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When I was a teenager, I was obsessed with changing my life. Start over. I realize today that dissatisfaction with reality was one of the most unoriginal thing a human being can feel, but unlike most people I actually changed my life for the better. The easy way to discuss Scott Adlerberg's novella JUNGLE HORSES would be to say it's about gambling and horses, but it would be near sighted to believe so. If you were like and you've finished the book with a nagging feeling that it kept something from you, it wouldn't be technically false. JUNGLE HORSES is about way more than just gambling and horses. It's about human longing to transcend reality and that's why it's really good.
Arthur hasn't been a productive member of society for some time. He's spending his days at the race track and in various local pubs, drifting through existence, using his army pension to gamble and generally not caring about being cheated on by his wife. When a race ends tragically and the seemingly frenzied horse Arthur bet on tramples his jockey, he start losing race after race and gets in debt with a gang of hoodlums. In order to save himself, Arthur has to leave the country and investigate a lead about a mysterious breed of horses inhabiting a tropical island, where his real life and his daylight fantasies are supposed to come together.
JUNGLE HORSES is a short book, but it requires patience and engagement. There are two significantly different parts following the same character Arthur, and what makes JUNGLE HORSES special is what emerges from reading these two parts one after the other. I've felt slightly underwhelmed reading the first fifty pages, but only to find out that it only served as a baseline for the overall meaning the novella. Symbolism is an important part of JUNGLE HORSES and a major reason of why it works so well. The horses lead the path of Arthur's life. They are key to the mystery of JUNGLE HORSES although they never fully reveal themselves.
I could keep feeding you reasons to read Scott Adlerberg's JUNGLE HORSES, but there is really one reason why you should pick it up: it challenges genre readers to read beyond their comfort zone. You are going to find JUNGLE HORSES unsarisfying if you're only looking for low lives, gangbangers and graphic violence. But if you keep an open mind and work with Scott Adlerberg for the hundred or so pages of JUNGLE HORSES, you'll get a much more satisfying experience out of it. It's a unique, challenging narrative that actually works WITH the reader and that is something rare in the contemporary landscape of literature, although it became the calling card of publisher Broken River Books. Read it. It's short, challenging and rewarding. What else do you need?
Arthur hasn't been a productive member of society for some time. He's spending his days at the race track and in various local pubs, drifting through existence, using his army pension to gamble and generally not caring about being cheated on by his wife. When a race ends tragically and the seemingly frenzied horse Arthur bet on tramples his jockey, he start losing race after race and gets in debt with a gang of hoodlums. In order to save himself, Arthur has to leave the country and investigate a lead about a mysterious breed of horses inhabiting a tropical island, where his real life and his daylight fantasies are supposed to come together.
JUNGLE HORSES is a short book, but it requires patience and engagement. There are two significantly different parts following the same character Arthur, and what makes JUNGLE HORSES special is what emerges from reading these two parts one after the other. I've felt slightly underwhelmed reading the first fifty pages, but only to find out that it only served as a baseline for the overall meaning the novella. Symbolism is an important part of JUNGLE HORSES and a major reason of why it works so well. The horses lead the path of Arthur's life. They are key to the mystery of JUNGLE HORSES although they never fully reveal themselves.
Most men, he had to admit, would have seen him as pathetic, as a pitiful void of a man, but he cares less for orthodox notions than he did for Jenny's happiness. He could accept sleeping along because he had nothing to offer in bed. He could dismiss the idea of fidelity because in the vigorous game of sex he was no longer a participant. To cling to his wife, to cause problems for her and Vaughn, would have been quite petty of him, and after all, she ran the shop and paid the bills on their flat.
If I had to compare JUNGLE HORSES to another novel, I'd say it's reminiscent of H.G Wells' work, most particularly THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU. Scott Adlerberg's narration is classic, but his protagonist isn't. Arthur's not your typical loser, often depicted in noir narratives. He's a man who gave up on himself, who surrendered control over his life a bit like Walter White. It's somewhat of a Wellsian idea to mix classic setting with a protagonist that'll challenge its boundaries. JUNGLE HORSES qualifies as fantasy/noir sure, but it is indebted to the complexity of its protagonists relationship to his wife, and to horses. It would've be false to call it magic realism or a surreal psychological drama either.
I could keep feeding you reasons to read Scott Adlerberg's JUNGLE HORSES, but there is really one reason why you should pick it up: it challenges genre readers to read beyond their comfort zone. You are going to find JUNGLE HORSES unsarisfying if you're only looking for low lives, gangbangers and graphic violence. But if you keep an open mind and work with Scott Adlerberg for the hundred or so pages of JUNGLE HORSES, you'll get a much more satisfying experience out of it. It's a unique, challenging narrative that actually works WITH the reader and that is something rare in the contemporary landscape of literature, although it became the calling card of publisher Broken River Books. Read it. It's short, challenging and rewarding. What else do you need?
