The Red Pony, John Steinbeck
The Red Pony, John Steinbeck
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The Red Pony

Author: John Steinbeck

Narrator: Frank Muller

Unabridged: 2 hr 54 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 06/15/2011


Synopsis

John Steinbeck's masterpiece celebrates the spirit and courage of adolescence. Steinbeck draws on his memories of childhood in these stories about a boy who embodies both the rebellious spirit and the contradictory desire for acceptance of early adolescence. Unlike most coming-of-age stories, the cycle does not end with a hero "matured" by circumstances. Reversing common interpretations, The Red Pony is imbued with a sense of loss. Jody's encounters with birth and death express a common theme in Steinbeck's fiction: They are parts of the ongoing process of life, resolving nothing.

About The Author

John Steinbeck, born in Salinas, California, in 1902, grew up in a fertile agricultural valley, about 25 miles from the Pacific Coast. Both the valley and the coast would serve as settings for some of his best fiction. In 1919 he went to Stanford University, where he intermittently enrolled in literature and writing courses until he left in 1925 without taking a degree. During the next five years he supported himself as a laborer and journalist in New York City, all the time working on his first novel, Cup of Gold (1929). After marriage and a move to Pacific Grove, he published two California books, The Pastures of Heaven (1932) and To a God Unknown (1933), and worked on short stories later collected in The Long Valley (1938). Popular success and financial security came only with Tortilla Flat (1935), stories about Monterey’s paisanos. A ceaseless experimenter throughout his career, Steinbeck changed courses regularly. Three powerful novels of the late 1930s focused on the California laboring class: In Dubious Battle (1936), Of Mice and Men (1937), and the book considered by many his finest, The Grapes of Wrath (1939). The Grapes of Wrath won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize in 1939.Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962, and, in 1964, he was presented with the United States Medal of Freedom by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Steinbeck died in New York in 1968. Today, more than 30 years after his death, he remains one of America's greatest writers and cultural figures.Frank Muller has narrated numerous audiobooks and has received many audio industry awards, including the award for best unabridged fiction audiobook of 1995 by Publishers Weekly. His television credits include appearances on Law and Order, Harry and the Hendersons, and All My Children. Frank can be heard on other unabridged productions of John Grisham’s novels including The Runaway Jury, The Partner, and The Street Lawyer.


Reviews

Goodreads review by s.penkevich on January 13, 2024

Get ready for Sobbing with Steinbeck! The Red Pony is an episodic bildungsroman following the young Jody Tiflin and family as he learns the harsh facts of life on their Californian farm. Written between 1933-36 and published individually in magazines, The Red Pony was published as one volume in 1937......more

Goodreads review by Tim on February 27, 2022

Hey everyone, it's my 400th review on goodreads!!!!!! Honestly I'm a little surprised we've gotten this far as I mostly started reviewing just to make some mental notes on things I liked about recently read books… but here we are and with the 400th review. I decided to go with another classic. Let's......more

Goodreads review by Henry on December 28, 2019

Sometime in the early 1930's, on an isolated small ranch, in northern California's long, rugged, Salinas Valley, a boy of ten, mischievous Jody Tiflin, lives with his parents, stern father Carl, and the equally tough, but loving mother Ruth, they are poor like everyone else, in the area, yet manage......more


Quotes

By the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature