A Civil War tale that breaks conventions
moncler donna By Robert Olmstead moncler donna
moncler uomo Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill / 218 pages / $23.95 moncler uomo
moncler saldi Coal Black piumini moncler outlet Horse, Robert Olmstead’s magisterial sixth book, moncler saldi uomo is as sensate as poetry and forbidding as any squall, steeped in detail but bound by few storytelling conventions. I wondered, as I read it, if it might be classified as myth. I wondered if readers of The Red Badge of Courage and March and The March and Cold Mountain will make room for moncler donna another novel of a certain era that is rife with the shattering lessons of war. Fervently, I hope they will, for Coal Black Horse is a remarkable creation. moncler saldi
moncler outlet serravalle It is May 1863 when Olmstead’s story opens. Fourteen year old Robey Childs has been growing inches, sometimes overnight, helping his mother care for the cattle farm while his father serves at war. On the day the story begins, he is being sent out on a journey. “Go and find your father,” his mother says, having had a premonition, “and bring him back to his home.” moncler outlet serravalle
moncler saldi outlet The boy is to travel south, then moncler outlet online shop east, then north. He is to wear the jacket his mother has sewn for him, the buttons of which are made of chicken bones, the fabric of which has been dyed gray on one side, blue moncler outlet on the other. He is to trust no one and to remember his mother’s warning: “If you think someone is going to shoot moncler bambino saldi you, then trust they are going to shoot you and you are to shoot them first.” moncler saldi outlet
moncler bambino outlet Robey leaves moncler outlet the next day, mounted piumini moncler on the back of an ordinary horse. He will be given custody, in short order, of a most magnificent young stallion, a horse so outlet moncler fine that it turns heads and invites envy and upholds such constancy and care that in time Robey “learned to fall asleep moncler outlet serravalle on the back of the coal black horse as it seemed to share the same mind with him in the direction it maintained. From then on, when he grew tired, he merely pulled a blanket over his moncler saldi outlet head and dropped his chin upon his rocking breast and slept and the horse would sleep too, walking on in its repose, covering a length of four miles every hour, its hooves invisible for the dust piumini moncler uomo and gauze of heat, or veiled by lightning on the piumini moncler saldi black path as the flashes directed their way in the electric, combusting, and starless night.” moncler bambino outlet
piumini moncler scontatissimi I quote the passage above at length not just to broadcast the sound of the book (the long, held moments; the well placed adjectives; the sinewy relationship between atmosphere and time) but to pause for a moment over this most heroic horse that intuits direction, keeps impeccable watch and gathers unto itself a steadfastness and strength piumini moncler scontatissimi from sources unknown. The horse is a literary, even romantic, construct, and yet moncler uomo I allowed myself to be carried forward on its back. One has two choices, I think, in writing fiction like this to err on the side of plausibility or on the side of meaning. Olmstead writes toward meaning on every page. piumini moncler scontatissimi
moncler outlet online shop Robey will lose the horse for a spell as he travels. He will be shot at and scarred. He moncleroutlet-i will bear witness to a hideous rape and find himself incapable of moncler saldi interceding on behalf of the young victim. Finally Robey will make it north, to a blood soaked battlefield, where limbs are strewn and men are moaning and scavengers are hunting for letters home, for artifacts, for gold that can be torn from the cavernous mouths of the men cut down at Gettysburg. Robey will find his way to his father, and the coal black horse, since repossessed, will moncler outlet trebaseleghe stand as sentry through days of sweltering heat and maggots. moncler outlet online shop
moncler bambino saldi “This was not the raving mad,” Robey’s father tells him of the bloodshed all around. “This was not for love or greed or ignorance. These are the well bred and the highly educated. This is humanity. This is mankind, son.” moncler bambino saldi
moncler outlet trebaseleghe A boy when his journey begins, Robey is a man by the time he and the horse make it home, to moncler outlet online uomo the cattle grazing land and a mother whose hair has gone white with waiting. He is a man who has seen more than he can bear remembering, who has committed acts that to himself seem savage, heinous, who is, for better or worse, no longer afraid of dying. He is a man in whom countless changes have been wrought, a man for whom the moncler bambino outlet future lies in coils moncler outlet trebaseleghe.