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Post by rallycairn on Oct 2, 2013 1:35:23 GMT 1
Just wanted to go ahead and set up a thread for our "unofficial" October read of Tears for a Tall Horse! Thanks for joining in!
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Post by Claire on Oct 2, 2013 17:51:49 GMT 1
Thanks for organising this Rally. Hope you don't mind have moved this to the reading circle board as it might have got lost in the main pony book section. Also did you try and do a poll - if it won't let you I'll add one for the thread.
Just to remind folk - I have a spare copy of this which I can lend anyone (UK). Just post here or PM me if you'd like to borrow it.
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Post by kunuma 22 on Oct 2, 2013 19:02:41 GMT 1
Thanks for organising this Rally. Hope you don't mind have moved this to the reading circle board as it might have got lost in the main pony book section. Also did you try and do a poll - if it won't let you I'll add one for the thread. Just to remind folk - I have a spare copy of this which I can lend anyone (UK). Just post here or PM me if you'd like to borrow it. Think my computer is having an argument with proboards - anyway Claire may I be one of the borrowers please?
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Post by rallycairn on Oct 2, 2013 19:38:54 GMT 1
Thanks, Claire, I am still working on the poll but will let you know if I need help. I do know that I wanted to put this thread in the Reading Circle forum, but it wouldn't let me, so I assume that is something a mod must do. Thanks for moving it and again I will let you know about the poll. I wrote it all up yesterday but we have quite a few nominations and I am double checking titles and authors before I post.
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Post by rallycairn on Oct 3, 2013 5:03:03 GMT 1
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Post by brumby on Oct 3, 2013 7:40:13 GMT 1
Hi Rally my copy of Tears for a tall horse just arrived so I will get reading If Claire allows me to stop reading DP/T books
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Post by Claire on Oct 3, 2013 12:52:38 GMT 1
Lol Brumby will let you off the hook long enough to read this one Glad you got the supernatural top 10 poll sorted Rally, wasn't sure if non-admin could do polls any more as a couple of other people had trouble and there is now no option for saying who can do polls on the admin section. So its nice to know members can still set them. Kunuma I'll start reading this as soon as poss so I can pass it on to you fairly soon. If anyone else wants to read it then kunuma can pass it on to them.
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Post by rallycairn on Oct 3, 2013 14:22:40 GMT 1
Glad you got your book, Brumby. Shouldn't take long before you can get back to DPT, it's just one book!
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Post by susanb on Oct 5, 2013 21:14:11 GMT 1
Finished! Thanks rally, for pushing this one to the top of my tbr pile, you were right, it's really excellent.
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Post by rallycairn on Oct 6, 2013 14:24:27 GMT 1
So glad you enjoyed it, Susan! Save plenty of comments for the discussion!
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Post by Claire on Oct 6, 2013 16:37:13 GMT 1
Finished my 2nd reading of it and wasn't quite as annoyed by the Americanization of it as the first time round, probably cos I've read some far worse Americanized books than that since.
Rally are you going to put a poll up for this? Just follow the same format as the other reading circle titles.
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Post by Claire on Oct 11, 2013 19:30:25 GMT 1
I've sent my copy of this to kunuma so if anyone else wants to borrow it please PM her and she will be able to pass it on to you when she has read it.
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Post by susanb on Oct 11, 2013 21:33:00 GMT 1
Claire, I'd agree...it's FAR, FAR less Americanized than the other Pony Club books....I'm guessing that the fact that the plot includes so much English history as part of the story, making the location some kind of hybrid English/American mishmash was a non-starter.
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Post by Claire on Oct 11, 2013 22:36:24 GMT 1
I think the fact that it was patently in England was what irritated me the most about the Americanization first time I read it, you can sort of get away with using Mom, vacation, check etc if the location is sort of generic. However these are relatively innocuous. The thing that was really silly was having the ASPCA instead of the RSPCA when it was so obviously not in America.
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Post by crosskunuma on Oct 14, 2013 14:11:53 GMT 1
I think the fact that it was patently in England was what irritated me the most about the Americanization first time I read it, you can sort of get away with using Mom, vacation, check etc if the location is sort of generic. However these are relatively innocuous. The thing that was really silly was having the ASPCA instead of the RSPCA when it was so obviously not in America. Now I see what you all mean - honestly what is with this ridiculous dumbing down - is it done without the author's sayso? Do the publishers think that American children are so stupid that they cannot understand that a book set in England, with pages of English history, about English children - is going to mean that the children don't say things like" I haven't got a dime"!! What's a dime anyway? lol Plus as previously mentioned - the ASPCA - !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!made nonsense of the story! Grrrrrrrrrrrr! OK rant about all that over, now onto the book, the changes spoiled it for me, but if they hadn't I would have liked the story - except for the ending - which to me was slightly incongruous. The heroine seemed very self confident, practical and intelligent and I was convinced that she was going to discover the owl's nest or such like which was the real source of the strange noises. I found the fact that it was meant to be a 'real ghost' actually didn't sit well with me as an ending, a crying ghost seemed a bit silly (ghosts would have to have hormones to be emotional -lol) Howver, I enjoyed the book enough to read it at a single sitting - and that's rare with modern pony books, so thumbs up,
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Post by Claire on Oct 14, 2013 15:08:30 GMT 1
Do the publishers think that American children are so stupid that they cannot understand that a book set in England, with pages of English history, about English children is going to mean that the children don't say things like" I haven't got a dime"!! I think that YES they do! Its an insult to the young readers and the authors. It is one of my personal bugbears (one of many lol). Next we'll be having historical books 'modernised' in case the kiddiwinks don't understand all that 'old fashioned stuff' Glad you enjoyed it kunuma. (Let me know what you think of the other books I sent) I do think that the Stabenfeldt books (Americanisation aside) are of a better quality than a lot of the modern stuff. Well I may as well add my input now that discussion has started. Didn't like the Americanisation obviously but enjoyed the story otherwise. Like Kunuma I liked the heroine who was not too goody goody or constantly whining about her lot, two traits which irritate me in book characters. The plot was quite well constructed tho it was a bit unlikely that nobody had found the hidden room before Anna suddenly came along and straight away discovered it. As a history buff I found the historical part of the story interesting, not sure how much it would have appealed to me as a youngster tho! Could have done with a bit more horse stuff. We didnt really see much of Tapestry. But I did like the fact it was a rescue story as well as ghost story. I thought it was a good balance of a traditional story but written in quite a modern, light-toned style. Had some humour in it too. I liked the bit about the locals being frightened of Melissa in her nightie, gave me a chuckle. Like most horsy ghost stories however it wasn't really scary and the ghost was non-threatening - so as a spooky Halloween read it slightly missed the mark. One of the few horse ghost stories which I felt was actually menacing is Freedom by Angela Dorsey, also some of Eleanor Jones' ones have a menacing presence in them. On the whole tho I find the ghosts in horse stories strangely benign. Anyone agree? I wonder why that is...? PS kunuma - are you having probs logging in again?
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Post by susanb on Oct 14, 2013 17:37:51 GMT 1
I liked it very much too....it didn't really bother me that it wasn't horrifying, as I don't expect ghost stories to always be horrifying....after all, a person's spirit is what it is, I don't see it changing after death....a horrid person would make a horrid ghost, but you wouldn't expect a kind person to come back as a mean spirit. In this case, the girl was sad and lost and frightened, and the ghost was too, so it made sense.
I liked the character of the heroine very much, and her friends as well....very roll-up-your-sleeves and get-the-job-done spunk, which was nice to see. Melissa isn't as appealing, especially at the beginning, but you understand why she is as she is....anyone else see an echo of The Secret Garden in the invalid trying to gain the attention and affection of a cold and distant parent?
The only character who really annoyed me was the girl's mother....it's the type of character that always raises my hackles...the parent/guardian who believes other kids over their own, even when they KNOW THEIR CHILD ISN'T A LIAR. (The Susan books by Jane Thaw are prime examples of the archetype.)
re the Americanization, it's so much less evident here than I've seen in many other books that it didn't bother me....it's not like they were buying things with 20 dollar bills, as I've seen in other modern works (I'm looking at you, Anthony Horowitz). The Mum/Mom thing always slips by me, btw, because it just seems odd that there is only the one way Brits refer to their mothers.....both terms are common enough here, so whichever I see seems normal to me. (For the record, my mother was "Mummy", not "Mommy").
Re the the ghost/mystery itself, I never mind one way or the other if the ghost turns out to be real or that the ghostly happenings have an ordinary explanation, as long as it's done well, and I believe this one was!
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Post by Claire on Oct 14, 2013 19:05:58 GMT 1
Wonder why my post was one big quote??? No, I agree Susan I dont feel like a ghost story has to be scary I just wondered why most horse stories involving ghosts have quite benevolent spirits. Also it would have been quite nice to have a spooky scary story in time for Halloween. Good take on the Secret Garden comparison. Also agree with what you say about the mother susan, that really irritates me too. I think the Americanisation is always going to jar more to a Brit. We use mum, mam, mother or even ma over here but NEVER mom, its like a foreign word to us lol. Saying that I wasnt that bothered by the Mom bit it was the ASPCA part that really annoyed me.
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Post by Claire on Oct 16, 2013 12:47:31 GMT 1
Rally hope you don't mind have added the poll.
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Post by brumby on Oct 16, 2013 22:07:16 GMT 1
Thanks Rally for introducing this book, I thoroughly enjoyed it Initially when it arrived I was a bit put off as my copy has a hideous cover and I don't like the title, but apart from that all was good. The americanisms did't really bother me (sure its worse for the Brits) and in my mind the I read RSPCA for ASPCA then the second time it was mentioned I realised it said ASPCA and had to go back and check! I felt the story was good enough to override these faults. Yea the mother was unfair, I guess growing up with a Mum who always takes other peoples sides you get used to it! although I think the mother got sucked in by Melissa fairly quickly. I would have liked to have a bit more horsey content as I was really taken by Tapestry, especially as he was a rescue.
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Post by rallycairn on Oct 17, 2013 15:16:49 GMT 1
Oh, great, it looks like everyone who wanted to participate has had a crack at the book! Is there anyone else still wanting to join in?
I'll start adding some thoughts about the characters, plot, etc. just to flesh out the discussion a bit. Great comments, everyone!
Re: the Americanization, since the story was so heavy on specific history, it was silly to do any Americanization at all. They should simply have had a glossary for anything that might have been truly confusing for a non-British reader.
But if they wanted to make things slightly more generic, they could have just said, for example, SPCA, which I have seen done before, and it would have made the point, or humane society (no caps) or something. The "A" was just stupid. Stupid beyond stupid.
Still, this book was in no way as bad as Stabenfeldt's Diablo series, which varied from title to title in how much they tried to Americanize or at least make generic the setting and in so doing came up with some truly strange terms at times.
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Post by Claire on Oct 17, 2013 22:31:01 GMT 1
Strangely, I can't remember Americanisation in the Diablo books as it usually gets my knickers in a twist but I only read a few. The Americanisation of the Stabenfeldt books was nothing however compared to some of the translations from the European ones. The 'Sara' series was pretty awful in that regard. But much as I can criticize these aspects I do think the standard of pony book published by Stabenfeldt was a lot higher than many others being published at the same time. Shame they stopped publishing English language pony books.
Re. the cover, Brumby I agree its awful and I'm pretty sure that was the only one. They didn't have to be quite so graphic in showing a starving horse!
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Post by rallycairn on Oct 29, 2013 3:52:37 GMT 1
Well, I was struck afresh when I started re-reading Tears for a Tall Horse with the quality of the writing. For example, the opening pages in which the main characters are introduced -- all so skillfully done. In a few sentences we get Anna's background (parents recently divorced, having to move, etc.), we get the sense of her dedication to horses (she won't admit she is outgrowing Tess and she mentions hiking up her stirrup leathers to try to hide the awful truth from herself and others).
Anna's friends Rich and Ginny are vividly drawn (bottom of page 7 in the Stabenfeldt edition): "... Rich guessed. He appeared at the door behind Ginny, towering above her. He had kind eyes under a shock of brown hair, and people often thought, mistakenly, that he was dull and serious, but he seemed quiet only in comparison with Ginny. He had, in fact, a sharp sense of humor and remarkable strength of character that made him more than able to handle Ginny's mercurial temper. Their occasional, spectacular arguments were legendary."
In addition to her dedication to her pony, Anna is appealing to me because of her love of historical places. p.11: "But I liked old places and old things. I found it fascinating to cross an ancient threshold and wonder who had crossed it before me long ago ..."
Quality writing imo. Not glib or rushed or let's get right to some action, or facile setup into superficial formula.
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Post by Claire on Oct 29, 2013 11:56:25 GMT 1
I agree the quality of writing is better than average. I also forgot to mention I like the first person narrative too. I prefer books written in first to third most of the time.
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Post by rallycairn on Oct 29, 2013 12:21:36 GMT 1
Claire, earlier you mentioned ghosts in horse stories often being benign -- if you want evil-intentioned ghosts some of Eleanor Jones's foot the bill. Then there's the: horse ghost is seen as an evil presence or portent, but is actually just the opposite and is trying to warn or protect, or was a victim itself (Pamela Kavanagh's, for example).
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Post by Claire on Oct 29, 2013 20:28:33 GMT 1
Yes I've read a few of Eleanor Jones books. Pretty good and as you say good old fashioned nasty ghosts!
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Post by rallycairn on Nov 1, 2013 4:13:12 GMT 1
I can't help myself -- I have to return to the discussion of Americanizing the book, I can certainly see why this was so annoying. The first couple of pages are just so very British-seeming to me that to do things like use "Mom" and the "ASPCA" just seems so absurd -- and then when you add in so much specifically English history, the idea of trying to pretend the story takes place in America is just insanely ridiculous. In fact, in spite of the ASPCA reference, I wonder if the editors were simply trying to make the story a little more generic, or more easily understandable and approachable, to audiences from different countries, rather than specifically trying to Americanize.
Anyway, though, just because I enjoy country and regional differences, just a few Britishisms or British turns of phrase in the first few pages alone included:
p. 5 "tied cottage"
p. 5 "stockman" (this almost sounds more Aussie to me than British, or not???)
p. 6 "Comprehensive" school
p. 6 "loan home" (we would say free lease and it is quite common here, too)
p. 8 having "a" coffee instead of having coffee, and also such young kids drinking it -- Not completely unheard of here, but I suspect much more rare.
Anyway, I won't go on, and most of these are readily understood even if unfamiliar, but it just is baffling why they changed some things and not others. I really didn't let this mar my enjoyment of the story, though, at all -- which I guess is a testament to the quality of the writing, as I tend to find such things difficult to overlook. The book even has some typo- kinds of errors, too -- like "and" for "an" and similar. And one of my biggest peeves -- there is even one "then" when it should have been "than."
Do let me focus on one folksy regionalism, though -- although I have certainly heard of eating carrots for good eye health, WHAT is the thinking behind "crusts" for "teeth?" -- and wasn't it so funny that Pearly "swung round and sank her crust-improved teeth" into Mr. Big's neck? That was really skillful, setting up a little ongoing situational banter like that and bringing it in again at the end of the scene.
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Post by Claire on Nov 1, 2013 12:41:12 GMT 1
I quite agree Rally, the reason I got so annoyed with the Americanisms the first time I read it was that most of the book stressed its 'Britishness' so changing just a few things seemed bizarre and a waste of time. Why think that USA kids would not understand what the RSPCA was and yet know what a comprehensive school or a tied cottage was? I do think it was changed for the American market, rather than a generic readership, as the book was published by Stabenfeldt for their 'Pony' book club, aimed at the USA market. I must have a look at some of the other British authors who wrote for Stabenfeldt and see how Americanised their books were. It must be quite annoying to authors to see their books changed in this needless way. If there had to be changes for the American reader then it could have been done in a much better way by some sort of explanation, or just missing out some of the specific British terms. I know some UK authors who bare oublished in the USA get around this problem by actually setting their stories IN America! BTW in my part of the country eating crusts is supposed to give you curly hair!
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Post by susanb on Nov 1, 2013 14:05:57 GMT 1
It's always possible that the people who translated it from the German back to "American" English didn't know what a tied cottage was, (and couldn't be bothered to find out) so they had no idea what to translate it to Re the "a" coffee rather than just "coffee" or "a cup of coffee", it's a phrase that does exist in the US, the only place I've heard it, though, is New Jersey.
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Post by rallycairn on Nov 1, 2013 14:58:15 GMT 1
On a more positive note, I enjoyed the characters of the Poppys! Although I wish Mr. Poppy had been in the story throughout, rather than at the beginning and then just getting a mention after that. But otherwise here again I admired the writing so much -- Wigley needed only a few sentences about his family's multigenerational service to the estate, his own longterm loyalty, and his aches and pains to draw his character pretty well. Then Anna realizing quickly that a little sympathy would go a long way with him added to the charm. Also loved the way Anna tried to get past his cryptic way of speaking to the bare bones of what he was saying -- even if he really did have a true portent to convey, you could tell he still enjoyed being mysterious and avoiding direct answers, I thought. I got a chuckle from this moment when Anna was looking around outside for the first time (p29): "The grass under the trees was long, and clumps of nettles and brambles, that had been only partially cleared, were re-sprouting their triumph over My Ted's back." I also enjoyed the herb lore Mr. Poppy conveyed, and it very much reminded me of the old herb woman in Pamela Kavanagh's Dreamcatcher. Do we horse mad folk also tend to like natural remedies? I think so, if you think of all the supplements and "nutriceuticals" we are giving our horses these days, and all the old- time horse remedies like favorite liniments and favorite bran mash recipes (I think that would be a fun thread for Christmas, btw, sharing our favorite mash recipes and homespun horse tonics and remedies. My go-to mash recipe is Sam Savitt's, so it has further pony book connections! ) Only thing I was surprised at was Mrs. Poppy quitting, even for a brief time. Clearly Melissa had been quite a problem for a long time, and run off quite a few housekeepers and so on, and that constant changing of personnel plus Melissa's whining and spoiled behavior would be pretty stressful, but still her husband was still working there and was an integral part of the estate in lots of ways, and she herself been there a long time ... but it made the point quickly I guess about how Melissa's nighttime walks in her nightgown led to some big consequences.
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