Diane Lee Wilson
Diane Lee Wilson: I Rode a Horse of Milk White Jade
Harper Trophy $11.99 (available
secondhand on Amazon.co.uk)
Rating: «««««
If you count a pony book as one in which girl gets pony (or horse) against all the
odds, then this definitely is one, thought not one set anywhere most readers would
recognise. This is a story set on the 14th century Mongolian steppes in the time
of Kublai Khan. The book is told in flashbacks by Oyuna, who when the book opens,
is a grandmother. As they watch a foaling together, Oyuna tells the story of her
childhood. Her foot was crushed by a horse when she was a toddler, but she has an
affinity with horses, and what she longs to do is find a horse fast enough to win
the long race in the festival at Karakorum. The horse she finds is not the conventional
speedy speed: it is an aged white mare, Bayan, and Oyuna chooses the mare after she
hears her speak.
You might think then, that this book is a talking horse fantasy souped
up with an historical background. It is not: although Oyuna would love Bayan to speak
to her all the time, she doesn't and the moments they communicate are quite rare.
There is nothing mystical about Bayan: the great thing about their comunication is
that it happens so seldom it is actually more believable: just occasionally the world
of human and horse intersect.
The talking is absolutely not the main focus of the
story: Oyuna uses Bayan to overcome her bad luck. Her society sees luck as an outside
agency, which you must take every step to propitiate. It is something that happens
to you, and to which you react, and not something which you can influence. Oyuna
has begun to see there might be another way of looking at life, and then her shamaness
grandmother, Echenkorlo, visits, and she has quite other ideas: you can “take either
good luck or bad luck into your hand.."
From this point, Oyuna does make her own luck. Although she moves away from what
her society expects, it doesn't reject her. I don't know enough about Mongolian society
to know if it really was flexible enough to absorb Oyuna's journey and behaviour,
but it seems entirely believable, as Diane Lee Wilson portrays it.
Diane Lee Wilson
takes you inside the head of a Mongolian herder girl and make you quite comfortable
there. Oyuna herself is such an attractive character. She's not bumptious, stroppy
or unbelievable: she is extremely strong willed, but manages to combine this with
humility: in fact the whole cast of chracters is a delight, from the little cat Bator
through the Emperor Kublai Khan to Genma, head of the arrow station.
This book should
really have a much wider public than just those who like their stories with added
horse: I found learning about such a different society completely fascinating, and
Oyuna's journey had me rivetted. The horse element is central, but the author allows
her characters to move and shift throughout the story, and doesn't tether them so
ruthlessly to the equine world that they are nothing more than plot elements allowing
the horses to appear.
Diane Lee Wilson has always ridden, and has her own large collection of horse books. She writes what is quite a rare beast in the horse and pony book world: the historical novel. Fire Horse is set in Boston in 1872. It’s about the heavy horses who pulled Boston’s fire wagons: the disease which carried them off contributed to the severity of the Great Boston Fire. Firefighters had to pull the wagons through the streets themselves.
I Rode a Horse of Milk White Jade, reviewed below, is an excellent read, set in 14th Century Mongolia.
Books by Diane Lee Wilson
I Rode a Horse of Milk White Jade (1998)
To Ride the Gods’ Own Stallion (2000)
Black Storm Comin’ (2005)
Fire Horse (2006)
