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milkfran's review against another edition
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:
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Death, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Racism, Xenophobia, Medical content, Grief, Murder, War, and Pandemic/Epidemic
macy_richards's review against another edition
4.0
Pale Horse, Pale Rider is a collection of three short novels; Old Mortality, Noon Wine, and Pale Horse, Pale Rider. I recommend reading them in order - a character from the first story shows up in the last.
In my own interpretation of these works, they seem to be connected together with a shared theme of characters seeking freedom and the consequences of this desire. In the first story a young girl is burdened with constant comparisons to an older cousin who is no longer alive and the way her family clings to false memories of the past. Later, as a young women she seeks to escape societal expectations. In the second story a man seeks freedom from the consequences of his past and another man tries to escape the judgement of his neighbours after a tragedy. Lastly, in the third story a newspaper columnist desperately waits for the war to end as someone she loves is drafted and will soon have to leave her. Later, she in confined to a hospital as she suffers from influenza.
Not all of these characters reach what I would describe as freedom, but they do try. Some of the characters are held back by physical limitations on their freedom (prison, the draft, illness), while other face intangible limitations (social judgement, emotional torment). Porter has written three compelling works of literary fiction and I have no idea if this review makes sense but I would definitely recommend this book.
Also, completely unrelated but I read Pale Horse, Pale Rider while stuck in bed with Covid for the first time and although Covid-19 was painful for me (jealous of everyone who said it just felt like a cold) this book reminded me that my life could be so much worse.
In my own interpretation of these works, they seem to be connected together with a shared theme of characters seeking freedom and the consequences of this desire. In the first story a young girl is burdened with constant comparisons to an older cousin who is no longer alive and the way her family clings to false memories of the past. Later, as a young women she seeks to escape societal expectations. In the second story a man seeks freedom from the consequences of his past and another man tries to escape the judgement of his neighbours after a tragedy. Lastly, in the third story a newspaper columnist desperately waits for the war to end as someone she loves is drafted and will soon have to leave her. Later, she in confined to a hospital as she suffers from influenza.
Not all of these characters reach what I would describe as freedom, but they do try. Some of the characters are held back by physical limitations on their freedom (prison, the draft, illness), while other face intangible limitations (social judgement, emotional torment). Porter has written three compelling works of literary fiction and I have no idea if this review makes sense but I would definitely recommend this book.
Also, completely unrelated but I read Pale Horse, Pale Rider while stuck in bed with Covid for the first time and although Covid-19 was painful for me (jealous of everyone who said it just felt like a cold) this book reminded me that my life could be so much worse.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Medical trauma
Moderate: Death
Minor: Racism and War
mscalls's review against another edition
dark
informative
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Death, Mental illness, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Medical content, Suicide attempt, Murder, and War