on grief I’ve ever read. modern medicine can work miracles but none of us can stop time: 
Doctors simply “set [one] once more safely in the road that will lead [us] again to death” -p.260. 

I’m glad I didn’t read it during the Covid pandemic like many people did, although having lived through a time of plague gave an extra edge. It was certainly jarring to open twitter on my phone straight after and see one of Bryan Johnson’s tweets proudly boasting about measuring his son’s nocturnal erections in his futile quest to crunch ever more data and discover the secret to eternal life….

I enjoyed the other stories (Old Mortality and Noon Wine) on an intelectual level and found it interesting to analyse how a Pulitzer Prize winning author crafts and plots a short story but it was Pale Horse, Pale Rider itself that really delivered the emotional punch to the heart (so you have my permission to not feel bad about skipping straight to the final story!) It’s available freely on the Internet Archive as a pdf if you want to while away a short train journey, as long as you don’t mind arriving at your destination blinking back a tear or two. 
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