Sunday, March 12, 2023

Horse

 


Book: Horse

Basic Information : Synopsis : Characters : Expectations : Thoughts : Evaluation : Book Group : New Words : Book References : Good Quotes : Table of Contents : References

Basic Information:

Author: Geraldine Brooks

Edition: Kindle

Publisher: Viking

ISBN: 9780399562969 (ISBN10: 0399562966)

Start Date: March 1, 2023

Read Date: March 12, 2023

401 pages

Genre:  Fiction-History, Interracial Understanding

Language Warning:  Low

Rated Overall: 4½   out of 5


Fiction-Tells a good story: 5 out of 5

Fiction-Character development: 5 out of 5



Synopsis (Caution: Spoiler Alert-Jump to Thoughts):

There are two trains of plot, held together by a skeleton and a painting. Neither train of thought would make a very good book, but put together, they create something interesting.


First is you have a horse and his Black trainer. They are tremendously attached to each other. Separate, they both suffer. Lexington, the horse, wins championship races. The boy is treated as baggage and goes where the horse goes. The story talks about that.


Second, a Black art historian and an Australian lab director come together, fall in love, but have to work through what their differences mean? How they work through it is a painting of a horse, Lexington and a skeleton, Lexington, help them find commonality of mission. They are on an adventure of discovery until Theo is killed. Then the understanding of what racism hits Jess and her understanding.




Cast of Characters:
  • Dr. Elisha Warfield-Jarret and Lexington’s original owner.
  • Mary Barr Clay-Cassius Clay’s daughter; Warfield’s granddaughter.
  • Richard Ten Broeck-gambler, racing promoter, horse owner
  • Thomas J. Scott
  • Martha Jackson-art dealer, collector
  • Theo-writer, art student going after his Phd. Black. Lived in Australia for a while. Parents were diplomats.
  • Clancy-Theo’s kelpie, Australian shepherd
  • Alexander
  • Jarret Lewis-main person in the book. Lexington’s handler and friend. While many other characters in the book are fictional accounts of real life people, Jarret is not. Harry Lewis had one son, named Lewis. But there is a reference to black Jarret being Lexington’s handler.
  • Harry Lewis-Lexington’s trainer. Jarret’s father
  • Jess-Australian who is living in Washington DC, employed by the Smithsonian to look after bones.
  • Lexington-race horse and a star breeding horse
  • Troye-painter, mentioned rather than part of story
  • Willa Viley
  • Colonel Adam Bingaman-Mississpii estate, law maker
  • John Pryor-Bingaman’s horse trainer. Wikipedia credits him as the trainer for Lexington
  • Samuel Gossin-overseer of Bingaman’s property. Whipped Jarrett
  • William Johnson-freed black man, high class barber, broker of news
  • Gem-blacksmith. Jarret works with him as an apprentice
  • Uncle Jack-Black preacher who taught Jarret how to read and write
  • Cassius Clay-https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassius_Marcellus_Clay_(politician)
  • Catherine Morgan-the British researcher of horses
  • Beth-Harry’s second wife
  • JeremyRaines-art restorer, conservator
  • Jackson Pollock-painter
  • Lee Pollock-wife of Jackson Pollock and friend of Marth Jackson
  • Annie-Martha Jackson’s housekeeper. Annie is a relative of Jarret by about 5 generations
  • Daniel-Theo’s best friend
  • Robert Alexander-Kentucky horse breeder. Bought Lexington and Jarret
  • May-Jarret’s short term partner, another man’s wife
  • Robbie-May’s son.

Expectations:
  • Recommendation: PBS Interview
  • When: July 8, 2022
  • Date Became Aware of Book: July 8, 2022
  • How come do I want to read this book: Brooks writes well.
  • What do I think I will get out of it? A good story, giving some insight.

Thoughts:

Couple of things. First Brooks likes horses, she has been around them and enjoys them. Next a friend told me that Brooks has an adopted son who is Black,


Story takes place in two era’s: 1850, pre-Civil War in the 1850 mostly, and in 2019, with a brief aside to the 1870’s and 1950’s.


Brooks notes that things like Lexington’s skeleton being stored in the Smithsonian attic and Scott’s painting being discarded were true-just the location and who discovered it were different.


Also the modern portion of the book is in the Washington DC. The 1850’s is mostly Lexington, Kentucky and New Orleans, Louisiana.



Theo

Theo is a writer. Trying to get an article ready for the Smithsonian. A neighbor who is not happy that a student, and probably because he is a Black, is living across from them. Theo had been raised that bad manners was a sin. His neighbor’s husband died and she was moving out hz jis stuff. He was always curious about what people read. Nothing interesting in her stuff. And that was when he saw the horse.


Jess

She had loved doing stuff with bones from a young age. Now she has a job at the Smithsonian’s Osteology Prep Lab at the Museum Support Center in Maryland.


Articulate seems to be a favorite word of Jess/Brooks. Mounting bones required lots of patience and skills. But done right, you could tell a lot about the animal you mounted. Most bones now are stored away in containers since mounting them did destroy part of the bone.


Interesting, they use beetles to do the final cleaning of the bones,


Just when she was leaving to pick up a whale from Massuchuts, she got a call from a fellow director. He wanted help locating a skeleton- “Equus caballus. A horse


Warfield’s Jarret

Describes Jarret’s way with horses. Also how horses act around humans-could be sneaky and cause you harm or a good horse will work with you, won’t mean you ill.


Jarret’s father was a freed man, but worked for someone else than Jarret’s master. His mother died when he was around five.


Brooks uses this story to trace how Jarret gets sold from owner to owner just like Lexington, the horse.


Mother of Lexington was Alice Carneal; father was Boston, a rare horse. The breeding was Harry Lewis’ idea This proved to be a winner. Jarret and Lexington were companions to each other. Lexington’s original name was Darney. It gets changes later on in the book.


Darney had white feet. Racing folks felt this was bad luck. But Harry said My way of thinking, a good horse has no color. It’s what’s inside that’s worth the fret.


Mary Barr Clay is introduced-precocious.


Jarret thought that all horses were handsome and good. You just had to find the right use for them.


Theo

Theo’s parents instilled in him that personal contact is to be prized above more remote contacts such as memo or a phone call,


The horse picture looked old. Maybe discovering the background could be turned into an article.


Talks about Theo’s upbringing and his parent’s marriage which was falling apart.


The horse painting was temporarily forgotten as he got another assignment.


Thomas J. Scott

Told from Scott’s point of view


Talked about Cassius Clay and how he was an abolitionist even in Kentucky. He was a former slave owner and could fight.


Traveled to Warfield’s place to paint some of his horses.


Warfield’s Jarret

Jarret was someone who paid attention to detail. He was someone who considered his words.


Explains the painting of Troye of Boston, Harry Lewis and another person. Unusual in that Blacks are not usually painted in that era. It was painted for Willy Villa.


Scott was there to paint a picture of one of the horses. But he also examines Darley and thinks he will make a fine horse.


Scott is interested in more than the mechanics and results of a horse, but also the temperament and character of it as well. Scott thinks that people who bred thoroughbreds because it is a challenge. Can he win against all comers? And if not, does he have self-mastery to take a loss, stay cool in defeat, and try again undaunted? Those are the qualities of a great racehorse and a great gentleman. …. To do my part, I have to give a man a likeness that shows not just how beautiful the horse looks, but how beautiful it feels to him


Scott enters into a conversation with Jarret about running away, which Jarret wants no part of. But in the conversation, he says that Wakefield is considering offering Darley to Harry.


Jarret appreciated Scott’s approach and his talent.


Jess

Jess is fetching her whale.


Talked with the curator of Woods Hole who noted that We’ve made it so noisy they can’t hear to navigate—boat engines, navy sonar, sea mining.


Plymouth University of Moby-Dick. wonder if this real.


Jess wonders How could we be so creative and so destructive at the same time?


Jess is tasked with finding a skeleton in the Smithsonian for a prominent researcher from England. She found it was in storage. It is in the Natural History Museum, the Hall of Mammals, and then was taken to the attic. Jess gets tasked with escorting the researcher.


Theo

Talks about how a black man running through a white neighborhood like Georgetown needed to dress like he belonged. Then they ran into Rock Creek Park from the zoo to Peirce Mill and back home.


He gets to work on an article about restoring the painting which was being dumped.


Paintings:Str Maris with His Groom by Edward Troye, Kentucky 1857

Richard Singleton with Viley’s Harry, Charles and Lew by Edwrd Troye

Troye did not mock his Black subjects but portrayed them as people. Harry was depicted as having authority.


well those passions read that yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things. The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed. From Ozymandias


Warfield’s Jarret

Jarret is a “friend” of Mary Barr Clay. Jarret is Black; Clay is white. So there can never be more than friendliness.


A foal will pick up all of its mothers habits. Darley’s mother was a bit high stung, so Jarret did not want that to happen. Nor did Jarret want the horse mistreated. As A furious horse isn’t thinking clearly, and Jarret had a powerful idea that horses win races with their head.


Harry had drilled Jarret about the various horses ancestories.


Jess

Jess meets Catherine Morgan, the British researcher


The horse. What you have here is the greatest racing stallion in American turf history.


Thomas J. Scott

From Scott-did he really say this-in doing an online search, I do not see it?: If I were in purse to buy Warfield’s Jarret, I believe I would do it. And so we who think we are above enslaving our fellow man are corrupted. Only show us absolute agency over the apt and the willing, and suddenly we find the planters’ obduracy that much less odious. This is because Jarret has been assisting Scott and has been doing it better than anybody else has ever done it But I think there is truth here. Given a chance, each of us likes to show superiority over another.


Scott did a painting for Jarret, a quick study: As sometimes happens when the stakes are small, the

painting came together with an uncommon felicity.


Details the Clay family.


Warfield’s Jarret

Jarret saw things from the horse's perspective and then tried to accommodate the horse. Soon Jarret became the chief horse breaker.


Harry was talking to Beth and would eventually make her his wife. Harry bought Beth’s freedom, not Jarret’s.


Being next to a horse can be calming.


Clay has a discussion about whether Jarret wants to be a free man? Jarret’s reply is that is not allowed to have that kind of talk. This reminds me of the next Osher book we are reading, The Forgotten. There were many subjects you could not safely discuss without being sent to Siberia.


The most important thing was to keep Darley willing every stride of the way. They would both love the work, Jarret would make sure of it. That, thought Jarret, as he eased into sleep, is how we will win


Jess

Jess is finding out about Darley/Lexington through Dr Morgan’s files.


Photographer:James Mullen-is there a copy of it?


Morgan wants to make a replica of the horse.


Warfield’s Jarretu

Darley would race for the first time. It was a big deal for the area. Even Richard Ten Broeck from New Oreleans was there. He is up in Kentucky to find some horses.


Ten Broeck interrogates Jarret about Darley.


Jess

Jess comes across Theo and practically accuses him of stealing her bike. They both have the same bike and color. He was at first angry. But then it seemed to bridge that anger and accusation. Later, she would remember that first kindness—the disciplined way he’d made the anger.


Morgan talks about how she came to love horses, playing polo. As she got into the horse racing world, she saw the evils which made the competition. Pump the poor things full of bute to get them on the track when they’re hurt and should be resting. So many trainers asking me to fix the horse up for just one more race. So now she goes around trying to figure out how healthy racing horse work.


Is the poem she recites a real one, or one which Brooks makes up?


They wonder how the painter got the horse to stand so still for so long to have him painted in such a sway? Jarret is the answer, of course.


Thomas J. Scott

Scott cannot get to the task of painting Darley. He was present when Ten Broeck and Villey forced the sale of Darley to them. Speaking of Ten Broeck, Scott thought that he’s learned to deploy the manners of the south without falling into parody.


In Scott’s mind, it is hard to read Ten Broek because of who he is. He made a fortune playing cards, has adopted the manners of the SOuth and had become renowed. He left West Point undder a cloud. In short, he’s a man well used to getting what he wants.


And he wanted Darley, so he blackmailed Warfield into selling him the horse, and Jarret.


Warfield’s Jarret

Mary Barr warns Jarret about the sale of the horse. Harry has been around long enough that he knows the ways of the South and the swindle does not come as a surprise to him. Harry says to Jarret: Son, they take what they want. And is that only with the Old South?Isn’t that true of all of the powerful? That left Jarret to think that Only horses were honest, in the end.


Jarret now thinks about running away. The river is not that far, he thinks-it is 80 miles. Mary Barr helps him escape.


Mary Barr Clay

Cassius Clay talks to his daughter and discovers that Jarret has run away. He also realizes that he will die, either in Kentucky or Ohio with that horse.


Brooks paints Clay as someone who you would feel naturally antagonistic too. But then there is this episode where Clay is very methodical and thinks through a problem, exhibiting compassion for Jarret.


Brooks also talks a bit about the way of the strong and week, how it plays out in nature. Wasn’t this God’s order? I think in God’s order, the strong would take of the weak.


Who is Dea Webster?


Ten Broeck also is looking for Jarret. Clay and him come to an agreement that Ten Broeck would buy Jaret and train him.


Theo

Theo is working on his essay project of the painting and is learning how restoration is done. Brooks takes us through how an expert evaluates a painting.


The painting says Lexington.


Jess happens into Raines office about the same time Theo is in there.


Each wonder if the orher is hitting on each other.


Ten Broeck’s Jarret

Ten Broeck is now on the way to New Oreleans. But will be dropping Darley/Lexington and Jarret off at Bingaman’s estate.


Mary Barr says goodbye to Jarrett. Says they will meet at an All States race put on by Ten Broeck.


Brooks has a way of showing how a Black thinks about white apologies. She notes that the whites feel guilty and want the blacks to absolve them of the hurt. This is despite the fact that it was the Black who was hurt.


Darley is renamed to Lexington to commemorate the state he came from.


They landed at Natchez. Jarret was apprehensive on several counts. First, he was not a city person. Second, this was a new place. Lexington recognized this fear. The horse sensed his fear and tossed his head. Jarret struggled to master himself, breathing deep despite the stink. He leaned into the horse and spoke to him with a reassurance he did not feel. Interesting how animals will mirror what we feel. Also, how a person can adjust their own anxiety to match their situation.


Johnson describes Pryor as someone who does things by himself, without hello and does not take kindly to working with someone. But is an able horse trainer.


Once Jarret gets to Bingaman’s place, Pryor turns him over to Gossin to be treated as a slave in the fields. Gossin looks at his hands and sends him to the blacksmith. Because it had been his whole life, Jarret had never realized what it meant to be skilled at something that was highly valued. Now, he was merely a pair of hands, Going from being a valued person to a machine cog.


Spring came and it was time to pick cotton. Everybody did this. He had never known life could be so bitter. The only respite was Sunday as being a day of rest. At Bingaham’s place there was a Black church with a Black preacher. The sermon was not sterile and he preached out of Job. This seemed to be very much in tune with his current experience. Maybe this season was his shedding. Turning from a boy to a man.


Jess

Jess and Theo meet at a restaurant. Theo brings Clancey and Jess falls in love with Clancey. Conversation turns to why Theo stopped playing polo. Racism. Theo’s father said to him “You have to know that bigots are unwittingly handing you an edge. By thinking you’re lesser than they are, they underestimate you. Lean on that. Learn to use it, and you’ll get the upper hand.


In his relationship with Jess, he did not feel the need to enlighten her about racism, nor any white person. On the other hand, there was a certain fascination about the bone lady. This did beg the obvious question of if Blacks do not feel the need to enlighten those who they feel slighted by, how the divide between races be closed?


Ten Broeck’s Jarret

Lexington has colic-ate a whole bag of corn. Jarret is called to see if he can do something for the dying horse. He nursed the horse back.


Jarret reflected that There was a power in knowing how to read and write, he’d always felt so, So he set out learning how to read and write from Uncle Jack who also was the preacher. He reads to Jarret Isaiah 27 which talks about how a horse is. This resonates with Jarret.


Ten Broeck sent for Jarret and Lexington to go to New Orleans. There will be a race. But Lexington was not ready to race. On his way there, he was stopped. Jarret realized that these men were Men with no one to look down upon except the enslaved. Men with nothing to lose. Men to fear. Isn’t that how most humans are? There is a need to look down on someone else. Help me not to be that way and to elevate all and see your image in all.


Being stopped angered him.


Theo

Discussion of Scott’s painting of Lexington-eyes, ears alert-see Thomas J. Scott, Portrait of Lexington. Came from Martha Jackson.


Memories of when his father died and how aloof his mother seemed. He realized then that her work had always come first and always would. Ahead of her marriage, ahead of her child.


Jess and Theo become a pair.


Martha Jackson

Martha Jackson is observing Jackson Pollock create. She is friends with the Pollocks. But this is a side story. The real story is how did Martha Jackson get Scott’s painting?


Watching Pollock paint was like watching improvisation within structure.


Martha wanted to be a painter, but did not have the talent. But her teacher noted that she had a critic's eye and that this is a gift-to know what is good.


Mentions Seurat-we did a book about one of his paintings-Sunday in the Park with George.


Ten Broeck’s Jarret

Jarret is on the way to New Orleans.


He gets to New Orleans and meets up with Ten Broeck. Ten Broeck wants to race Lexington, but Jarret stands up to him and states why that would be unwise. Ten Broeck takes note, but explains why. This seems very much unlike a Southerner. But then again, Ten Broeck was raised in the North. Ten Broeck also has him eat the same food as himself.


When they reach Metairie, Ten Brock calls him his deputy trainer and that the jockey is to follow every word Jarret says. But there were several “my’s”. Jarret thinks: My horse. My Jarret. New grandstands, new barns—did the man just buy up everything he wanted in this world. That is Ten Broeck’s weakness-he wants to own and control everything while still being magnanimous.


The race. Jarret’s instruction to the jockey is that the horse wants to win, just let him. And Lexington wins. The other horse, having been pushed too hard, dies that night.


Martha Jackson

Martha had a housekeeper, Annie. Because Martha Jackson moved in the penurious circles of the art world, she was more aware of the bite of poverty than most wealthy people. Annie is helping her brother go to medical school. Annie is willing to sell an old family painting to help her brother. Martha says she will take a look at it.


Ten Broeck’s Jarret

Ten Broeck won big. Scott gives Jarret his winnings which are substantial and he starts to settle into life as Ten Broeck’s slave. But is more dedicated to Lexington. He attempts a letter to Mary Bar Clay to see how his father is doing. She responds that his father died recently of a fever.


Martha Jackson

Talks about Martha’s mother and her love for horses and equestrian sports. She died while riding with Martha.


Thomas J. Scott

Scott painted Lexington and how he painted him pleased Jarret. This mattered to Scott to his surprise.


Scott is attracted to Julien, a fellow painter. While Julien was a superior painter, Scott could paint and bring to life a horse in words.


Ten Broeck’s Jarret

Captain Viley was in New Orleans, part owner of Lexington. Viley would oversee the training with Jarret still handling Lexington day to day. Viley had a scheme where he would have four fast horses race a mile each with Lexington doing the full four miles. Preparation for the big race was getting serious.


Jess

Theo and Jess are showing each other the things they enjoy. Jess realizes that Art, to him[Theo], was a way of responding to and shaping social change. She becomes aware that there are things she does not see, mostly because we are conditioned not to see them? Such as a Black servant in a painting. Example is Manet’s Olympia.


Shower scene. And an undressing scene. Stayed overnight


Why is Theo into art and not diplomacy like his parents? “Who knows why we do what we do?”


Interesting phrase: ‘ways of seeing’ - John Berger. [My book group Jessie used this in a class once. It is a book with lots of pictures which explores what do we notice.]


As Jess is unpacking Lexington, she notices that the eye socket is mal-formed.


Ten Broeck’s Jarret

Day of the big race, the Great States Post Stakes. Lists the four enteraints from four different states. Three races of four miles each. Best two of three wins. Lexington won the first and second heats.


Note that an investment in a slave jockey is not wise. If the jockey is thrown and injured, you now have upkeep of the person until they died.


Mary Barr Clay came and visited him in his loft. She is concerned for Jarret. They talk the next day. She makes a statement which sounds very much like today’s politics: no man will listen to another’s position. Sounds like the great-souled men have left politics, both then and now.


She puts the proposition to him: to come back to Kentucky with her and leave Lexington. Jarret is committed to Lexington.


Ten Broeck committed to racing Lexington on short notice. Jarret is set to protest, but Willa is already doing that. Lexington was not ready and lost.


Thomas J. Scott

Wrote a dispatch on the race. The jockey was fired.


In the meantime, Ten Broeck was trying for a rematch. But the owner said no. So Lexington would race against the clock. But first, they were sent to New York to train and be out of the spotlight. Jarret came back a changed man.


Theo

Theo is invited to Tuolumne Meadows to go hiking. He is conflicted about what he thought of Jess.


Ten Broeck’s Jarret

A new jockey-Gil Patrick. The jockey figures out that Lexington is going blind.


Jess

Jess and Catherine are discussing the deformity of Lexington’s eyeball socket. Jess was beginning to get obsessed with knowing about this horse.


Catherine comes home with Jess for dinner. Catherine knew who Theo was-a polo star at Oxford. As they discuss horse paintings, Catherine notes that Everything in England comes down to class. She does not think it would happen here in America, but Theo brings up examples where similar things happen under different names.


Catherine has offended Theo, without meaning to and says: “I do hope I didn’t say anything wrong.” She gazed at the wine for a moment and sighed. “Hard to say the right thing, these days.”


Ten Broeck’s Jarret

Day of the race against time. A different set up-running start and there would be pace horses. Jarret is concerned that the track is too hard. Lexington beats the old record by 7 seconds.


Lexington’s shoes were loose. The jockey said that not only was Lexington the fastest horse in the world, but also the bravest.


Jarret refused to tell Ten Broeck that his horse was going blind. What Jarret wanted was for Lexington to go out as a winner and be able to retire to stud other horses. Not what Ten Broeck might do.


So the race was on. Lexington won convincingly.


Theo

The California trip got canceled-wildfires. He longed to reconnect with friends and this stood in the way. His thesis advisor did not like his work.


Theo started looking at what Scott painted. Scott’s best painting was in the catalog as Has not been found.


Ten Broeck’s Jarret

Ten Broeck is ticked that Jarret has been hiding Lexington’s blindness.


Ten Broeck is going to England. He has sold both Jarret and Lexington to Robert Alexander


Jess

Catherine confirms that Lexington was blind. Also fills in the history, including that after going to England, Ten Broeck Died alone and penniless in a bungalow in California.


But Lexington had a good life afterwards.


Alexander’s Jarret

Discusses Kentucky’s place in the division of states.


You choose a side, you also chose an enemy. True then and true now.


Jarret had been on Alexander’s farm six years. During that time Alexander, a British subject, learned that Jarret could read. Through that time, he got increased responsibilities until he answered only to the farm manager and Alexander-because he could read.


He still had a relationship with Lexington. Blindness had saved Lexington from the ailments of an old race horse. He was used as a breeding horse. Seven of the ten of his first year off-spring won.


Interesting passage between Jarret and Scott. If war breaks out, Scott will enlist on the North side. But in Jarret’s mind, he still likes to take Southern money. Jarret sees this as hypocrisy. Is it?What compromises do we need to make to live in a society?


Jarret was now living with another man’s wife and her son.


Martha Jackson

Talks about her past. Annie brings a painting-it is Scott’s painting of Lexington which he had given to Jarret.


Thomas J. Scott

Scott writes to Julien. It is 1863 and Scott is in the army But he has seen war and is disgusted with the fighting. They say we are winning this war. They say it, and yet that word does not carry the same meaning to me as it once did.


I have observed that there is nothing a man is more pleased to do than speak of his own life,


Scott is put in charge of a field hospital because of his background in veterinary. He talks about the brutality of the war and how he became friends with the chaplain.


Martha Jackson

Referenced Paul Mellon and Andrew Mellow giving his art to the National Gallery [of Art]. We sat by a fountain as a tribute for his gift to the National Gallery. Evidently he also gave or was a major contributor to the National Gallery.


She showed the picture to Paul Mellon who was definitely interested in it. But Martha was also interested in it as well


Mellon did not get back with her. She never expected that blowing up a millionaire client would be so very gratifying. I snickered at this one.


Alexander’s Jarret

Robert, May’s husband, had returned. This time in the uniform of a Union soldier. She went with him. He gave her Scott’s last picture of Lexington.


Martha Jackson

She sold her car for two of Pollock’s paintings so she could pay Annie $1,000 for the Scott. When Jackson died, her modern art was bequeathed to the Smithsonian, including one painting which included Lexington.


Alexander’s Jarret

Scott returns, looking really beaten up. Scott says that Jarret bred Grant’s horse Cincinnati. We saw the monument to Grant with Cincinnati. While there, Scott painted Lexington and Jarret.


Jarret was offered by Scott to join the Union army and be emancipated. He refused since he felt it would trade one means of slavery for another. He was bothered by it.


This caused Scott to wonder why did he re-enlist? He was more useful in the army than he had ever been in his life—more useful than he ever likely would be again. The work he did allowed men to live instead of die. He worked with both Union soldiers and the prisoners. He used to talk with the prisoners but now he had stopped seeking such dialogue. They were, all of them, lost to a narrative untethered to anything he recognized as true. Is there a time when you should stop dialoguing with someone? What criteria?


Rebel renegades were at the Alexander farm stealing horses. The Quantrill gang. This gang included Jesse and Frank James. Wikipedia does not have them in Kentucky, but in Missouri and Kansas, mostly with Texas as their Winter place. But evidently they were very ruthless. Brook’s notes there is documentation that this raid did happen.


The gang had captured and abused Willa Viley. Also his men were raping the women. They took Alexander and Scott as well. Burnt Alexander’s property.


Theo

Theo is going to give back the painting to the widow. It is worth $15,000. Jess noted that she is a bigot. But Theo says that “Whatever she might be, it doesn’t mean that I won’t do what I know to be right.” That is something to be said. What the other person is does not make me a different person. It is only by turning into that other person do I change. Do I really want to be the other person?


Theo goes out for a run. He finds a woman laying in a ravine. No cell signal. The police finds him leaning over the woman.


Alexander’s Jarret

Jarret and Lexington stalk the gang. They dumped Viley Jarret gets him to safely. Then Viley lets him know that he regrets his part in getting Warfield to sell the horse. Like Theo, Jarret’s anger rises, and then he controls it.


Jarret rescues Scott and the horses. Then flees north.


Jess

Theo is late coming back from his run. Both Jess and Theo loved to chase small fragments of knowledge. She phones him and gets a strange voice which wants to know her relationship with Theo. She is questioned about his family and his movements. She is to identify the body.


Alexander’s Jarret

Killing was new to Jarret. It is one thing to read and think about it intellectually. But to commit the act is a different thing.


Jarret brought the horses to Alexander’s farm in the North. Jarret went on to Canada as Alexander’s agent, to buy and sell thoroughbreds as his trusted agent.


Jess

Jess went to the morgue, a place of shimmering glass walls enclosed a palace of sadness. This phrase just struck me. She would not be allowed to see Theo, only a picture.


But she did get to pick up Clancy, Theo’s dog.


When she returned to Theo’s apartment, a newspaper report was there. The reporter fills in what happened to Theo and what the police are saying. The reporter will be writing up a profile on Theo. It hit Jess then the bleak thought: everything she knew about Theo was, now, all she would ever know.


Jarret Lewis

Ten years after the Civil War, Jarret goes to New York to go to the offices of Turf, Field and Farm. Lexington had died and it had run his obituary. Jarret was with Lexington at the end as well as at the beginning.


Jarret has made Canada his home and will not be visiting the United States again. The reason-there is difficulty in Blacks in the thoroughbred world. You must know that for some who supported the Southern cause, the war is not over. Blacks have accidents where white jockeys cause them to fall. This sport that once gathered all classes and, yes, colors, will not thrive long if it continues to spit on the talent that built it.” Jarret had come to see Scott’s painting of Lexington and himself. And to buy it.


Jarret married in Canada and has a child. He can vote there. He hoped she looked at it from time to time and thought of him kindly, as he thought of her. Now that he knew what it was to be truly loved, he had no regrets there.


Jess

Jess is leaving the country and taking Clancy with him.


She attended a rally, leaving with the hope of holding police accountable. But there was not. There was hate on social accounts towards Theo. Hope left her.


Daniel, Theo’s friend, noted that Theo did not know how to live as a Black in a White country.


Lexington was now getting popular. A museum in Kentucky wanted it on permanent loan. There she met a collector who wanted to hire her for his collection in Australia.


Lexington’s Historical Connections

This is an important part of the book



Evaluation:

Horse is the best book I have read in a year and probably in years. Geraldine Brooks has created a story which is compelling and an enjoyable use of words.


I have two bones to pick, and they are my personal hang ups. First, I do not like fictional works about real people. There are too many ways to color their characters to give impressions which may or may not be true, under the guise of fiction. Brooks use is of characters, people whom I have not heard of before and probably will not hear from again seems to keep their basic character without coloring them too much. Second, books which jump back and forth between the past and current. Once again, I think Brooks was able to do this effectively, adding to the story line, without the contriveness or jerkiness you sometimes get from books which employ this technique. As the book progressed I was actually looking forward to these jumps.


I enjoyed Brooks storytelling. How she wove the stories of a horse and a painting to tell something about our past and our present. Lexington was a horse of the 1850’s to 1870’s, both racing and studding. She talks about the treatment of racehorses in that day and in this day. How they would sustain injury, but they were cared for and given due rest. While today, they are raced until they are worn out.


And then there are matters of race. She goes through the obvious drawbacks of slavery. But for the most part her protagonist’s life is protected from many of the horrors of Southern slavery. But still he is not his own person until he moves to Canada. The chapter titles say it all: Warfield’s Jarret, Ten Broeck’s Jarret, Alexander’s Jarret. Is only the last where he is Jarret Lewis.


But there is a tie in with today. The current day male Black, Theo, is shot and killed. But throughout the book, there is the tension where whites keep stepping on his toes, without knowing or meaning to. You wonder is that the writer being over-sensitive? Or is it that we do not see enough of each other to understand what causes pain?


One thing I think is a weakness is the part which “coincidence” plays in this book. A woman is instructed to find a horse skeleton; a man finds a painting of the same horse. Another woman happened to be at Oxford and enjoyed polo meets the star of the Oxford team. While Brooks does not make a point of it, without many of the crucial events coming together, this is a story which would fall apart.


This is a book worth reading on several layers. Just the pure joy of reading something good. But second, allow yourself to better understand those around you and how we are not just what we seem today, but where we have come from.


 
Notes from my book group:

As my book group discussed this book, it was evident that people were comfortable with how Brooks treated Jarret as a slave. But how Theo and Jess were portrayed and their reactions to perceived racism was a different matter. Some felt Brooks was forcing an edge to how Theo felt. Others were comfortable. Having Theo killed seemed over the top for most of this group, a bit of pandering to today’s climate.



What did you like/dislike about the book?


What words seemed strange or unknown to you? Why do you think she used these words?


What themes do you see running through this book?


Why do you think Brooks wrote this book?


What part does coincidence play in this book?


What character stood out the most for you?


What questions did you have when you read this book?


Describe Richard Ten Broeck? How would you describe his moral character? What was the overriding desire of his life?


What was Jarret’s identity? How would you describe him? What is his focus in life? How did being Warfield’s Jarret, Ten Broeck’s Jarret, and Alexander’s Jarret shape him? Why doesn’t Jarret escape when the opportunity presents itself on more than one occasion?


Is there friendship between Jarret and Scott? Does Jarret trust him? What gets in the way of their relationship? How does Scott step over boundaries? Is this the same wedge between Jarret and Mary Barr Clay? If so, why does Brooks repeat this?


Later on Scott says that if war breaks out, he would join the North and fight. Jarret thinks he still takes Southern slave money. How do you think Scott reconciled his job in the south with his beliefs? How do you reconcile your beliefs with the reality of living in a society which does not share that belief?


Brooks makes the comment that Ten Broeck died penniless in California {San Mateo to be precise.) This is after winning $200,000 in England. What characteristics of Ten Broeck do you think led to his demise?


How does Brooks, through Theo, show the concerns which Black people have in our society? What did Theo take seriously? What did he not?


There is an edginess to Jess and Theo’s relationship. What causes this edginess? What does Jess not understand? Do you think Theo is being too sensitive? Is this a similar concern which Jarret has with Scott?


Catherine and Theo discuss how different classes of people are treated. Catherine does not see the kind of differentiation she sees in England. Does America have classes-economic or social? Do you think race is more important than class in determining how a person is treated? Or vica versas?


When I first read the book, I thought it was pandering to our current environment. But when I was talking about this book with someone else, she brought up that Brooks has an adopted Black son. Which raises the question, when we read a book, does an author's own narrative make a difference in how we read a book?


Brooks talks about the sport of horse racing, both past and present. What concerns are expressed about each era?


What did you learn through this book?


How do you want your life to change because you read this book?



Many of these questions are either from or adapted from LitLovers.

Why the title of Horse?

Did the ending seem fitting? Satisfying? Predictable?

Which character was the most convincing? Least?

Which character did you identify with?

Which one did you dislike?

Every story has a world view. Were you able to identify this story’s world view? What was it? How did it affect the story?

In what context was religion talked about in this book?

Was there anybody you would consider religious?

How did they show it?

Was the book overtly religious?

How did it affect the book's story?

Why do you think the author wrote this book?

What would you ask the author if you had a chance?

What “takeaways” did you have from this book?

Describe the culture talked about in the book.

How is the culture described in this book different than where we live?

What economic or political situations are described?

How did this book affect your view of the world?

Of how God is viewed?

What questions did you ask yourself after reading this book?

Talk about specific passages that struck you as significant—or interesting, profound, amusing, illuminating, disturbing, sad...?

What was memorable?

Reading Groups General Fiction Guide



Reading Guide from Penguin Books

Questions and Topics for Discussion



1. On page 28 (Theo, Georgetown, Washington, DC, 2019), Theo reflects that depictions of horses are among the oldest art humans created. The book’s epigraphs reflect on the significance of Lexington—in his day, an even bigger celebrity than Seabiscuit or Secretariat. Discuss the enduring human fascination with horses—do they move you more than other animals, and if so, why?



2. Theo and Jess are both obsessed with their rarefied fields of expertise. Does the author manage to convey why these unusual careers can be so compelling? If so, how?



3. Jarret’s connection with horses is presented as stronger than his bonds with people. How does his love for and dedication to Lexington help or hamper his coming of age and his transformation over the course of the novel?



4. Horseracing in the mid-nineteenth century was very different to its modern iteration. What surprised you? Do you think horseracing today takes adequate care for the wellbeing of equines?



5. On p. 71 (Thomas J. Scott, The Meadows, Lexington, Kentucky, 1852), Scott writes, “[We] who think we are above enslaving our fellow man are corrupted. Only show us absolute agency over the apt and the willing, and suddenly we find the planters’ obduracy that much less odious. I must guard against the rank seductions of this place.” How does the author draw out the similarities and differences between Northern and Southern attitudes in this era through Thomas J. Scott, a practiced observer who moves between the regions?



6. Several historical figures appear in the novel, among them the emancipationist newspaper publisher Cassius Clay and his daughter, the suffragist Mary Barr Clay. What are Cassius Clay’s arguments for emancipation to the Warfield family? Do you see the roots of what would become Mary Barr Clay’s passion for the women’s suffrage movement in the way she is portrayed in her youth? What are their respective strengths and limitations? How do novels make historical figures come alive for us beyond what we might find in a work of nonfiction?



7. Martha Jackson was a real American gallery owner and art collector. Discuss her portrayal in Horse and what her relationship to the painting of Lexington conveys about her character. What does her storyline contribute to the novel’s themes? What did her chapters reveal to you about America in that era, and did you notice any similarities between the art world of the mid-20th century and the horseracing economy of a century prior?



8. Referring to the Civil War on p. 87 (Jess, Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC, 2019), Jess says, “Not my war […] Unless you call Australia the very Deep South.” Theo is also not American. Nevertheless, they’re both forced to reckon with the legacy of slavery—particularly Theo, who encounters racism in his daily life. How does this affect their relationship? What does the novel reveal about the way history shapes our present moment?



9. Discuss Theo and Jess’s relationship. What do you think attracts them to one another despite their differences? What do they learn from each other?



10. Examine Jess’s conversation with Daniel in the aftermath of what happens to Theo at the end of the novel. What did you make of Daniel’s assessment of the situation? Do you share his point of view?



 

New Words:

  • ziggurat-a rectangular stepped tower, sometimes surmounted by a temple. Ziggurats are first attested in the late 3rd millennium BC and probably inspired the biblical story of the Tower of Babel
  • Kelpie-an Australian sheepdog capable of mustering and droving with little or no guidance
  • Macerating-soften or become softened by soaking in a liquid
  • Marse-Alternative form of master, often used as a general title of respect. quotations
  • Croup-inhorse anatomy, the croup refers specifically to the topline of the horse's hindquarters and surrounding musculature, beginning at the hip, extending proximate to the sacral vertebrae and stopping at the dock of the tail (where the coccygeal vertebrae begin)
  • Pliability-the quality of being easily bent; flexibility
  • blood bay-color
  • Surcingle-a strap made of leather or leather-like synthetic materials such as nylon or neoprene, sometimes with elastic, that fastens around the horse's girth
  • syllabub- a sweet dish made by curdling sweet cream or milk with an acid such as wine or cider.
  • Cyanotype-a 170 year old photographic printing process that produces prints in a distinctive dark greenish-blue
  • hessian sacking- used to ship wool, tobacco, and cotton, as well as foodstuffs such as coffee, flour, vegetables, and grains ...
  • Canter-a three-beat gait of a horse or other quadruped between a trot and a gallop.
  • Chamfered-cut away (a right-angled edge or corner) to make a symmetrical sloping edge
  • ague-malaria or some other illness involving fever and shivering.
  • Carapace-the hard upper shell of a turtle
  • Spavined-old and decrepit
  • quadroons-a person who is one-quarter Black by descent.
  • Octoroons-a person who is one-eighth Black by descent
  • po-co-a little; somewhat.???
  • Manumission-release from slavery.
  • Secesh-of or relating to U.S. secessionists or secessionism
  • addlepated-being mixed up : confused, eccentric
  • Quidded-past tense of A piece, as of tobacco, to be chewed. In this case, it is chewed hay.

 

Book References:
 
  • A Troye Legacy: Animal Painter by Genevieve Baird Lacer
  • The Great Black Jockeys by Edward Hotaling
  • Race Horse Men: How Slavery and Freedom Were Made at the Racetrack by Katherine C. Mooney
  • Bound in Wedlock: Slave and Free Black Marriage in the Nineteenth Century by Tera W. Hunter
  • Horse of a Different Color by Jim Squires
  • Spying on the South by Frederick Law Olmsted
  • The Man from Snowy River by A.B. Paterson
  • Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelly,
  • Banksy: You Are An Acceptable Level of Threat by Patrick Potter


Good Quotes:
  • First Line: The deceptively reductive forms of the artist’s work belie the density of meaning forged by a bifurcated existence.
  • Last Line: All around him, a herd of tiny Dawn Horses gamboled at his feet.
  • You never get a second chance to have a first impression. Chp Theo
  • There was a power in knowing how to read and write. Chp Ten Broeck’s Jarret
  • You choose a side, you also chose an enemy. Chp Alexander’s Jarret
  • I have observed that there is nothing a man is more pleased to do than speak of his own life, Chp Thomas J Scott
 
Table of Contents:
  • Contents
  • Cover
  • Also by Geraldine Brooks
  • Title Page
  • Copyright
  • Dedication
  • Epigraph
  • Theo
  • Jess
  • Warfield’s Jarret
  • Theo
  • Thomas J. Scott
  • Warfield’s Jarret
  • Jess
  • Theo
  • Warfield’s Jarret
  • Jess
  • Thomas J. Scott
  • Warfield’s Jarret
  • Jess
  • Warfield’s Jarret
  • Jess
  • Thomas J. Scott
  • Warfield’s Jarret
  • Mary Barr Clay
  • Theo
  • Ten Broeck’s Jarret
  • Jess
  • Ten Broeck’s Jarret
  • Theo
  • Martha Jackson
  • Ten Broeck’s Jarret
  • Martha Jackson
  • Ten Broeck’s Jarret
  • Martha Jackson
  • Thomas J. Scott
  • Ten Broeck’s Jarret
  • Jess
  • Ten Broeck’s Jarret
  • Thomas J. Scott
  • Theo
  • Ten Broeck’s Jarret
  • Jess
  • Ten Broeck’s Jarret
  • Theo
  • Ten Broeck’s Jarret
  • Jess
  • Alexander’s Jarret
  • Martha Jackson
  • Thomas J. Scott
  • Martha Jackson
  • Alexander’s Jarret
  • Martha Jackson
  • Alexander’s Jarret
  • Theo
  • Alexander’s Jarret
  • Jess
  • Alexander’s Jarret
  • Jess
  • Jarret Lewis
  • Jess
  • Afterword
  • Lexington’s Historical Connections


References:
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