I finally started reading The Red Pony by John Steinbeck today. I'd gotten it out of the library this summer along with some of his other novellas and didn't get around to it due to my lack of appreciation for Tortilla Flat. It was just a bit too John Steinbeck-ish for me. That of course means without very much in the line of a plot, but containing ample amounts of nostalgic accounts of ridiculous and unimportant adventures there just for the sake of telling them. Cannery Row had the same feel to it, but somehow I felt that I got more out of that book.

Anyhow, the exposition of The Red Pony brought up several thoughts in me. Basically, all that is written is a brief and complete account of how a family on a small California ranch spends their day. There's the helper, Billy Buck, the mother, the father and the protagonist, Jody, a ten-year-old boy. The list of events that transpire is tedious and monotonous, but I got a sense of rhythm out of it eventually. You kind of have to slow down your mind and understand the graceful gait for the writing. Once you capture that, you understand Steinbeck's tone in my eyes. And within this uneventful telling of  a regular late summer day, there can be little nuggets of writing that I find totally perfect in their own way. First, is this one-sentenced description of Jody:

"He was only a little boy, ten years old, with hair like dusty yellow grass and with shy polite gray eyes, and with a mouth that worked when he thought."

The whole thing about having Jody's mouth move when he thinks made so much sense out of the character. It's amazing how with that one description of one of his traits, we can already gain such and understanding of him. I've come to the conclusion that Jody is a quiet child, not smart, but thinks hard to come to his simple decisions. I wonder what is going to happen to Jody in the next 80 pages....

My other favorite quote from the passage I covered reads:

"He felt an uncertainty in the air, a feeling of change and of loss and of the gain of new and unfamiliar things."

I love how Steinbeck inserts this little gem amongst descriptions of buzzards and Jody crushing a muskmellon for no apparent reason. I gather from it that shy little Jody is going to grow up. I hope it's not too painful a coming of age, because I've already taking quite a liking to him.