Post by fizz on Dec 7, 2014 16:30:58 GMT 1
I like most people first read this in the Green Dragon edition when I was about eleven, it quickly became my favourite. I still loved it when I re-read it as an adult, though I was aware then of some poor writing and very one dimensional characters. Recently on Jane Badger's Blog I read the book had been heavily abridged. Intrigued I purchased a first edition, and was quite astonished at the difference. So I have decided to review it.
My review may contain some spoilers (even for those who thought they knew all the story from the Green Dragon).
Ribbons and Rings was written by Gillian Baxter in 1959 and was published in 1960. Chronologically it follows the publication of her first two Roberta books and Tan and Tarmac, but it is a stand alone story. Shaun, one of the central characters also appears, though I haven't read the book, in Horses in the Heather.
At the time of its publication, show jumping was becoming increasingly popular, with riders such as Pat Smythe, David Broome and Harvey Smith, household names. Ribbons and Rings captures much of the glamour and intensity of that era. Although I would have been a small baby in 1960, I can remember how popular show jumping was in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is hard to believe just how much media coverage it had then compared to today.
The story tells the establishment of a string of show jumpers from unknown novices to the Horse of the Year Show and their successes there. This is probably the weak point of the book as it is unrealistic that someone could have up graded horses in that short a time when the horses had no prior experience.
It focusses on three main young characters, Pauline, a sixteen year old inexperienced groom, Shaun, an Irishman in his early twenties who is employed to bring the horses on, and Leslie, the attractive daughter of a rich industrialist, who is in her late teens.
From the start Gillian Baxter creates a detailed and authentic picture of what it was like to work with horses in that era. Things have changed so dramatically, so we might even view this as a historical document. In the Green Dragon version there is sufficient detail about the horses, so as a child that satisfied me, I wasn't so interested in people then!
Gillian Baxter always describes horses vividly, we can see the horses in front of us.
"..a darkly dappled grey five year old, fifteen three hands high, with an immensely bold head and eye. He was an Arabian-Highland cross and he had the gay, arresting presence of any horse with Arabian blood".
Further in the book we see Shaun's first impression of the mare Black Vixen; the mare that contributes to much of the book's drama and darker notes.
"About Vixen he was not so sure. There was something about her that struck a slightly wrong note, something about the set of her ears, her slightly small white glinting eye, and that slight bump between her eyes, and he didn't like the sluggish way she moved about in her box, and the clamped down position of her tail".
I must say that description of Vixen has always stayed with me and I always notice any horses or ponies with those attributes!
Details like these give the book it's interest and power for me. Where as the Green Dragon saves the equine detail, the original has much better fleshed out portraits of the human protagonists as well, it is a huge pity these are stripped from the paperback, (though many of the descriptions of 1950s-60s fashion remain).
Pauline in particular is much better described and we find out more about her previous experience and the reasons for her anxieties.
These quotes are from the original but omitted from the Green Dragon edition.
"At Hillside, Leslie remembered, it had always been Pauline who had been left with the dullest, dreariest jobs, always Pauline who was kept rebuilding jumps and replacing bending poles at the gymkhana practices, and always Pauline whom everyone found the most to blame or the most comical when anything went wrong". and
"Accidents and illness always frightened her, both by their actual unpleasantness and because she felt awkward and uncertain over how to handle them. The less she saw of Shaun's accident the happier she would be".
Pauline is nervous of the fresh horses and her immediate boss Shaun, whose Irishness, red hair and temper are pretty stereotypical, even in the unabridged version. We also are treated to a very sexist line in the original that I must quote. It is at the beginning when Shaun is told about the job possibility by Major Davidson, the show jumping rider who stables his horse at Stone Heath Riding School.
"He wondered if I knew of anyone. I did, as a matter of fact-girl named Vicky Drake, good little girl; but he won't have her. Says he'd rather have a man. His theory is that a girl always goes off to get married when she's most needed".
Gut wrenching stuff. The sexual stereotyping does date the book and drifts in and out of the text when one reads; there are other examples, all the detailed descriptions of the fashions, which I presume were supposed to interest the early 1960s teen age girls who read the book.
Also all the pressure Leslie has to face, when she wants a farm career rather than the social rounds leading to the right marriage, her Mother desires.
In the Green Dragon we are subjected to some really insensitive abridging, so Baxter's prose appears clunky and her characters mere cut outs.
Here are two examples, Green Dragon edition:
"This was life and fulfilment, this is what he and the great chestnut had been born for. In this horse Shaun knew, he had in his grasp the world of international jumping".
Original version:
"....a wonderful exhilaration took hold of Shaun as they slid between the higher wings without so much as brushing them. This was life and fulfilment, this was what he and the great chestnut had been born for, this speed and sweep and unleashed power. This horse was no Vixen to jib and nap and sneak-no solid earthbound Barley or wild, unpredictable though well loved Toreador. He was even more than the fast, gay, chivalrous Stormcock. His destiny was the great show rings of the world, the coloured poles, the blazing lights, the honour and the glory, the breathless hush and the wild hysteria of unleashed applause. In this horse, Shaun knew, he had in his grasp the world of international jumping"
What a shame they took that out. If you want to find out about Shaun's previous background, more about Pauline and Leslie, then you really need to get your hands on one of the originals. They tell the same story, but there is so much missed out of the Green Dragon edition. Gillian Baxter writes really good prose with a lot of horsey and human detail. I really felt I knew all the human as well as the equine characters this time.
It is also a great period piece, a teen novel written when girls careers were only until marriage, it was acceptable to smoke, everything was described as "gay" and the Horse of the Year Show was still at Harringay.
My review may contain some spoilers (even for those who thought they knew all the story from the Green Dragon).
Ribbons and Rings was written by Gillian Baxter in 1959 and was published in 1960. Chronologically it follows the publication of her first two Roberta books and Tan and Tarmac, but it is a stand alone story. Shaun, one of the central characters also appears, though I haven't read the book, in Horses in the Heather.
At the time of its publication, show jumping was becoming increasingly popular, with riders such as Pat Smythe, David Broome and Harvey Smith, household names. Ribbons and Rings captures much of the glamour and intensity of that era. Although I would have been a small baby in 1960, I can remember how popular show jumping was in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is hard to believe just how much media coverage it had then compared to today.
The story tells the establishment of a string of show jumpers from unknown novices to the Horse of the Year Show and their successes there. This is probably the weak point of the book as it is unrealistic that someone could have up graded horses in that short a time when the horses had no prior experience.
It focusses on three main young characters, Pauline, a sixteen year old inexperienced groom, Shaun, an Irishman in his early twenties who is employed to bring the horses on, and Leslie, the attractive daughter of a rich industrialist, who is in her late teens.
From the start Gillian Baxter creates a detailed and authentic picture of what it was like to work with horses in that era. Things have changed so dramatically, so we might even view this as a historical document. In the Green Dragon version there is sufficient detail about the horses, so as a child that satisfied me, I wasn't so interested in people then!
Gillian Baxter always describes horses vividly, we can see the horses in front of us.
"..a darkly dappled grey five year old, fifteen three hands high, with an immensely bold head and eye. He was an Arabian-Highland cross and he had the gay, arresting presence of any horse with Arabian blood".
Further in the book we see Shaun's first impression of the mare Black Vixen; the mare that contributes to much of the book's drama and darker notes.
"About Vixen he was not so sure. There was something about her that struck a slightly wrong note, something about the set of her ears, her slightly small white glinting eye, and that slight bump between her eyes, and he didn't like the sluggish way she moved about in her box, and the clamped down position of her tail".
I must say that description of Vixen has always stayed with me and I always notice any horses or ponies with those attributes!
Details like these give the book it's interest and power for me. Where as the Green Dragon saves the equine detail, the original has much better fleshed out portraits of the human protagonists as well, it is a huge pity these are stripped from the paperback, (though many of the descriptions of 1950s-60s fashion remain).
Pauline in particular is much better described and we find out more about her previous experience and the reasons for her anxieties.
These quotes are from the original but omitted from the Green Dragon edition.
"At Hillside, Leslie remembered, it had always been Pauline who had been left with the dullest, dreariest jobs, always Pauline who was kept rebuilding jumps and replacing bending poles at the gymkhana practices, and always Pauline whom everyone found the most to blame or the most comical when anything went wrong". and
"Accidents and illness always frightened her, both by their actual unpleasantness and because she felt awkward and uncertain over how to handle them. The less she saw of Shaun's accident the happier she would be".
Pauline is nervous of the fresh horses and her immediate boss Shaun, whose Irishness, red hair and temper are pretty stereotypical, even in the unabridged version. We also are treated to a very sexist line in the original that I must quote. It is at the beginning when Shaun is told about the job possibility by Major Davidson, the show jumping rider who stables his horse at Stone Heath Riding School.
"He wondered if I knew of anyone. I did, as a matter of fact-girl named Vicky Drake, good little girl; but he won't have her. Says he'd rather have a man. His theory is that a girl always goes off to get married when she's most needed".
Gut wrenching stuff. The sexual stereotyping does date the book and drifts in and out of the text when one reads; there are other examples, all the detailed descriptions of the fashions, which I presume were supposed to interest the early 1960s teen age girls who read the book.
Also all the pressure Leslie has to face, when she wants a farm career rather than the social rounds leading to the right marriage, her Mother desires.
In the Green Dragon we are subjected to some really insensitive abridging, so Baxter's prose appears clunky and her characters mere cut outs.
Here are two examples, Green Dragon edition:
"This was life and fulfilment, this is what he and the great chestnut had been born for. In this horse Shaun knew, he had in his grasp the world of international jumping".
Original version:
"....a wonderful exhilaration took hold of Shaun as they slid between the higher wings without so much as brushing them. This was life and fulfilment, this was what he and the great chestnut had been born for, this speed and sweep and unleashed power. This horse was no Vixen to jib and nap and sneak-no solid earthbound Barley or wild, unpredictable though well loved Toreador. He was even more than the fast, gay, chivalrous Stormcock. His destiny was the great show rings of the world, the coloured poles, the blazing lights, the honour and the glory, the breathless hush and the wild hysteria of unleashed applause. In this horse, Shaun knew, he had in his grasp the world of international jumping"
What a shame they took that out. If you want to find out about Shaun's previous background, more about Pauline and Leslie, then you really need to get your hands on one of the originals. They tell the same story, but there is so much missed out of the Green Dragon edition. Gillian Baxter writes really good prose with a lot of horsey and human detail. I really felt I knew all the human as well as the equine characters this time.
It is also a great period piece, a teen novel written when girls careers were only until marriage, it was acceptable to smoke, everything was described as "gay" and the Horse of the Year Show was still at Harringay.