TOO SMART HORSE?

A few weeks ago I read the book War Horse. The book takes place in England and France. The book
War Horse is about a boy named Albert and his bond with his horse Joey. When the First World War
starts Joey was sold by Albert’s father to the English army, without asking for Albert’s permission.
Albert wanted to join the army and go with Joey to war but only was 15 years old, too young to go to
the war. Whilst in the army Captain Nicholls takes care of Joey and go together to the war in France.
After reading the book I watched the movie, where I saw a few differences between them. One of
the main differences is that Zoey, another horse who was more like a mother figure to Joey, was left
out completely.

The main characters of War Horse are Joey and Albert. Joey is the horse and the hero of the book, he
can be recognized by his white star on his forehead and four “white socks”. In the book you find out
that Joey is a very loyal and brave horse. Albert Narracott is at the beginning of the book a 13-year
old boy, who lives on a farm with his mother, father and Zoey who is the family’s horse. He is a
sensitive but also hard working boy, for example when he trained Joey.

When Joey gets sold to the army, Albert promises that as soon he is old enough to enlist he will go
and find Joey. During the war Joey meets another horse, Topthorn. One evening Joey and Topthorn
are in the stable, an old man and a little girl come in. Emilie is a French girl who lives together with
her grandfather at a farm. Emilie decides she wants to take Topthorn and Joey with her. The horses
work at the farm of Emilie’s grandfather for a while, and get taken by the German army to pull
artillery guns. The war has almost come to an end but will Joey and Albert reunite? To come back at
the differences between the book and the movie, Zoey was left out but this isn’t a problem because
she doesn’t add anything to the story. It is nice to have Zoey as more like an introduction to Albert’s
farm/home, but it could easily be left out in the book too.

The style of writing is an interesting one, because it is written out of the perspective of Joey, the
horse. At the beginning of the book you have to get used to the fact that “you” are the horse. At
some point the thoughts of the horse are too much like those from humans. Sometimes you even
forget that you are reading a book about a horse. That it is written in such a special way is in one way
nice, but I think it also could have been written out of a 3 rd person perspective. But if it would make
the book a lot better. I think it wouldn’t make anything better, because this way of thinking of Joey
makes the book special, because it is so unusual. The writing style makes it just a bit more emotional.
This is one of the main things you miss in the movie, because the horses can’t talk it is harder to
make it emotional. But the movie again shows better the bond between human and animal. So if
you’re looking for the emotional aspect you should read the book.

War Horse is a nice and refreshing book, It tells you an emotional story about the First World War
and how many people died there. It was a nice story nice but it was sometimes the horse was “too
smart”. Because of this the story became a bit unrealistic, but I would still recommend it to everyone
because it was still written in a very nice way. This is why I give this book a 3 star rating.

Emiel van de Vijver

TA3A