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Our Horses in Egypt
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List Price: £7.99
egypt.mktgs.co.uk Price: £5.99
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
Manufacturer: Vintage
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Average Customer Rating: 
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Binding: Paperback
EAN: 9780099458968
ISBN: 0099458969
Label: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Number Of Pages: 288
Publication Date: 2008-04-03
Publisher: Vintage
Studio: Vintage
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: A damaged generation
Comment: I read "Hound Music", the earlier story of Griselda's family set in 1902, with the sense of foreboding for the characters one has with all stories set in that period, knowing the horrors which were going to descend on this generation of children and the present volume makes clear that the full force of the war has been visited on them. Only the sisters remain, widowed and single, and we are never told how the boys were lost which, oddly, leaves a greater sense of vacuum than if their fates had been detailed. It also suggests that the widowed Griselda is as much a casualty of the war as her husband and her brothers, unable quite to find her footing in the depleted world she has inherited. Her behaviour on her strange, disjointed journey across the Mediterranean to Egypt illustrates how out of kilter her world has become and how little she now fits in to the mores of her class. Other points of view of the shifting sands Griselda negotioates come from her her young daughter and her indispensible but utterly bemused Nanny.
The other feminine sensibility explored is that of Philomena the hunter whose horse view of the world and her relationships both with other horses and her numerous handlers is wonderfully detailed and plausible. She remains a horse - with none of the anthropormorhisation usually attributed to animals in fiction and one sees the world through another being with different priorities and responses.
Throughout one is also anchored to England through the attitudes of Griselda's family to her wanderings and their financing and it is one of the joys of the book that it is the traumatised (by the Boer War) and eccentric uncle, a shadowy and uncommunicative figure in the family home since the days of "Hound Music" who finally supports and enables his niece to complete her mission.
The ending is as right as it is is inevitable in this picture of a fractured world. I can fully recommend this fine book but, to get the most from it, do read "Hound Music" first.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Thought provoking...
Comment: ...and heart rending. I picked this up at the airport thinking I was in for a light hearted read...WRONG!!
Not since Black Beauty, Watership Down etc have I been so moved. One of the only books to have me in tears. This is not to detract from the powerful style but being a softy the ultimate ending... well, suffice to say I now donate monthly to the Brooke Animal Hospital charity and do so gladly.
A milestone of a book and I agree with other reviewers... it's high time credit is given where it is due... both to the author and to the millions of equines who were cast aside after use.
I find myself a little overwhelmed and the thoughts drawn forth from this book will no doubt linger for some time to come.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Haunting story
Comment: I almost didn't bother with this book - the storyline, horses going off to war etc was going to be either too sentimental or too harrowing for me - and the prose seemed a little strange from my quick glance in the bookshop. However I am so glad that I did decide to keep it, once I got past page three or so, and therefore got used to Ms Belben's rather unusual style, I was absolutely hooked and couldn't put the book down.
A haunting story that will stay with me for a long time. I will definitely seek out Rosalind Belben's other books. I wholeheartedly endorse the review submitted here by M Rosoff, why was this book not a winner of some prize or other?
Customer Rating:
Summary: Astonishing, beautiful prose
Comment: I came to Rosalind Belben through her previous novel, Hound Music, and became at once a confirmed fan of her elegant prose and wildly original voice. Our Horses in Egypt is a superb follow-up. The book features parallel stories: of Philomena, an English hunting horse of no particular distinction, requisitioned by the British army in WW1 and shipped to Egypt to become a military mount; and of Griselda, her former owner, a young woman widowed by the war. Griselda sets off on an eccentric mission to Egypt (with her six year old daughter and nanny in tow) to recover Philomena. Both stories build in a series of deft sketches -- devastating descriptions of war though the eyes of a horse overlap with painful social comedy as they build to convergence. Belben's dialog is better than anyone writing today; so audaciously original that I kept having to stop and ask myself "what IS this book?" Her writing is brave and funny and bleak, cold-eyed and deeply feeling. The voices she gives to the sad, the dispossessed, the resigned (animal and human) characters are unforgettable. If only the Booker jury would stop drooling over the usual suspects and give credit where it is genuinely deserved.
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