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Pale Horse, Pale Rider

by Katherine Anne Porter

4.0 of 5 stars 4.00 · rating details · 770 ratings · 106 reviews

First published in 1939, these three short novels secured the author’s reputation as a master of short fiction.

Hardcover, 208 pages

Published June 18th 1990 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (first published 1939)

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Jan 15, 2009 Lori (Hellian) rated it 5 of 5 stars

I read this as a teenager and to this date have never ever forgotten it. I get goose bumps remembering it. One day I will reread, and see what I think of it almost 40 years later, especially now that I know it was about the 1911 flu pandemic.

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Sep 25, 2008 John rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: readers who want to be chilled & astounded

Recommended to John by: many folks; I got to it late

Shelves: novellas-edgy-magnificent

In this review I'm speaking only on the title piece, a "short novel" according to Porter, but I do have to say that "Old Mortality" (in the same collection) is also nothing short of magnificent. Still, "Pale Horse, Pale Rider" is the one that clings to the nerves, a masterpiece of illness and the implacable rooting after truth. The illness is personal, to be sure; this is the great work out of the influenza epidemic of the late 19-teens, a border-jumping holocaust that no other artist has found...more In this review I'm speaking only on the title piece, a "short novel" according to Porter, but I do have to say that "Old Mortality" (in the same collection) is also nothing short of magnificent. Still, "Pale Horse, Pale Rider" is the one that clings to the nerves, a masterpiece of illness and the implacable rooting after truth. The illness is personal, to be sure; this is the great work out of the influenza epidemic of the late 19-teens, a border-jumping holocaust that no other artist has found a way to work with. The fever scenes are rendered with an intensity and a manipulation of the surreal that also -- can it be? -- tells a story. Porter, that is, brings off her climax in the midst of hallucination. The passage remains, in fact, among the very few finest renderings of hallucination in our literature, precise yet singing. More's the miracle, all this is embedded with gutty singularity in the mind of her heroine (no lesser word will do). That would be the freethinking Miranda, with no Prospero to corral her tempest. Porter's Miranda shares a number of struggles with her author: a young woman writer working freelance and living on a shoestring, trying to honestly dig into the arts and at the same time turn out her heart's inner sediments for her sometime-lover Adam, a reluctant soldier. But Adam also brings with him another of this novella's accomplishments, a mighty theme and a brave one. Adam's been more or less shanghaied into serving in the Army, doing his part for "the War effort," just as he and Miranda are shamed and bullied into making donations and otherwise supporting a fight that they know has been forced onto them by the rich and powerful. The lies that drive these young people into harm's way cohere as a sickness that infects the very spirit of a nation... and here in the midst of Oil War II, the mortal sickness lingers yet. Katherine Anne Porter had more than a breathtaking writerly gift; also she was a Cassandra, a prophet without honor. Even now you can hear the ragged exhale of her pale horse, looming behind all of young and vulnerable America, (less)

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Aug 14, 2012 Richard rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012

1) One thing becomes clear when reading Pale Horse, Pale Rider: Katherine Anne Porter is a woman who spent a great deal of time fretting over semicolons. There is not a single sentence in this entire book that fails mechanically. There are no clunkers. I did not have to read and re-read sentences to figure out what she was getting at (unlike some other Southern writers I could name): all the pertinant details were vividly conveyed to me in the first go. Porter is an excellent prose stylist and i...more

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May 12, 2012 Christopher Hivner rated it 4 of 5 stars

I was unfamiliar with Katherine Anne Porter before reading this book and am now glad I picked it up. Porter has an amazing way with words and with characterization. With only a few sentences you feel as if you know the people in her stories. This book contains 3 short novels of which I think Pale Horse, Pale Rider is the best. Miranda is a young woman working at a newspaper during the last year of the first world war and of the tragic flu epidemic which killed millions. She goes from show to sho...more

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May 22, 2009 Emily rated it 4 of 5 stars

First, I have to sad it's rather sad to me that this book has been on my shelves for years (having taken my parents' copy when they moved and were getting rid of books), but I probably wouldn't have picked it up if not for three things: 1. Porter was born about eight miles from where I live, 2. I read "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" in the class where I was an assistant and enjoyed it, and 3. I needed something light and small to bring on vacation with me. I'm confused why I never read it bef...more First, I have to sad it's rather sad to me that this book has been on my shelves for years (having taken my parents' copy when they moved and were getting rid of books), but I probably wouldn't have picked it up if not for three things: 1. Porter was born about eight miles from where I live, 2. I read "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" in the class where I was an assistant and enjoyed it, and 3. I needed something light and small to bring on vacation with me. I'm confused why I never read it before, or why few people I know have read her, and it makes me feel uneasy and cynical.

There are three things that stand out to me as I write this. First, I'm not sure if I can think of another female author who lived through the Great War and wrote about it as specifically or intently as Porter does in the title story. It's an amazing contrast to the male writers of her generation who I tend to associate more with "war writing" and all of the noble ideas attached to war. The horror of WWI is not at all the same here -- I suppose I had believed all people who lived through the Great War felt noble and destroyed about it, but here is someone who presents a much more cynical attitude. It was fascinating for me to understand that the type of disenchantment we assume is the marker of the beginning of modernism may not be as solid as it seems.

Second, the third section of "Old Mortality" blew me away. It's a bit like the part in _All the Pretty Horses_ where Alejandra's great aunt sets the boy down for some stern talk about love/sex, but even better. Porter captures the division between youth and age, innocence and experience, hope and bitterness -- with the type of contrast and question-raising that characterizes the best literature, for there is no moralizing, just a perfect rendering of two very different perspectives.

Last, I found it interesting that all of these stories don't really hit their "conflict" until midway through, yet all the prep work isn't a waste. (less)

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Nov 24, 2009 Sterlingcindysu rated it 3 of 5 stars

(copied review) The title story "Pale Horse, Pale Rider" is about the relationship between a newspaper woman, Miranda, and a soldier, Adam, during the influenza epidemic of 1918. In the course of the narrative, Miranda becomes sick and delirious, but recovers, only to find that Adam has died of the disease, which he likely caught while tending to her. The story is set in Denver, Colorado. Porter herself lived for a time in Denver, where she wrote reviews for the Rocky Mountain News and was stric...more

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Apr 12, 2010 rachel rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010, loved, from-library, favorites, my-brain-wants-to-marry-your-brain, of-the-south-or-its-environs, this-is-america

While all three novellas in this book are excellent, both "Noon Wine" and "Pale Horse, Pale Rider" quietly tragic, my heart belongs to "Old Mortality." The first story in the collection, it explores how a family's reverence for its past generations tends to be as romantic as it is based in reality. There's tragedy in this story too, but it's the everyday tragedy of unmet expectations.

"Pale Horse, Pale Rider" continues where "Old Mortality" left off, with the story of the family's youngest gener...more

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Oct 19, 2011 Sloane rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: 13+

Recommended to Sloane by: English Teacher

Shelves: school-books, classics, reviewed

I had to read only "Pale Horse, Pale Rider" for my English class these past few weeks, so this review will only be for that short story.
Overall, the novella was more muddled (in the sense that everything blends together), entwined, and post-modern than Inception. I might have to read it several more times to fully grasp all of the point-of-view shifts, dreamscapes, flashbacks, and other interior monolgues that functioned as the stream of conciousness style which gave this story such it's charact...more

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Nov 07, 2009 Maddieson rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is one of the best books I've ever read and I haven't even finished it. I'm reading Pale Horse, Pale Rider and have yet to read the other two stories, but I can safely say that I'm totally in love with it. I really couldn't explain. This book reminds me of why I love reading in the first place.

Very intense, very moving, has very dry humor (which I found hilarious). Loved Miranda as a character, maybe one of my favorite characters in a novel. Love Porter's writing style, to me it's perfect....more

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Apr 29, 2011 Jimmy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: female, short-stories, year-1930s

“Blue was never my color.” She sighed with a humorous bitterness. The humor seemed momentary, but the bitterness was a constant state of mind.

William Gass's Fifty Literary Pillars, which is a list of the 50 books that influenced him most, contains this book: one of only 4 by female authors (the others were Virginia Woolf, Colette, and Gertrude Stein), so I thought I had to check this out.

It's a book of 3 novellas (or long short stories). Immediately I was gripped by the voice in 'Old Mortality': smart and observant with a subtle humor. It reminded me of Elizabeth Bishop's poetry at times. The story itself wasn't that special, but sweet Lord, the telling of it was! You’re led to see the characters one way and then slowly more layers get revealed. The story doesn’t progress chronologically (although it does do that on the surface) but the real story (of the family) progresses along the z axis, deeper and richer, with counter stories laid upon them so that there are multiple versions you can see through. The characters are funny, but dark, and believable. Not much else to say, other than perfect. 5/5

On the positive side, all the stories in this collection are completely different, so she's not like one of those writers who writes the same story over and over again. On the downside, I really loved the first story, so the rest of the collection seemed like a bit of a let-down. I especially missed the humor mixed with the bitterness. Like the quote above, the humor seemed to have left after the first story.

The second story 'Noon Wine' was more of a traditional story. I get the impression that the author had a dark view of knowledge, what can be gained from it and what will inevitably be lost. Or what will be gained against one’s will. Insanity infects Mr. Thompson as if the mere suggestion was all it took. Then, he couldn’t get the facts straight in his head, and the lack of knowledge drives him insaner. 3.5/5

'Pale Horse, Pale Rider' was also really good, with descriptive lines like this:

His eyes were pale tan with orange flecks in them, and his hair was the color of a haystack when you turn the weathered top back to the clear straw beneath.

The prose shines, and then takes a wild turn when she goes through the delirium of her illness, mirroring her sick state. A sad story that captures well what it would have been like to be alive and young during the end of the first world war, and when the flu epidemic was spreading. 4/5(less)

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Feb 19, 2009 Sarah rated it 4 of 5 stars

These three novellas are similar in their melancholy tone, but distinct in message. Some thoughts arose as I read each story.
Old Mortality
The depiction of parenting here is so different from the current middle-class very involved parenting that I see. Though I think in some circles, sending the kids to boarding school and seeing them infrequently or having a nanny raise them still happens. What is the purpose of having children, if you are not going to be a major player in their upbringing? Al...more

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Mar 15, 2012 Jazzmin rated it 3 of 5 stars

I read the 'Pale Horse, Pale Rider' portion of the book, and I think I will give it a 3-3.5 star rating. I did not love it, as it seemed many readers did, but I did like it... I liked the writing style, how it had sort of a mysterious romantic feel to it, and the story was sweet with the love between the characters. I think the bonding of Adam and Miranda and everything that happens in the story and between them in the middle third or so of the story was my favorite part... the beginning was a l...more

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Jul 31, 2012 Eric Heff rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book contains three short stories by Katherine Anne Porter and they are all pretty easy reads. She writes very eloquently and does a good job building characters. The beginnings of her stories are a little hard to get into but I think they pay off in the end once you get to know the characters better. I liked Noon Wine the best but there are good things in Old Mortality and Pale Horse Pale Rider too.
Pale Horse is about the influenza outbreak that happened during WWI but I felt focused most...more

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Feb 11, 2011 Jesse Hanson rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'm a horseman by birth (my older brother is an accomplished long distance rider) so this ghostly equestrian title kept popping out at me whenever I'd be browzing the quiet and narrow sacred halls of No Particular Library. In fact, the book has not much to do with horses, although it has some to do with them.
Katherine Anne Porter is a brilliant writer--I'd compare her easily to Steinbeck, with a distinctly feminine and completely unique style. She comes at each story from such an angle, throug...more I'm a horseman by birth (my older brother is an accomplished long distance rider) so this ghostly equestrian title kept popping out at me whenever I'd be browzing the quiet and narrow sacred halls of No Particular Library. In fact, the book has not much to do with horses, although it has some to do with them.
Katherine Anne Porter is a brilliant writer--I'd compare her easily to Steinbeck, with a distinctly feminine and completely unique style. She comes at each story from such an angle, through such a perspective, that the reader is thinking the story is going one way, when it is inevitably going another. My complaint--because I do have one--is that the result is inevitably bleak. Now, I haven't read any of her other work, but bleak is the very tone of Pale Horse, Pale Rider. I've said the same thing about Steinbeck, if you happen to have read my previous reviews.
It's just my personal opinion that we already know the world, that people in the world, and the things we do, are... well, the novels of the world hold all the adjectives about it, so for me to say bad, or ugly, or cruel... kind of redundant. Am I wrong in my perception that almost all (maybe not 100%) of the widely accepted, great works of literature, are utter tragedies? We revel in the gutter.
Well, back to the book at hand. It's three short novels in one book. The first, Old Mortality, starts out all girl stuff; the writing was excellent but stuffy (they were actually going through the old stored stuff of memories in an attic. I didn't like the title, Noon Wine, of the second story, so I went to the title story, Pale Horse... I loved it. Saw a completly different take on the civilian side of World War I than I had ever been told. That took me back to Old Mortality, which I then finished and really appreciated. By then, I was hooked and I read Noon Wine. I don't know if it was just the rural setting (I'm from North Dakota) or what, but this story was absolutely riveting for me.
So I probably seem out of integrity with only four stars. Well, I hate the stars--I've made no secret of it. But I see the purpose of life as a search for truth. Grandiose? Maybe. I don't care. So when tale after tale ends in dead end hopelessness, I don't see the art serving a useful enough function. Sorry Katherine, you're a better writer than me.
Reader, in my opinion you won't find many better written, in a unique, yet classic style, than Pale Horse, Pale rider.(less)

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Apr 24, 2012 Penny rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a famous book I had not read - it turns out to be a small volume that covers 3 short novels and the title work is the 3rd novel. The first novelette is Old Mortality and characters (major and minor) reappear in the title work. The second novelette is Noon Wine. Porter writes gritty stuff - you don't want to read her if you are not feeling upbeat. The best description I think could be written about dying from the viewpoint of the person dying is in Pale Horse, Pale Rider - another book wh...more

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Sep 02, 2011 Michele rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-of-2011

Her characters seemed so real to me. I got up in these short stories and couldn't put it down until I knew how things turned out. She was a great writer, I think.
31:The letters and all the strange keepsakes were packed away and forgotten for a great many years. they seemed to have no place in the world.

90 Speaking of a widower: "Deprived as he was, however, of the main support in his life which a man might expect in marriage,... Is that what we wives are? The main support? Love this idea. I'll g...more

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Jan 10, 2013 Tim rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was given this book in the early 1970’s from my Army buddy Butch Drury, himself in the Ph.D. program in English when he was drafted; he now is in the Hospital Administration department at Northwestern, but remains a Renaissance Man, but I digress. This wonderful short book by the author of Ship of Fools contains three short novels about change, sadness, tragedy, sometimes hope, and deep character study, about both individuals and the environment they’re in. Her prose is carefully and thoughtfu...more I was given this book in the early 1970’s from my Army buddy Butch Drury, himself in the Ph.D. program in English when he was drafted; he now is in the Hospital Administration department at Northwestern, but remains a Renaissance Man, but I digress. This wonderful short book by the author of Ship of Fools contains three short novels about change, sadness, tragedy, sometimes hope, and deep character study, about both individuals and the environment they’re in. Her prose is carefully and thoughtfully worded and I’m sure she was an influence on the likes of Annie Proulx and Joyce Carol Oates.

The first story, “Old Mortality,” follows a young girl, Miranda, through some 27 years from 1885 through 1912, as she slowly questions and then rejects her social status/situation (sort of lower-upper-class), because of the pretentions and concerns for appearances of her family. The process of realization of this issue, and rebellion against it, is reminiscent of Riochard Wright’s “Almos’ A Man,” although in the latter the environment is the deep South and the characters are African-American’ the theme remains the same, however.

The second, “Noon Wine, involves a farmer who becomes involved with a drifter from North Dakota who helps him for some 20 or so years and helps his small dairy farm thrive. Then a bounty hunter shows up and says the drifter is an escapee from a lunatic asylum and wants the farmer to help him capture the man. This throws the farmer into a moral dilemma, with tragic consequences.

In the third, “Pale Horse, Pale Rider,” we again see Miranda from the first story, this time as a young woman doing volunteer work during WWI. She meets a soldier and they, I guess, fall in love, or what passes for it during wartime. He has to leave and she falls gravely ill; some of the best passages in this story are descriptions of her delirious experiences, and indeed she almost dies. Nonetheless, the story, while ending up with some tragedy, also emphasizes strength of character in going on and emotionally surviving after traumatic experiences.
I would recommend this book highly, and indeed if I can locate Butch again after these many years, I plan to send this review to him.
(less)

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Jun 24, 2011 Sarah rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book takes a little reading to understand what’s going on. I gathered by the title that it had something to do with death but the three different takes Porter has on it are magnificent. She looks at deaths that are from suicide, from accident and murder, and from illness and war. She uses these examinations to pose the age-old questions of who are we and where are we going and what does all this mean in relation to eternity. Overall, these stories are gorgeously and painfully written and wo...more

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Feb 21, 2012 Jamie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012-reading-goals, read-in-2012

How on god's green earth hadn't I picked this up before? A girl I worked with and took classes with in college wrote her senior thesis on Porter's 'feminist' revisions of Faulkner, but I suppose I was so busy with my own thesis & worries about grad school that I didn't pick her up at that time and simply forgot about her until forced to read these three short novels (not "novellas", says Porter!) for a seminar last month. Books remain neglected on my shelves for years & years and nothing...more How on god's green earth hadn't I picked this up before? A girl I worked with and took classes with in college wrote her senior thesis on Porter's 'feminist' revisions of Faulkner, but I suppose I was so busy with my own thesis & worries about grad school that I didn't pick her up at that time and simply forgot about her until forced to read these three short novels (not "novellas", says Porter!) for a seminar last month. Books remain neglected on my shelves for years & years and nothing is better than to find myself in a state of wonder when finally meeting one as lovely as this.

"Old Mortality" and "Pale Horse Pale Rider" are at least tenuously connected by Miranda, a central character in each. As I recall, there's no tangible evidence that they're the same Miranda, but I think it's more interesting to consider them as such than not to. The first is a kind of coming-of-age tale; two young Southern girls confront their dynastic histories, particularly w/r/t a sexually non-conformist aunt, who was both beloved and despised by her family, and who met a tragic end that seems to have tidied her excesses enough to make her palatable for the 'dark romance' that surrounds her by the time the girls begin hearing stories about her. It seems too easy to suggest that the story transitions from a romanticized nostalgia to jaded realism, when so much of the story appears invested in the meta-politics of tale telling, to boot. Which story can be trusted when imagining the past? Seems to me to be a persistent anxiety in Southern literature, perhaps because of the fraught relationship Southerners have with their own not-so-far past.

"PH, PR" follows Miranda yet again, though now we're in the trenches of WWI and facing an influenza epidemic. Both of these terrors become integral to Miranda's story, for she's being hounded by nationalistic bondsmen and dating a soldier who feels as wary of the 'patriotism' of war as she does. Miranda moreover contracts the flu, and so a great deal of the short novel is in fact hazily stream-of-consciousness, though oddly more Woolf in flavor than Porter's more proximate contemporary, Faulkner. The prose in any case is stunning--do try not to become teary-eyed in those final paragraphs. Though Miranda and her soldier-lover remain fairly shadowy in terms of conventional character development (we learn really nothing of what has come before; only of the ways in which they grapple their presents), there's something quite delicious in this alienation, as though to be trapped in one's present-tense becomes a kind of self-distancing, a disorientation. To live entirely in the moment means, also, to have no past and no future, and, therefore, no coherent sense of stable selfhood. For what is identity except a kind of consistency or development across space and time? So the amputee sort of sensation becomes mirrored for the reader (or for me, I suppose) even as it's played out in Miranda and Adam. A stunning tale, really.

"Noon Wine" merits attention as well, though personally, it seemed somewhat out of place sandwiched between the others. If "PHPR" is somewhat Woolfian and "Old Mortality" feels something like a strange union between Faulkner and Edith Wharton, "Noon Wine" is Flannery O'Connor through and through. Of course, Porter, in point of fact, predates O'Connor, but I didn't think the story would have been out of place in Everything That Rises Must Converge. The end certainly has a kind of shock value in the best possible way, and the buildup instills a sense of lazy indifference, much as O'Connor will set you up so persistently in the mundane only to then demonstrate how fragile any stability in this world will necessarily be.

If you've any interest in Southern literature, read these. Now. Do it! I'm looking forward to working through more Porter, though I hear Ship of Fools is something of a failure. Might read that one next anyhow, if only because I'm curious to figure out why Mad Men has Betty Draper reading it on two separate occasions in the show.(less)

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Oct 14, 2008 Tony rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction-short-stories

Porter, Katherine Anne. PALE HORSE, PALE RIDER. (1939). *****. The three short novels that comprise this collection, in addition to the title story, include “Old Mortality,” and “Noon Wine.” They are all three excellent examples of story-telling at its very best. “Old Mortality” traces the life of Amy, a long-dead aunt of the two young girls who tell her story – or reassemble it – over a period of years. “Noon Wine,” – my favorite of the three – tells of the relationship between a farming family...more

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Sep 22, 2008 Heather rated it 5 of 5 stars

Wonderful.

This book is composed of three short novels: "Pale Horse, Pale Rider", "Old Mortality", and "Noon Wine". My favorite was "Pale Horse, Pale Rider", although they were all splendid pieces.

To add tension to a lovestory some element must be present that threatens to keep the lovers apart. In "Romeo and Juliet" it's their families. In "Pale Horse, Pale Rider" it is death. The two young lovers, Miranda and Adam, live in 1918, just before the end of World War I and during the Spanish Flu (I...more

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Jan 26, 2011 Skylar Hatfield rated it 3 of 5 stars

I found this book challenging and interesting. The endings of the stories were the most challenging,and I found myself scratching my head. I was most moved by the second story of the collection, "Noon Wine" and I found the final story, "Pale Horse, Pale Rider" to be so sad. Many people really do have to get up and live whether they want to or not. I wonder how the main character was able to live after her experience? It seemed like she was planning on embracing life anew, but I couldn't quite te...more

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Dec 16, 2009 Katie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Also in the book of short stories. Also a great story, though maybe only a 4.5. This is a story about a female writer who falls in love with a soldier and gets ill during the flu epidemic that raged during WWI. I enjoyed it for her opinions on the war, which seemed like they could be thoughts about our current wars. I also enjoyed references to old songs that remind me of my friends up at the Hearthstone. I also liked it for what it says about meeting death, moving through death, and living with...more

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Mar 01, 2009 Djrmel rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: classic, fiction, literature, short-stories

Three distinctly different stories, told in three distinct voices. The first story, Old Mortality deals with how childhood distorts our view of our families, the second, Noon Wine is about the changes a hired hand makes in the lives of a farm family (and yet, the hired hand is barely a character in the story), and the title piece about a young woman's brief love affair during the time of influenza and WWI. All of the stories are of the sneaky, get under your skin type.

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Aug 11, 2011 Charles Lindsey rated it 5 of 5 stars

Still my favorite book, for its literary perfection and human insight. An absolute small symphony containing themes of youth, and love, and war, and history, and even journalism. I mean the paired novellas "Old Mortality" and "Pale Horse, Pale Rider." The middle novella, "Noon Wine," is a scherzo of some sort and I never re-read it -- it interferes with the momentum of the two others. I read this book for a fiction course in college years ago and it's never run dry.

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Jul 10, 2010 Cindy rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, 10-10-10, short-stories

Themes: family, death, fate, alienation, war
Setting: Kentucky, Georgia, and Denver, all during the first part of the 20th century

This short book consists of three stories, either long short stories or short novels, "Old Mortality", "Noon Wine" and "Pale Horse, Pale Rider." The first is a sort of reflection on family legends, mainly about a young woman famous for her charm and beauty who died young, the second is a tragedy set on a small dairy farm, and the last is about a young female reporter w...more

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Jan 17, 2013 Elalma rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Sono tre racconti molto diversi tra loro: il primo è stile "Via con il vento", con le stesse atmosfere, fanciulle eteree e vezzose; il secondo, veramente bello, ricorda gli ambienti e i personaggi di Faulkner; il terzo mi pare molto moderno come idee e disincanto. Sono raffinati e fluidi, non tanto nella narrazione ma nella costruzione e nell'ambientazione.

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Nov 14, 2010 Daniel Currie rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It is interesting the way I have been reading books lately I have associations with other than the contents of the book itself. I finished this book during the great power outage of 2010. (OK, it was only on my block and only lasted 24 hours, but hey...). But I will remember that.

I started this about 10 years ago and only read about 40 pages, not even finishing the first of 3 short stories comprising this collection. I picked it up and finished it in a few days once I put my mind to it. As for t...more

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Dec 01, 2008 Mae rated it 4 of 5 stars

This bitch has rocked my world. What a fucking master. Just as good as any short Faulkner or even Stienbeck I've come across. I stayed up until I finished the last story (Pale Horse) and that was the real kicker. Her style is so unique to me, bare and fluid, a stream-of-conciousness so urgent and rooted in the now. It filled me with gratitude.

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Jan 23, 2010 Catherine rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Three short novels or "long stories" as the author prefers to call them. I'm not a fan of short stories because it seems like I just get to know the characters when the story is over. These were long enough (ranging from 50 to 70 pages each) to mostly overcome that. Excellent writing and intriguing plots, with somewhat unresolved endings.

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About Katherine Anne Porter

Katherine Anne Porter was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, and political activist. She is known for her penetrating insight; her works deal with dark themes such as betrayal, death and the origin of human evil.
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Quotes from Pale Horse, Pale Rider

“Don't you love being alive?" asked Miranda. "Don't you love weather and the colors at different times of the day, and all the sounds and noises like children screaming in the next lot, and automobile horns and little bands playing in the street and the smell of food cooking?"
"I love to swim, too." said Adam.
"So do I," said Miranda, "we never did swim together.” — 13 people liked it

“Death always leaves one singer to mourn.” — 11 people liked it

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Pale Horse, Pale Rider

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