PBOTD 11th March: Kate Seredy - The Chestry Oak

-
Today's Pony Book of the Day, The Chestry Oak (1948) is the most horse-filled of author Kate Seredy's works. Its hero, Michael, like its author, journeys from Hungary to America, where he makes a new home. Kate Seredy (1899-1975) was born in Budapest. During the First World War she served as a nurse, moving to America in 1922, where she wrote and illustrated. The Chestry Oak is the most horse-filled of her books. I was lucky, and found my copy, along with The Good Master and The Singing Tree in a bookshop in Warwick. I won't depress you by telling you what I paid for my copy, but will just observe that it has become staggeringly expensive now. If you do want to read Kate Seredy, her The Good Master was published by Puffin in paperback, and that's still easy to find.

Harrap, first UK edition, 1957
The Chestry Oak is set during the Second World War. The Nazis  have invaded Hugary, but Prince Michael and his family are still living in their Hungarian castle. Michael's father is pretending to be a Nazi sympathiser in order to hang on to his lands, but the tentacles of the Nazis and their beliefs are insinuating themselves ever further into the castle. There is appalling tension as everyone around believes Michael's father is a traitor to the Hungarian cause. Michael is forced to leave everything he loves, as the war progresses, including his horse.

The Chestry Oak - internal illustration
 In America, the promised land for so many, miracles do happen, and Michael meets Midnight, his horse, again. There are no easy and pat endings though, and Michael recognises that after one glorious moment of reunion, the horse is not his: he's "a stallion, he belonged to all time to come, to mares and to foals. No saddle horse, no poet. A warrior, a king."

The Chestry Oak - internal illustration
It's a rare horse book that doesn't have possession as its theme: in The Chestry Oak, one can lose everything, and lose it again, but still be the stronger.

The Chestry Oak was first published by Viking in New York in 1948. The first British edition was published by Harrap in 1957, with the Bodley Head producing a later printing in 1985. Sadly I do not have a photograph of this.

~  0  ~

For more on Kate Seredy and her books, see her page on my website.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rollkur and the blue tongue

-
I've been meaning to write about this all week, but reading the exclusive in Horse and Hound about the controversy tipped me over the edge. For my non-horsy readers, rollkur is a training/warming up technique used by some dressage riders. It basically involves riding the horse with its jaw pulled in virtually to its chest, in order to increase suppleness. Patrik Kittel , a Swedish competitor in Odense was videoed riding his horse in this way. If you watch the video , you'll see the horse's tongue hanging out - blue. It takes a while before the rider notices this. When he does, he stops, puts the horse's tongue back in, and carries on. There are two things which bother me about this. Firstly, I am fully aware large sections of the dressage world, and some of its brighest stars, consider rollkur perfectly ok, but the FEI guidelines state this practice should only be for short periods, allowing the horse to rest. Patrick Kittel apparently rode the horse for two hou
Read more

Archibald, don't eat the bedclothes

-
Image
My friend Louise sent me this picture today. It's from a children's book with the rather wince-making title For The Wee Ones. I thought, when I read that (because I read the message before I looked at the picture) that the picture was going to be a typical winsome production from the school of artists who think (or who are paid to think) that the child is a thing sent from God and a blissful thing. They had obviously never met a child, and certainly not mine. I should have known Louise better. The artist responsible for Archibald, don't eat the bedclothes slipped this one past the editors. Just look at the poor, broken Mother Rabbit. She knows she has not the faintest chance of being listened to, and poor thing, she is stooped in the way of a mother to whom this is just the lastest in a long line of horror; with nothing good to come. And Archibald is obviously the spawn of the Devil. Just look at those eyes. He'll have the bed after he's finished the bedclothes
Read more

Dick Sparrow - 40 Horse Hitch, and Neil Dimmock's 46 Percherons

-
Image
Here's a clip of Dick Sparrow driving 40 horses. It's an amazing sight, particularly when the shot changes to show the team from the rear and you get the great incongruity of modern American corporate architecture as a background to the wagon and horses. I love the anticipation in the video: the sense of something amazing being just round the corner is palpable. Thanks to Christina Wilsdon for telling me about this world record 46 Percheron hitch (alas just stills) but you get the idea.
Read more