Rosalind Belben's Our Horses in Egypt is a gorgeous novel, if you like a bit of a challenge and are willing to work a little. My first attempt reading it was not very successful. I felt disoriented and confused. It's not a book you can pick up and set down for a while and expect to pick up the thread easily, at least I couldn't. My second attempt was better, though still challenging. I did much better reading a little daily. Somewhere along the way, though, something clicked and I was swept away with the story. Difficulties aside, it is very worth the effort!
Although it is set during and after World War I (a period I'm particularly interested in at the moment), I'm not sure I would have picked up the book had I not read several excellent reviews of it. It's an unusual story--about the horses that were requisitioned for the war effort, and in this case transported to Egypt and Palestine. Many of the animals were killed, but those surviving the war were not returned to England but sold to Egyptians as work horses. The story is about one woman's quest to find her horse and bring it back to England. Horse stories have never been my thing, but like Jack London's The Call of the Wild (dog stories aren't my thing either), I was actually quite captivated once I got a momentum going in my reading.
For some reason this was a very visual story for me. It felt almost cinematic. Belben doesn't really spell things out for the reader. I felt like I was watching and hearing these events rather than reading them, if that makes any sense at all. You are dropped into these conversations and it all happens so quickly, I wasn't always sure who was talking to whom--it's as if the characters are standing before you having them, so pay attention or you'll miss it. There is a rhythm to it all, though, once you get into the story. Belben's language is very concise, but you still get an excellent sense of place and character. Perhaps the elements most lost on me were the descriptions of the British troops and troop movements (sorry, all those abbreviations and names were foreign to me) and particulars dealing with the horses, though it didn't necessarily seem essential to appreciate the story (no doubt it would have been an even richer experience, however).
I loved the way Belben told the story. There were two separate and distinct plotlines that converged at the end of the story. After the war, Griselda, widowed and left with two children, discovers there's a chance her beloved horse may still be alive in Egypt. She's determined to travel there and search for it, despite the displeasure of her family. Leaving her younger son at home, she and her daughter, along with Nanny travel to Egypt. They're beset by a series of mishaps, which verge on the humorous. Running parallel to this story is that of Philomena's, Griselda's horse. Belben seems to know just how far she can take the reader in her descriptions of what Philomena must endure. Although the war scenes could terribly sad, it's never too much (though she might take you to the edge, she doesn't push you over!). It's all presented very matter of factly. I'll leave it to you to read the book and find out whether Griselda is successful in her search, though I'll share a paragraph from the afterword:
"As for the yeomen...Necessity demanded that their horses were worn out in the service of their country; deprived, sometimes severely, of food and water; that they carried too much, and were worked while lame and even after they'd been wounded. The cavalrymen and mounted infantrymen cared about their horses, they owed their lives to them and they had been trained to keep welfare uppermost. Horses respond to kindness; but hardship is hardship."
"In Egypt, the descendants of the war-horses live on."
You can read an interesting interview with Rosalind Belben here. I'm waiting for a copy of Hound Music to come in the mail (I thought for sure I wouldn't be tempted by it, but when I finished this book, I gave in and ordered it). It is an earlier novel, where Griselda appears as a child, set in the Edwardian world of fox hunting. I'm afraid I'm not a hunting fan (least of all fox hunting). I'm branching out in all sorts of ways this year with my reading.