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Usually ships in 1 business days | | Only 3 left in stock, order soon! | | | 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 | | | |
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| | Product Details | | Author: | Thomas McGuane | | Hardcover: | 188 pages | | Publisher: | The Lyons Press | | Publication Date: | June 01, 1999 | | ISBN: | 1558218912 | | Package Length: | 8.3 inches | | Package Width: | 5.6 inches | | Package Height: | 0.9 inches | | Package Weight: | 0.65 pounds | | Average Customer Rating: |  based on 14 reviews |
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 The next best thing to actually riding a cutting horse Aug 03, 2008
McGuane gives you a sense of being a 'fly on the wall' while he rides, and also shares interesting tidbuts about his friends such as Buster Welch, who is a legend of the Western horse world.
8 of 8 found the following review helpful:
From the Library of Literary Oddities Apr 26, 2006
Some books are hard to classify, in spite of their seemingly simple titles. Among them are "Rats, Lice, and History" by Hans Zinsser, most of John McPhee's natural history books, and "Some Horses" by Thomas McGuane. One could call them philosophy as focused through Nature--the very opposite of religion as focused through the tribal mind.
I've been on enough horses to know that you don't tell them what to do. You ask them, and if the horse trusts you, he'll respond favorably if he knows what you want. The author discusses the equine-human relationship in depth, focusing on the art of cutting cattle from a herd. I suppose if McGuane had been more mellow Californian and less Wyoming rancher, he would have called this book, 'The Zen of Cutting Horses.'
Writer, rancher, horseman, and conservationist Thomas McGuane is the author of nine novels, a collection of short stories, several collections of essays on sport and horse, and he also wrote the screen play for "Missouri Breaks."
The latter just goes to show that an author can be an expert on his subject and still end up as a grease mark on the Hollywood Wall of Shame.
My favorite essay in "Some Horses" concerns Chink's Benjibaby, a black cutting mare, who worked cattle with an intensity that verged on loco. She went through many owners, including the author, until she found her rider. The author asks, "How did you train the mare?"
'"I didn't," says [Chink's new owner]. "I never won a fight."'
The black mare had a glint of what McGuane calls 'unlost wildness.' She knew she was special and demanded respect. When a new ranch hand fed other horses before Chink, "she was simply so offended at not being fed first that she hurled herself on the ground and held her breath until she was given her grain."
This is not a book that rants and lectures about the plight of the ranchers, like, say the Peter Bowen mysteries. McGuane reminds me more of Mary O'Hara, author of "My Friend Flicka" and "Thunderhead"--lean, beautiful prose suffused with melancholy about a vanishing way of life.
8 of 8 found the following review helpful:
Not just for horse lovers Aug 04, 2002
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.
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
What a pleasure... Jan 07, 2001
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.
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
 Worthy choice for horse owners Dec 07, 2000
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.
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