Customer Reviews

The Hearts of Horses

5 star:		(48)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I chose this book because of the plurality in the title, I thought I would learn about the character and soul of non-verbal beings, and the cover photo, clearly female, riding swiftly, freely with purpose, accomplishment and joy. These are superficial reasons for choosing a book and what a splendid surprise I had in the world of this book. I am an urban woman, no country or wide open spaces or large animals in my life but I loved the language of this book, how it made a place, a time, and its people live for me. Thank you Molly Gloss for a read so engrossing I reached the end of the line and the bus driver did not shoo me out; waited until I came back to my world and hopped off! I apologized, he said he noticed me reading through the week, watched me intent, smiling, weeping, frowning. That day he knew I was at the end, and could not bear to disturb me.

I loved this book. It's set during WW1 when so many young men were gone to the trenches, that one over-tall, painfully shy young woman got to live the life her unique skills suited her for: horse trainer, horse gentler--the life of a cowboy. The heroine makes a place for herself in a new community that can accept and value her for what she has to offer. So much more than a take on history, so much more than a romance, this is a story of time and place and people still on the frontier of American life. A book to keep, a book to share--just make sure you get it back!

Like the previous reviewer, I intended to limit myself to one or two chapters a day. That was very difficult to do, as I savored every word of this book. It was the inner world of Martha Lesson that I most identified with, and my hat is off to Molly Gloss for capturing so well the patience and humility it takes to make a horse as well as Martha. "The horse doesn't care how much you know until he knows how much you care" are the words from the wisest man I ever knew. I picked this book off the counter at the Powell's Bookstore stand in the Portland airport and I am so glad that I did. Read this book, you won't be sorry you did.

I just found this wonderful author through the Seattle P-I newspaper. I originally checked the book out of the library. I had it read in one day it was so good. Its rare when I find an author who I want to have a copy of my own for my library. Her characters are strong and you feel like you're right there riding the horses with her. I highly recommend this book for reading.

My first riding instructor subscribed to the old saying "The outside of a horse is good for the inside of a man." As a teacher of horses and of horsepersons, he would have heartily agreed with the heroine of this book who judged people by how they treated their horses.

Martha Lessen is nineteen. She carries her favorite book in her saddlebags (Black Beauty) and rides a badly scarred horse called Dolly who was burned in a fire. Martha has already experienced enough of life to be a bit scarred and skittish herself. She's seeking work "breaking" horses and World War One has presented her with an opportunity. The men who would normally do this work are going off to the trenches 'over there'. Martha has her own methods: the horses she works with are gentled instead of "broken" to saddle.

With luck, Martha finds a couple who are short handed. They are willing to hire her, but more importantly, they befriend her. They recommend her to others at their church and soon, Martha has a string of horses to train. As soon as these raw young horses have the basics, she sets up a circuit where a horse from one ranch is ridden to the next. She then changes her saddle to the horse that has rested in that corral and rides to the next ranch. And so on...

Riding the circuit, in all weathers, on young horses with no experience is a challenge that Martha accepts seven days a week. She has her share of adventures but as she makes her daily circuit she is drawn into the lives of the people along the way. Along with Martha, the reader becomes drawn into the hopes, dreams, fears and dangers that face these isolated people of the American West. Every man, woman and child that Martha meets reacts to her as a women doing a man's job with a woman's touch. For shy Martha, she has to reach deep inside herself not to shrink from the lonely women who want to talk, the adoring children who see her as a real horse whisperer or the men who feel threatened by her.

This is a glorious book, that uplifts the heart. Written in clean, spare prose that evokes the spaces of the West and the inner secrets of the human heart with equal ease, this perfect work of literature deserves a place on the shelf next to another book I have always loved, cried over and rejoiced in reading; yes, I also have loved Black Beauty. THE HEARTS OF HORSES is not to be missed. I'd recommend it to anyone who has felt the romance of the American West. To anyone, man or woman, who ever had a secret dream of being a cowboy, this book is for you.

A dear friend recommended this to me. I put everything else in my life on the backburner while I ate this book alive. Having lived with horses on a high desert ranch, I cherished the noble and individual personalities of Martha's circle of horses as well as the stark and stern nature of that country. What most warmed my heart most, however, was the humanity, humor and fortitude of the young "horse whisperer". Upon closing the book, I promptly ordered a copy to send to my son and daughter-in-law, both equine vets in Idaho.

Molly Gloss's spare prose is just enough to provide deep insight into the lives, minds and hearts of her characters, two and four legged. Martha Lessen is the central point - the center of the circle, her horses' lives, and gradually, the community. If you love horses, the West, history or romance, you'll find much to enjoy here. The characters stay with you long after the last gentle word of this delightful novel. The last novel I enjoyed this much was Water for Elephants. Hearts of Horses deserves the same long slow jog to enduring popularity.

I absolutely loved this book. I am a horse person, and have no idea how significant that fact is to my enjoyment; but certainly I liked the book more than most books about horses, because this gal knew her stuff, where so many authors don't. But it was also a quietly unfolding and totally believable picture of a particular time and place and the people in it.

While I agree with an earlier reviewer that sometimes the author tells rather than shows, I personally was happy with that. I didn't need to be shown every encounter between people; sometimes being told they happened is sufficient. There were in fact plenty of opportunities to be shown things, about countryside, people, horses, and the time.

The author used an interesting convention that bothered me the first time but I enjoyed more and more as time went along. Once in a while, and not often, the omniscient narrator appeared to compare the time being written about with times to come. For example, she refers to the advent of electric power, noting that power would not come to this valley until after the next war. After the first occasion, this was not intrusive, but gave a perspective to the piece whenever it was employed.

The one factual criticism I might make I will also entirely forgive, but must make note of: it is extremely unlikely that even a young woman such as Martha would so successfully use the horse training methods described. This is a very recent improvement in horsemanship, which developed near to the area Ms Gloss describes, but not for another generation. Still, the author has got it right, and it's not impossible that someone - perhaps even particularly most likely a woman - would have developed the thinking prior to the Dorrance brothers - and in any case, I enjoyed reading of her efforts from the perspective of a would-be follower of that approach today, the so-called natural horsemanship.

Martha is a very appealing, believable character that I found it very easy to relate to personally, and the scene in which she is living is also appealing and believable. A wonderful book.

I picked up this book almost by accident and couldn't put it down after reading the first page. Its moving description of a landscape that was beginning to be transformed by homesteaders and the heartwarming connection Martha Lessen forms with her horses creates both a dramatic backdrop and a captivating cast of characters. A must read--I can't wait to buy the rest of the author's novels.

When I was a kid I read every horse story in print and I remember especially Black Beauty (of course) and the books of Will James. Hearts of Horses is the same kind of book. The language is as simple as a pair of leather chaps, and the lead character of Martha is as quiet and soft-spoken, determined and brave, as any character Jimmy Stewart ever played--and almost as tall. It's a Western, but not a bang-bang shoot-em-up Western. It's about a young woman (though she's constantly and a little annoyingly always referred to as a girl) who asks for no special treatment, intrudes on no one, and makes her own way by doing what she does best--gentling and training horses. The author writes with the same quiet authority with which Martha trains her horses. It's a wonderful book.
...Ruth Sims