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{ 3 comments }
Too rich for my blood.,
I bought this book based on a glowing review I’d read in the Los Angeles Times. Having grown up in NYC and, like Mr. Korda, ridden at both Claremont Stables in Central Park and Clove Lake Stables on Staten Island, I thought for sure this book would be chock full of places and experiences I could relate to. Boy, was I wrong. Aside from finding out that someone I dated in the early 70′s is a friend of Mr. Korda’s and is featured prominently in his book (that was pretty neat), I didn’t learn much of anything except how the “other half” lives. A more appropriate title for this book would have been “Rich Horse People – Very Rich Horse People”. Being a horse owner myself (with a relatively modest income), I had a hard time relating to the endless descriptions of Mr. Korda’s wealthy acquaintances and their acres of horse property. He seems to be more interested in the people he’s writing about than the relationship between those people and their horses. And what’s with the little phrases en francais he tosses in every few pages and the occasional (dare I say it?) racist and condescending references to those less fortunate (i.e. referring to the employers of stable hands as their “betters”)? All in all, a very disappointing book for me – so disappointing, in fact, that I quit after page 175 and sold my copy on Ebay. If you’re looking for a great horse book, go read Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand or Horse Heaven by Jane Smiley. If you want to learn about rich people and their estates, there’s always the A&E channel.
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|Should have been called “Me and My Beautiful Second Wife”,
I found this book to be a bore – written by a man who, once he leaves his wife and child for another married woman, spends the entire book knocking every single person he comes into contact with, save for himself and said second wife. Even his “friends” aren’t safe from catty remarks, all of which serve to promote his fabulous second wife, who appears thoughout the book in pictures riding her various horses. Anyone who knows how to ride can clearly see she ain’t all that she’s cracked up to be according to her doting, emascualted husband. In fact, she hasn’t even competed in the “high levels” Korda claims – she competes at very low levels, presumably so she can get lots and lots of ribbons and beat the “snooty little girls that only have horses because their parents pay for it.” The text is sloppy – he repeats himself so many times I began to compare his differing descriptions of the same activity to see which was more outlandish. The book makes about as much sense as the piture of his wife, in her underwear, in the pasture, with her horses. It’s a little weird, though it does explain why she sticks with him – he must foot the horse bills so she can stick with her true loves! I would suggest that anyone reading this book might not want to take lessons from Mr. Korda – his morals, as well as his skills as a horseman, are much exaggerated.
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|repetitive and self-indulgent, avoid,
The title of this book should have been: A Horse Person, Scenes from my Wife’s Life. It centers around his second wife, Margaret, and her increasing involvement in 3 day eventing. While the eventing world certainly could be a great subject for a book, Korda’s approach is basically to heap praise on his wife and her immediate circle of small-time riders and trainers in upstate New York. I can only guess that Korda’s position as an editor at Simon & Shuster was the only reason it got published and well-reviewed.
His position may also explain the poor editing choices. His text is incredibly repetitive, with the same phrases about his wife, the cavalry, and statistics about horses found throughout the book.
The structure serves only to lead the reader on, as does the dust-jacket and most reviews I have seen. The first 75 pages or so are funny, with a personal account of fox-hunting and riding in New York city, at once self-deprecating and insightful, that I hoped would set the tone for the remainder of the text. After he met Margaret however, the whole thing goes in a downward-spiral for 200+ pages. It does perk up toward the end with his account of prisoners who take care of horses. Even this however, is short-sighted. While he condemns the owners of feed-lots who slaugter horses for food as “killers” he never proposes alternate solutions for the problems of excess supplies of thoroughbred horses. And who is he to off-handedly dismiss the cultural practices of countries who do choose to eat horse meat.
If you are looking for a book that mingles a personal narrative with the world of horses, I would suggest Elizabeth Mitchell’s Three Strides Before the Wire. Horse People is definetly not a book for horse people, who will be annoyed, or those casually interested in the word of equestrian sports, who won’t learn much.
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