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Timothy Urgest's Reviews > The Red Pony
The Red Pony
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“It was a whole bunch of people made into one big crawling beast. And I was the head. It was westering and westering. Every man wanted something for himself, but the big beast that was all of them wanted only westering. I was the leader, but if I hadn’t been there, someone else would have been the head. The thing had to have a head.
“Under the little bushes the shadows were black at white noonday. When we saw the mountains at last, we cried—all of us. But it wasn’t getting here that mattered, it was movement and westering.
“We carried life out here and set it down the way those ants carry eggs. And I was the leader. The westering was as big as God, and the slow steps that made the movement piled up and piled up until the continent was crossed.
“Then we came down to the sea, and it was done.”
Life is suffering, but we must learn. The journeys of others are not our own.
What I love about Steinbeck is that his simple narrative always becomes multilayered upon its conclusion. Meanings within meanings.
“Under the little bushes the shadows were black at white noonday. When we saw the mountains at last, we cried—all of us. But it wasn’t getting here that mattered, it was movement and westering.
“We carried life out here and set it down the way those ants carry eggs. And I was the leader. The westering was as big as God, and the slow steps that made the movement piled up and piled up until the continent was crossed.
“Then we came down to the sea, and it was done.”
Life is suffering, but we must learn. The journeys of others are not our own.
What I love about Steinbeck is that his simple narrative always becomes multilayered upon its conclusion. Meanings within meanings.
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Reading Progress
March 12, 2020
–
Started Reading
March 12, 2020
– Shelved
March 13, 2020
–
Finished Reading
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Robin
(new)
Mar 13, 2020 12:54PM
Thanks. I've not read this one (though I'm a Steinbeck fan) & will give it a try. There's also a 1949 movie of it with screenplay by Steinbeck himself. It's in my local library, but you can probably find it online as well.
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It’s an interesting little book, not at all what I anticipated.
