Customer Reviews

The Horse Whisperer

5 star:		(291)
4 star:		(99)
3 star:		(71)
2 star:		(77)
1 star:		(121)

 

 

After all the hype I thought this book would be a profound insight into the relationships between people and animals and other people. How disappointed I was when I got almost all the way through and discovered it was little more than a romance novel! Heaving bosoms and all...

I suppose without any hype I might call it an impressive first novel, but I found most of the relationships stereotypical and the ending totally inconsistent with what little character development there was.

Unlike some other reviewers I wasn't expecting this book to be a great work of modern literature but rather a beautiful story that everyman could relate to with a bit of thought. I wasn't disappointed. Maybe the author was a screenwriter and maybe the sentimental story itself is set out to read like a movie plot unfolding, none of that, to my way of thinking, diminished the simple zen beauty of the authors prose which reflected the search for an inner calm in each of the main characters.

Others here have commented on the gore and adrenalin surging accident of Grace and the conveniently named Pilgrim and I from similar experiences found it traumatic - for the horse, but not for Grace herself because her story is really the means by which she and her mother find grace. Her mother Annie is forced to take stock of a life that she fears is not satisfying and which casts an effect on her child and her marriage.

If Tom, in a typical display of the western horseman, seems wooden through a lack of dialogue it is because he relates to the world through the horses he works with, espousing the simple wisdoms of a man who has learned to read what is subtle and unspoken. His loneliness is echoed in the souls of Pilgrim, Grace and Annie.

That Annie and Tom predictably fall in love and betray her marriage vows, in a different rendition of Graces relationship with Pilgrim, is not an issue. It is that only through the catalyst for change in Tom and the nature of his work with Pilgrim we find the key to the characters, that they too must sacrifice the instinct for self preservation to be remade with maturity.

I started reading this book only knowing that it involved a mystical sort of man who could communicate with horses. This concept sounded intriguing. The novel turns out to be more about the thoroughly unlikable Annie character. She is is a self-centered woman, who makes one grand gesture to help her daughter by visiting the Horse Whisperer. It is obvious from the start that there will be a romance, but I could see no reason why Tom (the title character) should have any interest in Annie. It makes you feel sorry for Annie's husband, who seems like a nice enough guy, but is left behind in New York. The horse is really the most interesting character, but he just falls into the background as the story moves on.
The wild horses in the story could have been an interesting metaphor, but Evans has an annoying habit of using symbolism and then explaining it too. It is as if he thinks his readers are too stupid to figure it out on their own.

I was drawn to the story because the horse and the family needed healing on many levels. I wanted to know more about how the horse and teenager were rehabilitated. Tom Booker, a.k.a. the Horse Whisperer, was an appealing character because he was a very balanced person. It was his role to be the healer. He had his wounds, but used them intuitively to help others. The author portrayed him as a spiritual sort of guy. Suddenly, we are led to believe that he has an epiphany: He needs Annie! Unfortunately, their mutual desire was portrayed on a superficial level. Tom kept remembering her eyes, her smile, etc. This was teenage crush material; not at all in keeping with his stature or implied integrety. Furthermore, without giving the ending of the book away, Tom's final decision was totally unbelievable to me, considering the fact that he'd earned the teenage girl's trust. Just what she needed, more fodder for Post-Traumatic Stress disorder!

The book begins in a promising way, especially when Tom comes on the scene. However, the ending just didn't live up to my expectations. I skipped the sex scenes and think the main characters would have been a little better off if they had, too!

After struggling through The Horse Whisperer, I was left feeling betrayed by the author. The ending of this story was as morally bankrupt as it was implausible. I actually felt angered for having wasted my time reading this book.

Okay, so I admit it. I watched the film before I read the book. I quite enjoyed it. Then I read somewhere that Robert Redford's production company, Wildwood, bought the rights to the book for $3 million, so of course I had to check out the novel.

And.... it was okay. That's about the best I could say about it. There is a brilliant book in there, I believe, like a slim, silver winding river... which is sadly entombed in layers upon layers of thick literary 'mud.' By that I mean excess scene-age. Literary throat-clearing. Purple prose. Whatever you call it, it's there and it made my fingers ache turning so many pages over at high speed after a quick skim to find the plot thread. (Yes, there is one in there!)

For me, the book should've been about Grace and Pilgrim - the girl and her horse. But it wasn't, which I found annoying. The way I see things, the characters an author introduces at the start of the book are the ones we latch on to and care most about. That's a basic storytelling rule. You can't start a movie introducing a girl and her horse, show them going through a horrific accident and dangling the promise of an eventual healing... then making the rest of the movie about some other guy who, after fixing her `broken' horse, then has an affair with her Mom for the rest of the book.

But that's what the Horse Whisperer did. Morality aside, that's just bad storytelling.

No disrespect. But after such an involved, detail-laden beginning which sucked you in, I wanted to spend the rest of the book reading about Grace, how she coped with her accident, and about Pilgrim. Pilgrim was the real star for me, the only one I really cared about in this book besides Grace. I thought we'd be in for 300 pages of struggle, of daily ups and downs in his training and rehabilitation, a literary version of the brilliant (and highly recommended) horse-movie `Sea Biscuit'. I was excited to read about how Tom, the Horse-Whisperer, was going to get through to Pilgrim, and what great insider tips he'd give us at healing animals in physical and emotional pain.

Sadly, that was not to be. After such an adrenaline-packed opening, the book switches focus to Grace's Mom Annie, and we get chapter after chapter of stuff we don't care about detailing her problems with her job, her boss, her `perfect' husband and how unsatisfied she is with her life. Then she meets Tom, and BLAM - we are now in a romance novel, and an immoral one at that. Had her husband been abusive or a drunkard who was the cause of the accident which almost killed Grace, then sure, go find a new man. We'll applaud you every step of the way for making the right choice.

But no, after all that poor Grace has been through, she then has to cope with the separation of her parents caused by the fact her Mum got knocked up by the Horse Whisperer. Hello, there's another thing that she must now blame herself for, for the rest of her life. Poor kid.

If you're the kind of person who loves to sit in a deck chair and spend all day swimming in the endless details of someone else's life (and someone you don't much care about), then this is the book for you. Just be warned... there's a lot of it.

I read this book expecting a heart warming tale about a horse and what I got was a book about an unlikable, selfish woman having an affair with a man that was supposed to heal the horse and the girl, but somehow got too tangled up in sleeeping with Annie to care. I'm only 13, and I didn't want to read about their sex life etc. All I wanted was a nice story with a horse in it. But this book is truly twisted and sick and I wouldn't recommend it to my worst enemy.

I read this book because I love horses, I enjoy romances, and I was intrigued by the title (the best part of the book) and the beautiful cover. What a HUGE disappointment. Evans starts out with an interesting concept--that of a "horse whisperer" who can communicate with horses, and who can possibly help a young girl and her horse achieve emotional healing following a traumatic accident that has crippled them spiritually as well as physically. The initial scenes building up to the accident are rather well-written and grab your attention...then the book rapidly unravels and falls apart. I find it hard to understand why so many people are so enthralled with this book. The plot and dialogue are unbelievable to the point of being corny and laughable. The characters are also unbelievable and poorly (if at all) developed. Evans is the sort of author who thinks he can simply state that a character is such-and-such, and we will believe it without any illustration: he describes Annie as being absolutely brilliant, breezily skating through Oxford and her amazing career without effort, but nothing she says or does convinces us of her rapier-like intelligence. Apparently, constantly cursing at her employees constitutes brilliance. And the ending is absolute drivel. One of the worst books I have ever read, and I have read a lot

Talk about characters that nauseate a person! A married woman, living in trendy NYC, with a high-powered job, an educated and loyal husband, a spirited daughter, and what does she do? She sleeps with a man (who happens to be a rugged BUT gentle cowboy) because the novelty of someone new is enough to convince her that she needs this passionate fling to fulfill some emotional hole in her pity-pooh life. Oh, cry for me...my life is empty and I am blue, blue, blue, boo-hoo! Nay, she even feels somewhat justified in undertaking this betrayal of her promises and her responsibilities to her family and herself. After all, this is the land of get everything and when you've got everything, get some more. This women's needs supersede everyone else's, including her emotionally and physically wounded daughter's. This book is exactly the kind of garbage that convinces people that fantasy is reality and that consequence means nothing if the short-term satisfaction is attained. Should I even use the word, "satisfaction," since this never seems to be gotten? Save me from any more books like this one!

I can easily see why "The Horse Whisperer" became a bestseller. It is a poignant story of tragedy and healing, one that moves at a quick pace, manages to be both predictable in its overarching story, yet surprising in its details, and is told in clear - though somewhat bland - prose. It is by no means great literature, but as a holiday or `cold winter night' read, it fits the bill.

Thirteen-year old Grace Mclean is the victim of a horrific horse-riding accident (involving ice, a truck and two panicked horses) that claims the life of her friend and leaves her with an amputated leg. Damaged almost beyond repair, her horse Pilgrim is deranged with terror and pain - but Grace's mother Annie refuses to put the animal down, instinctively feeling that her daughter's ability to heal her body and soul is somehow connected to that of her horse.

Finding no support from any of the local vets, Annie tracks down a man named Tom Booker who is renowned throughout Montana for his skills as a "horse whisperer," a man who seems to instinctively understand and heal damaged horses. When Tom initially refuses to help, believing it to be too late for Pilgrim already, Annie (a business woman who is not used to getting no for an answer) packs up the horse and her daughter, and makes the drive to the Booker Ranch to demand the help that her entire family desperately needs.

It's an intriguing premise, and Nicholas Evans expertly creates the loving but tentative bonds between Annie, her husband Robert and their insightful, but rather sullen daughter Grace. Likewise, the disintegrating relationship between mother and daughter (which was never particularly strong to begin with) is poignantly portrayed as both Annie and Grace attempt to define, and then grasp what they each want from one another. Paralleling this internal struggle is Tom's work on Pilgrim, as he gradually leads the creature back to sanity, with Grace looking on in wonder. Added to the mix is the rest of the Booker family: Tom's brother Frank and his wife Diane, and their three children. Of these three, twelve-year old Joe (who would appear to be more Tom's son than Frank's) forms a sweet bond with Grace and coaxes her back into the saddle.

Out of all the characters, it is Grace that comes across the strongest and most sympathetic. Surviving her traumatic ordeal, the young teen struggles with the burden of her new body and the inevitable change in the way other people treat her. Determined never to ride again, she is furious when her mother drags her across the country in the attempt to save Pilgrim, and it is a very rewarding reading experience to find this young woman find herself again. It is surprising that a male writer can capture the nuances of a teenage girl so well, but I'll vouch for the consistency of her character since I was her age when I first read this book!

The book is at its strongest when dealing with this slow emergence of self-worth, love and redemption between mother, daughter and horse, but unfortunately Evans looses control of his own story when he introduces a love affair between Tom and Annie. In short, it just doesn't quite work. There is no sense of a lead-up to their sudden attraction to one another, and when it does come, it feels more like lust than any sort of meaningful romance. Likewise, some of the prose used in their love scenes is downright cringe-worthy: "To have her so close and yet so inaccessible was like some exquisite form of torture." Yeesh.

This also puts an even more traumatic spin on Grace's recovery. For two adults to act so irresponsibility when a child is involved erases all sense of sympathy I might have felt for their attraction, not to mention the fact that Annie is committing adultery. And since Robert is portrayed as nothing but a good, decent man, the whole thing becomes even more incomprehensible. The forced love-affair would have worked better had Annie and Tom reigned in their emotions (which interestingly enough, is what happens in the movie adaptation) - or if the whole relationship had simply been based on a platonic growth of mutual respect between them.

When the truth inevitably comes out, the resulting chaos is too abrupt and then just as quickly brushed under the rug again. It would be wrong to give away the ending, but it takes only a glance at the other reviews to see that it feels like Evans has taken the easy-way out of a difficult situation. It disregards the feelings of several characters (especially Grace's) and an "epilogue" set several months later tries too hard to convince us that everyone is coping just fine with the upheaval in their lives. There is a phrase that Tom uses during his healing sessions with Pilgrim: that the darkness comes right before the dawn. In the telling of this story, Evans seems to leave us in the darkness, before quickly reassuring us that the dawn did indeed come - without precisely *showing* us.

Evans is sincere in the messages of hope, healing and the worthiness of life that he captures throughout the course of the novel, and despite the unsatisfactory conclusion, there is enough here to recommend "The Horse Whisperer." It's certainly not a book that will change your life, but it is memorable and the characters and their situation are compelling enough to hold your interest throughout.