Customer Reviews

The White Mare's Daughter

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have never read a Judith Tarr novel before; but I had read good reviews of her other works, so I was looking forward to reading an entertaining, meaty epic.

I was very disappointed.

For one thing, there is no serious action going on until almost two hundred pages into the story. All I kept seeing was Sarama, daughter of the Chief of the White Horse People and newly made Servant of Horse Goddess, doing little more than trotting around on her white mare and thinking about how glad she was not to be like all the other women of the tribe: veiled, submissive, and permanently shut away in their tribal tents.

Once in a while, a hint would drop about Old Woman, the previous Priestes and Servant of the Mare who took the infant Sarama and trained her for succession; but there was absolutely no real information about Sarama's life with her. Tarr could have at least devoted one chapter to Sarama's actual upbringing with Old Woman.

Agni, Sarama's twin brother, was more interesting. At least Tarr took the time to develop him into a person. Sure, he's arrogant and short-sighted and thinks that being king is the ultimate calling; but at least he DOES something. The scenes where he captures and trains his own stallion are interesting. When he follows his sister westward, with every intention of subduing the matriarchal culture beyond the Great Wood, Agni actually has to think outside his tribal box and consider the political and strategic ramifications of his actions.

Anyone who has read Sjoo or Gimbutas will find the matriarchal cities very familiar. The women rule, the men serve, and to every query that anyone posits comes the reply: "the Lady wills it". I found that to be as annoying as any Fundementalist tract. The gods in this book (whether it is the Lady, Horse Goddess, or Skyfather) are just as removed as they are in "real life". I read about people worshipping their respective deities and, while the women in the Western cities may have felt some temporary bliss, it seemed to me that they were just going through the motions. There is a good scene where one of the characters relates to Agni about how the women would braid their hair to keep it out of the way. Soon, the fashion became tradition. That's how I viewed the spirituality in this book. The core of faith had long since faded and now it was all just a matter of procedure.

Anyway, I hope to read something better of Judith Tarr in the future.

Good writing, but I found it hard to stomach the male slave element (Beefy, dim-witted, beautiful, well-endowed and submissive men serving wise women) and the contrast between the advanced Goddess-lead society and the primitive society of raping savages that follow male gods? Simplistic and bizarre, too bad.

Tarr knowledge of horses and history shine in her fantasy. So far this author has not disappointed me.
This book stand alone ,but "Lady of horses" "Daughter of Lir" (sequel) and "The Shepherd kings" enrich this book.

Judith Tarr does an outstanding job in creating two vastly different, but equally believable cultures. Both are interesting, with fully realized characters, and when they finally meet, the clash is exciting, rather than disturbing, uncomfortable or boring (at least one of which describes most of the other horseman vs. goddess worship books I've read). I was surprised that the author chose to make her feminist cluture a true matriarchy, rather than the usual egalitarian societies usually portrayed in these books. While I would have liked to have seen more agency and spirituality from Danu and the other men of the cities--for example, what kind of rituals did they conduct while the women worshiped at the full moon?--Tarr managed to create male characters who were strong and thoughtful, not abused, degraded and twisted, like their female counterparts among the horsemen.

This is quite honestly one of the best books I have ever read. I have been reading Tarr for awhile now, and had dicovered that most of her novels are exactly the same, just in different time periods. But I read this one, and was blown away by it. Not only is it masterfully written, but it is completely unlike anything she has done. The power conveyef in her words is astonishing, and I grew to love the characters. Read this book, you will not regret it!!

An interesting read, reminiscent of Jean Auel's Earth Children series, Valley of the Horses and The Mammoth Hunters in particular.

This book is set somewhere between 6,000-10,000 years ago and shows the clash of matriarchal and patriarchal cultures. It focuses on a handful of characters, though the main characters are a twin brother and sister who are the last of the matriarchal line in their culture. The sister, Sarama, goes west to seek cultures that still treat women with respect. She finds these people and tries to build a life for herself. Her brother finds himself excommunicated from his people and decides to follow his sister to these lands where women rule, goods are plentiful and there is no war.

This book starts out quite slowly and it's not a quick read. I've seen a review that says that action doesn't start until about page 200 or so; I think it depends on how you look at "action". I enjoyed the slow start to the book because it set the scene quite nicely.

As a person who has a dual major in history and Spanish (who also rides horses), I eagerly opened up White Mare's Daughter expecting rich historical fiction about the Scythians and Indo-Europeans and their conquest/migration into Europe. It wasn't exactly that.

Good: Tarr is an equestrienne and, therefore, her horses (though more intelligent than real horses) behave in the way that horses do. She was able to describe a horse culture, complete with sacrifice, that was realistic and showed some research into the patrilineal Indo-Europeans. Some of the supporting characters like Aunt Taditi are well-rounded and helped to ground the story. The names, mostly of Sanskrit extraction, lend some authenticity that linguists may enjoy. Agni has to learn to combine cultures in order for his rule to be successful and faces some very painful decisions along the way.

Bad: No character does anything of their own decision and free will, "The Horse Goddess tells me to go west/The Mother Goddess wants you to go to Larchwood/Sky Father wants me to be king." The men of the west are complete wimps. "Animals fight, men don't." And I never figured out what exactly the women do. The men cook, clean, maintain the household, let their women couple with other men (it's their choice), work in fields, herd animals, build things, raise children. What is the point of having a Mother GODDESS if the MEN are raising the children? The whole novel displays obvious bias in favor of the peaceful utopia of the matriarchal culture. The few battle scenes are rather quickly described as well.

Tarr appears to forget that the Indo-Europeans did indeed come marching into Europe and their culture and languages somehow prevailed over these hen-pecked cities, whether in conquest or breeding. We speak the language of the horsemen and have had a patriarchal and patrilineal culture for the past 6000 years. Hence names like Johnson, MacDougall, Martinez and -poulos ending in Greek: they all mean "son of"! I would have loved to see what someone like Gary Jennings could have done with this material. Most red-blooded men will cringe as they read about their gender staying at home with children while their wives ride off to war.

Oh, and for some reason a tribe of Neanderthals lives in the Forest.

I'm interested in Tarr's other books, but I think I'll rent them from the library rather than buying them.

Judith Tarr never fails to deliver the best in historical and/or fantasy fiction. WHITE MARE'S DAUGHTER is her most ambitious book to date, and exemplifies Tarr's dedication to accuracy as well as topnotch storytelling. If you like Jean Auel's books, you'll love this one . . . if you enjoy excellent historical adventure ala Mary Renault, this one will go on that special shelf that's all too short. Complex and realistic characters, and truly wondrous horses written by someone who really KNOWS horses!

I loved this book - adventure, philosophy, humor, prehistory fantasy, romance, humor - I thought this book was great, and would definitely recommend it. Compares to Valley of Horses, but I think this book is 100x better.