Pale Horse, Pale Rider (H B J Modern Classic) (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "She was a spirited-looking young woman, with dark curly hair cropped and parted on the side, a short oval face with straight eyebrows, and a..." (more)
Key Phrases: pale rider, milk house, Cousin Eva, Uncle Gabriel, Aunt Amy (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Contains three short novels, - Old Mortality, a story of race tracks, of the Deep South, of the survival and shattering of a family legend; Noon Wine, Texas and a dairy farm rescued from decay by a man who turns out to be an escaped lunatic from Dakota and of the tragedy that ended it all; Pale Horse, Pale Rider, a mystical story of the narrow ledge between life and death, set at the time of the flu epidemic. Stories which add new laurels to those Miss Porter has already acquired as one of the great stylists of today, in the Katharine Mansfield school. Simplicity, beauty, clarity, distinction and a sense of drama implicit in character and circumstance, mark her work. (Kirkus Reviews )

Product Description

First published in 1939, these three short novels secured the author’s reputation as a master of short fiction.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 216 pages
• Publisher: Harcourt (June 18, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151707553
• ISBN-13: 978-0151707553
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #221,152 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Short fiction the way it should be., December 18, 2001

By A Customer

Katherine Anne Porter displays the human experience with turns of phrase that catch your breath. The awkward spinster cousin blooms "like a dry little plant set out in a gentle rain" when her critical mother leaves the room. A woman delirious with influenza falls into a sleep "that was not sleep but clear evening light in a small green wood..."

I thought Flannery O'Connor had ruined all other southern short fiction writers for me, but Porter meets O'Connor's deft character portraits, with their keen knowledge of mannerisms and their psychological depth, as well as O'Connor's ability to surprise the reader with moments of recognition: Miranda's girlhood experience feels like my girlhood experience, across generations and geography. Even Mr. Thompson's story feels like it could have happened in one's own family, like the story grandparents and great aunts and uncles half-tell and subtly refer to while the turkey roasts in the oven and everyone steals nuts off the pecan pie.

I agree with others who are astonished that this book is not part of the literary canon in the U.S. It is a stunning, gorgeous example of short fiction. With the impenetrable heaps of "literary fiction" from contemporary writers, marketed to ridiculous heights, I'm finding old gems like this one soothing to my constantly inundated reader's mind. Read it. And writers, take note.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great work of art which deserves to be far more well-known, November 6, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Pale Horse, Pale Rider (Modern Library) (Hardcover)

I first read this book about thirty-five years ago, as a young teenager. At the time, I didn't really know what it was about, lacking the historical background to understand World War I, and having no knowledge whatsoever of the widespread influenza epidemic of 1918. Nevertheless, the memory of Porter's shimmering prose somehow stayed with me, leading me to read the story once again, this time as an adult, and to finally comprehend it better. In fact, I have reread it several times over the years, always profoundly moved by the experience. Recently, after the events of September 11, 2001, I found myself thinking again of the story, and hauled it out of the library for still another reading. It is more beautiful and meaningful than ever. It has the powerful force of deeply felt, true experience.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars pale handed prose, October 5, 2001

By	Doug Anderson (Miami Beach, Florida United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

I think the author that Katherine Anne Porter is most often compared to is Thomas Mann. Both wrote their best known work in the novella form and both use a highly distilled prose which is rich in symbols. Death in Venice and Pale Horse Pale Rider(both dealing with plagues of some sort) are two of the best novellas you are likely to come across, both appear in most novella collections(even though Porter didn't much care for that word). Porter evokes another author though as well, Mary Shelley, in Pale Horse Pale Rider. Being a male reader who doesn't read a lot of female authors I am always struck by something in authors like Dickinson and Woolf and Porter and Plath which is that distanced perspective, the writing seeming to come from somewhere outside of life, real life being only a memory. This may be a personal point of view only but in Pale Horse the main character Miranda, even before the epidemic hits, seems the perfect example of this phenomenon as she seems not to very much want to participate in the life around her. She may be tempted into something resembling life by her lover Adam but still she seems to be sleepwalking. So it is not all that surprising that when death does enter her chamber so to speak it is received as not an altogether unwelcome guest. Miranda's dream or vision is so well written and the pace of it so well sustained throughout that you feel you have accompanied her through it. One of those sequences you never quite forget. The coming to life again segment(Shelley)is also quite astonishing and strangely, eerily beautiful. The other two tales are good too but this is the one you will remember. There are many great romantic and symbolist(especially) paintings that you will feel you understand or have a strange communion with after having read this.