[.ca] Some Horses: Essays (ISBN 0375724524)

From Amazon.com:
Since his arrival as a novelist and essayist in the late 1960s, Thomas McGuane's elegant and muscular prose has left its print on the trail of American letters, exploring the American landscape and exposing the American heart. In the nine finely tooled essays that make up Some Horses, McGuane explores and exposes his own passionately layered relationship to the cutting horses he rides and works on his Montana ranch. The author's admiration for his four-legged characters is displayed with perceptive wit and clear affection: "If a horse were a Ford," he suggests, "the species would vanish beneath lawsuits engendered by consumer-protection laws." As both participant and observer, McGuane makes sure his readers feel the unique intimacy of the man-horse relationship. "We have saturated the horse with our emotions," he writes. "Yet, a lover of horses has nothing to prove and no expertise to reveal. It is important that we find animals to love, and that is the end of the story." Actually, for McGuane it's just the beginning. Moving with introspection and grace, he kicks up plenty of dust, description, and insight in essays that probe the intricacies of riding horses, working horses, caring for horses, breeding horses, and competing on them in the roping and displays he so loves. In the magical "A Foal," he contrasts the anxiety of a favorite mare's overdue pregnancy with the joy that finally attends the successful introduction of a healthy newborn into the fold. Also scattered through the collection are marvelous insights into the writer's life--and, in one particular passage, the hands that have produced his life's work: "I looked at my hand, crooked thumb, rope burns, enlarged knuckles, and I felt good because I'd always been afraid that, as a writer, I would always have these Ivory Snow hands." But it's the bigger picture that ultimately interests McGuane: "The open range, the open sea, the open sky, the open wounds of the heart, that's where writers shine." McGuane shines on every page. --Jeff Silverman

Worthy choice for horse owners:
I had been encouraged to read some of McGuane's work and decided to start with Some Horses. This is a book about McGuane's experience with horses through his life. It gives an interesting and entertaining look into the life of an active horse owner. McGuane has been fortunate to have the life he describes in the book and calls for an appreciation the horse has played and continues to play in our lives. From ranch work to modern day cutting competitions, horses and their mark on the West live in both fantasy and reality for many people. McGuane's book brings depth and definition to dreams we have of using and working with horses. The horse is an interesting creature, often weighing 10 times the rider but still at the rider's command. If you have a horse or dream of having a horse, Some Horses will give you a respect and appreciation for why horses are important to us.

What a pleasure...:
As a horseman - - McGuane knows and loves his horses, and conveys that well. As an author - - his work is a great pleasure to read... he does have fine a way with words. The best comment that I can make is that after reading Some Horses we're back on line to buy a bunch more of McGuane's books.

Some Horses-Some Book:
Some Horses is an honest work by someone with a mastery of saying just what they mean. The prose is spare enough to stay out of your way, but descriptive enough to carry you deep into the story. They key to how good I think the book is comes from my response, I am not a "horse person" yet nowhere feel snubbed by the fact that the horse world is really a pretty tight sphere of people, horses, situations, and landscapes. McGuane opens the window to the world he experiences with insight and humour and lets you know something of the fabric of traveling to cuttings, training intractable animals, and ending up pretty close to ground level. I put the book down feeling right at home with the author's western writing style(Abbey to Stegner I guess, an appreciation of his deep feeling for western life and horses, and I think I'll pick it up again when I feel the need for a dose of fine prairie dust and open space....maybe it will serve you the same way

Not just for horse lovers:
I greatly enjoyed this well-written and amusing book of essays by novelist Thomas McGuane. Although I have ridden a horse and get out to the occasional rodeo, it's mostly my interest in Western literature that got me to read "Some Horses." And it turned out to be an entertaining journey into the complex relationship that can exist between human and equine intelligence. One essay is about rodeo calf-roping and another about mountain trail riding and camping in snow, but most of the essays are about McGuane's experience with cutting horses. Developed as a specialized skill of horse and rider on open rangeland, cutting is the exacting art (and now sport) of separating out a single cow or calf from a herd of cattle. Given the strong herd instinct of cows, this is no mean feat, and it takes a fine horse, superior training, and a competent rider to do it well and consistently. In these essays, each devoted to individual horses, McGuane invites the reader into this world of nonverbal communication between horse, rider, and cow. In the hands of another writer, this subject could easily be arcane, technical, vague, or dry as corral dust. But McGuane makes literature of it. The opening essay owes its rambling form and spirit to Montaigne, and all of them are rich with sharply observed details, nuances of emotion, and fascinating character sketches of both people and horses. The only thing dry is McGuane's wry sense of humor. In the essay about a winter road trip with his wife and four horses from Southern California to Montana, I was laughing out loud. You don't have to be a horse lover for this one. All that's required is a curiosity about animal psychology and the place where it comes in contact with the psychology of humans.

"Great book for horse-lovers":
SOME HORSES is a new collection of essays by Thomas McGuane. They tell of a number of horses he's owned, of cutting, roping, trail rides, road trips, and other such things related to his relationships with horses and horse people. Well written (no surprise there), insightful, and occasionally inspiring. Certainly worth reading, especially if you're a horse lover.