The Red Pony

by John Steinbeck

Book Overview

A Penguin Classic Written at a time of profound anxiety caused by the illness of his mother, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck draws on his memories of childhood in these stories about a boy who embodies both the rebellious spirit and the contradictory desire for acceptance of early adolescence. Unlike most coming-of-age stories, the cycle does not end with a hero "matured" by circumstances. As John Seelye writes in his introduction, reversing common...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140187391
• ISBN13: 9780140187397
• Release Date: October 1994
• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.27 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.1" x 7.8"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Enjoyable

Loved these stories. Classic Steinbeck! If you're thinking about it, give it a read.

My chest hurts

John Steinbeck has this way of making me feel nostalgic for an era I was never alive during. His writing is very comforting, in a way? These stories were wonderful, even if one or two hurt.

Classic stories of a rural boy's life

John Steinbeck's "The Red Pony" is a group of four interconnected stories: "The Gift," "The Great Mountains," "The Promise," and "The Leader of the People." Each story focuses on Jody Tiflin, a 10-year old boy growing up on a ranch on the west coast of the United States. The other main characters are Jody's parents and the ranch hand Billy Buck. Also frequently appearing are the ranch dogs, Doubletree Mutt and Smasher."The Red Pony" is not a novel, so readers expecting the cohesion and unity of a novel will be disappointed. The book should, in my opinion, be evaluated for what it is. And once you appreciate its own peculiar structure, you may, as I did, acknowledge "The Red Pony" as a powerful and beautiful work of art.Steinbeck masterfully captures the cycles of life, death, and renewal in the lives of both his human and animal characters. He creates vivid, often visceral scenes, that are written in a quietly powerful language. There are moving moments of joy, horror, and heartbreak. "The Red Pony" is a significant achievement by one of America's enduring literary giants.

Brilliant affirmation of life

I read some of these reviews and could not believe how unrealistic some of these people are. Why should every novel be a princess pretty tale? If that is what you need, keep pretending and don't ever read some of the most poignantly beautiful reflections of what it is like to be a 10 year old boy growing up on a farm!This is a sensitive, time realistic story of what it would be like to live on a farm back in the days when you had to know practical therapy for your stock animals. These people respected their animals and knew that it was important to know emergency procedures, and knew how to do them to try and save their stock. Sometimes it worked, sometimes, it did not. It is this down side that focuses on Jody, the 10 year old son, that gets to own a pony who becomes ill with "strangles" a disease that shuts off his airway. The stockhand pulls no stops to save his life, and Jody chooses to stay by his beloved pony's side. The event is pivotal. As all events that revolve around life and death, this is the basis of which the story continues to move. I do not find the story to be distasteful at all. I find it to be full of life and love. For those that can not get through the saddness of the pony dying, I feel sad that you missed some very relevant, affirming representations of the real meaning of life and love.

A touching tale of the child's "American Dream"

I read this book after studying Of Mice and Men for mt English Literature GCSE, and immediately feel in love with this warm, simple novella. It tells the story of Jody, a young boy growing up on an isolated ranch. During the narrative, he has to endure the gamut of emotions - from death through to love and responcibility and respect. The negative responce by most readers (ironically American!) made me quite angry. I can appreciate the widly held criticism of Steinbeck, that "nothing much happens" and the ending is usually predictable, but for me, one of the most beautiful and perceptive aspects of his writing is what isn't said - the subtle implications in the text invites you to dissect and analyse his ides for yourself. This involvement may not be for some people, but, personally, it fully enriches my reading experience. Also, Steinbeck would argue that he isn't writing a novella of suspence, but one about characters. So if you want to think for yourself while revisiting an un-tainted, un-quaint view of childhood, then try this. You never know - it may just grow on you!

Sad But Great

Even though the book "The Red Pony", by John Stienbeck, was one of the saddest books I have ever read I would recommend it because the plot has many interesting turns and the theme is very emotional. "The Red Pony" was about a young boy, Jody, and his family who live on a ranch. The book consists of four short stories, each of which involves Jody learning a lesson of life. It is so tragic because in every story, something dies. In "The Gift" and "The Promise", two horses die, in "The Great Mountains" it is implied that Gitano committed suicide, and in "The Leader of the People" a part of Grandfather dies when he realizes that Westering has passed. When he realizes this, his whole motivation is gone, so a part of him is missing, or dead. My favorite story in "The Red Pony" was "The Promise", because I enjoyed the way Jody would imagine things about what he was doing on the way home from school, and about what the new colt would be like. Over all, I found this book very enjoyable, even though it was so melancholy.

All the elements of a work of literary craftsmanship

What surprises me about the negative reviews of The Red Pony -- the proportion of which astonished me -- is why the readers who so terribly disliked the book (I see all four parts as "the book") persevered with it.Sure, Carl Tiflin would be criticized by many, many products of Generation X, plus the one before it, whatever it's special identity. His austere nature and harsh ways of interacting with his wife and Jody (especially Jody) were not uncommon during a time when grubbing a living took every waking minute -- which is the timeline of this fine story. But the conflict Steinbeck expertly wove into the story was a critical part of it; it was not a bit contrived. We noted that Jody didn't hate his lot in life as a consequence of stern discipline, the complete absence of tender and caring outpourings from his father. Indeed, the discipline was present when the father was not: Jody caught himself pointing his .22 rifle at a forbidden target and reminded himself that ammunition would not be forthcoming for yet another year if his father had been there to see that act. Jody did, after all, have a .22 rifle -- a prior gift from his father, one with enormous meaning and carrying with it indelible notions of responsibility.Billy Buck, a masterful Steinbeck stroke of characterization, was the buffer that absorbed some of the abrasiveness handed down by father to son, at other times dulling its cutting edge, and at still others obliquely giving the boy a means of rationalizing over it -- it isn't personal, Jody, just your father's way. It was clear that Jody was well aware of the latter, too.His inability to embrace the boy with outward expressions of fatherly love was otherwise expressed by Carl in the gift of the .22, even burdened as it was by a year of abstinence from using it, and then by the gift of the red pony -- which also came with a price: warnings of the consequences that would come if the pony interfered with Jody's chores or school. Giving with one hand and threatening to take back with the other was not an uncommon form of conditional generousity during those tough times, and it's not to be despised now.Carl's outspoken intolerance of Jody's maternal grandfather's despondency over his obsolescence was Steinbeck's means of revealing to us that Carl Tiflin did, actually, have a thread of feelings down deep, demonstrated by his remorse after discovering that Grandfather had overheard Carl trashing him and his ideas of "westering."For all his faults, Carl Tiflin was an honorable, responsible, hardworking man. Those are the recollections Jody the man would have of his father, with never a thought of the qualities other observers disliked.Too many fathers today don't have the stuff for stern discipline, or discipline to any degree, even though it's more essential today than it was in Jody's time. So we have novels about wild and courageously untameable teens despising and defying their parents, fictional c