Pale Horse, Pale Rider (H B J Modern Classic)

Sam Sattler 2008-10-17

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Pale Horse, Pale Rider is the collection of Katherine Anne Porter's three short novels that was first published in 1939, offering three pieces of fiction that very much helped to make and secure Porter's reputation as one of this country's best short fiction writers. Calling these pieces "short novels" may be a bit of a stretch for most readers, however, and it may be more appropriate to look at them as "long short stories." After all, the book is only 150 pages in length.

Porter herself weighed in on the question and seems to have preferred the term "short novels" asking of readers and critics, "please do not call my short novels Novelettes, or even worse, Novellas. Novelette is classical usage for a trivial, dime-novel sort of thing; Novella is a slack, boneless, affected word that we do not need to describe anything. Please call my books by their right names..." However we choose to categorize these stories, it is easy to see why they are still being read today, almost seventy years after they were first published, and why they solidify Porter's reputation.

The first and last stories in Pale Horse, Pale Rider share a main character, Miranda, who is portrayed in "Old Mortality," the first story, as a child growing up in the shadows of her almost legendary Aunt Amy, a beauty who died young but still seems to be the family "star." Miranda and her sister spend much of their childhood trying to unravel the legend of their aunt's life and to make some sense of all the family personalities involved in her history, including that of their own father. As is always the real strength of Porter's fiction, this story is filled with interesting characters and astute observations about the dynamics of family life.

The book's last story, "Pale Horse, Pale Rider," centers again on Miranda, now a young newspaper columnist struggling to make a living completely on her own during the trying times of World War I. Porter captures the home front atmosphere well, including the often overzealous characters who tried to shame their fellow citizens into buying war bonds they could not always afford and the friction between the young men still at home and the women who had been left behind by their own soldier husbands, sons and boy friends. But her story centers on the flu epidemic that so devastated the world during the war years. Her description of the surreal dreams and confusion Miranda experiences in her struggle to survive an attack of the flu is an intense, and sometimes tiring, experience for the reader.

But it is the middle short novel, "Noon Wine," that is my favorite. "Noon Wine" takes place on a tiny Texas farm between 1896 and 1905. As the story opens, the farm is going nowhere and its owner resents the fact that his sickly wife has insisted upon expanding into the dairy business. Even on such a small scale, this lazy man is not at all happy with the daily requirements of tending to his milk cows. His savior arrives in the person of a foreign drifter willing to work for low wages while practically running the farm for its owner. Several years later when a stranger comes to the farm asking questions about the drifter, events suddenly go out of control to the extent that lives are changed forever. Nothing that happens is black and white and Porter does a remarkable job in presenting all the gray tones involved in the situation.

Pale Horse, Pale Rider is an impressive collection that should not be missed by Katherine Anne Porter fans. At the very least, pick up a copy of the book long enough to read "Noon Wine." You will be happy that you did.

Uncritcally Accepted Myth Is A Heavy Burden

Martin Asiner 2006-09-03

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In PALE HORSE, PALE RIDER, Katherine Anne Porter creates a world of two universes; one contains the semi-autobiographical life of Porter's alter-ego, Miranda, who is seen first as a very young girl in the first novella, "Old Mortality," then later as an adult woman in the third entrant, "Pale Horse, Pale Rider." The third novella is "Noon Wine," which is linked to the other two in its focus on a protagonist whose choice of life is severely restricted by the need to conform to society's restrictions. In these three long short stories, Porter elaborates on themes and character types that had previously appeared in her short stories. Porter most often examines the innermost recesses of the human mind that cause her protagonists to encounter spiritual and physical isolation even as they attempt to reach out to end their disconnection. These attempts at finding a soul mate are at first rebuffed, but in their continual probing for like-minded life mates, they achieve a near Faulknerian level of endurance even as they fail.

In "Old Mortality," Porter becomes young Miranda, who has heard of the almost mythical attributes and deeds of her aunt Amy. In Miranda's mind, her aunt is the apotheosis of all that she herself could be. Porter suggests that much of the accepted myth of the American south is similarly grounded on a no questions asked basis. Later as Miranda matures, her growth is seen as both physical and spiritual, but her sphere of newly-won perceptive vision comes at a heavy cost. She learns what happens when brute reality collides with delicate myth. In the second part, Miranda meets the husband-lover of Amy, whose appearance, actions, and words disrupt her connection to the past. This disconnect is deliberately shaded so that the reader is not quite sure whether Porter intends a discrediting of the past or merely a modifying of its accepted interpretation. In the third part, Miranda is further distanced from her idealized view of Amy when she talks to her cousin Eva, who has a definite grudge against Amy, the result of which leaves Miranda feeling that the immortality of myth is itself a myth. Stories and legends then must be measured against the mortality of those who lived them and those who told of them.

In "Noon Wine," Porter tells of a tragedy that begins in the past, assumes a myth that becomes self-sustaining, then encounters a reality that causes pain for all concerned. A Texas farmer named Thompson hires a roustabout Olaf Helton as a field hand. Helton works hard, well, and uncomplainingly. Thompson is more than pleased with Helton but is puzzled by Helton's harmonica, upon which he never plays more than one single tune. One day, a bounty hunter appears with a tale that disrupts Thompson's idyllic view of Helton. The bounty hunter, Homer Hatch, tells Thompson that Helton is an escapee from a lunatic asylum where he was committed for murder. Thompson ironically and unwittingly kills Hatch to protect Helton, an act for which he is tried and exonerated in court. The trial is so devastating to Thompson that he kills himself in depression. Both Thompson and Miranda are faced with disruptive reminders from the past, and the results cause pain to them and their families.

In "Pale Horse, Pale Rider," Porter brings back Miranda as an adult newspaperwoman during the First World War. She falls in love with Adam Barclay an army officer that brings to mind the ill-fated romance between Amy and Gabriel. Both lovers are stricken with the flu epidemic and Adam dies, leaving Miranda grief-ridden. The best Miranda can hope for is to reestablish her spiritual center in a world that is hostile to her very attempt. In all three novellas, Porter precisely captures the essence of those who face moments of crises when they begin to see that the ground underneath their feet is not as solid as once believed.

Beautiful and sad

Three gems in a jewel box

Short fiction the way it should be.