A Good Horse Has No Color: Searching Iceland for the Perfect Horse by Nancy Marie Brown

A Good Horse Has No Color: Searching Iceland for the Perfect Horse Reviews

• 
  Eric_W

  Amazing the books I run across. This was a delightful find, extremely well written with evocative images and pithy, humor-laden sentences: "My Icelandic was too rudimentary for that. It's a difficult language with an excess of grammar." and "The weather was classic Icelandic: forty degrees and raining sideways." There's also an amusing scene where dual meanings of the Icelandic word for ride can be endowed with sexual connotations. Shades of me growing up and confusing scatology with eschatology.
  
  The author, who at the time was teaching at Penn State, and her husband rented a small summer home (really more of a shack) with no electricity or plumbing on the assumption it would be a good place to escape distractions and to write. Not your customary summer home. It was separated from their car, parked at the end of a cow lane, by some kind of estuary. If the tide was in, an hour was required to walk around to get to their car. If not, and a prominent rock was visible, and, to quote their son, they avoided the "sucking mud", they might reach the car in twenty minutes.
  
  Brown had studied medieval literature (Beowulf in the original Old English drove me crazy in college) and had a professor who communicated his love of Icelandic myths. That pushed her in the direction of studying Icelandic sagas and the book is filled with links to an old Icelandic tale to illustrate a point she is making. Iceland has an interesting history and given its long winter nights and plenty of lambskin to write on, evolved a strong story telling/writing culture, proud of its independent, kingless, society, especially before the Norwegians took over in 1262. They wrote their sagas in the vernacular prose, unlike Europe where verse dominated.
  
  Brown is also somewhat of a horsewoman and was intrigued by the Icelandic horse, a breed carefully isolated from any possibility of being sullied from outside influence. The breed has an interesting mutation that permits five gaits (tolt and pace being the extra two) as opposed to the "normal" three gaits. (Her website has an interesting explanation for the chromosomal differences and whether three or five should be considered normal. (
  http://nancymariebrown.blogspot.com/2...) Most of the book describes her quest to bring home a couple of these unusual horses. The differences in riding style and requirements between what we consider to be "normal" American riding and Icelandic traditions and training were fascinating.
  
  It's a difficult book to classify, part travelogue, part essay, part history, part memoir; but who cares. My only complaint is that you'll want to climb on the next Icelandic Air to check out Iceland and its horses. A great read, especially if you love horses. Except maybe for the part where she discusses why Icelanders eat their horses and why we don't. As with so many things, it has to do with religion (Pope Gregory III) and Norse sagas.
• 
  Marcia Wilson

  Hard to underestimate this book. The author has survived a deep emotional trauma and makes the decision to follow her heart into two of her greatest loves outside of her marriage: The Icelandic horse, and Iceland itself. Unlike some books where the protagonist is air-dropped into another culture with little preparation, Nancy Marie Brown spends as much time in Iceland as she can, and always has. She is in love with the literature and sagas almost to the point of drunkenness, and she can inflict the reader with this giddy delight as she parses and explains nuggets of language, concept, and culture. She has her heart set on a horse, a perfect horse from Iceland. This means living with various peoples and immersing herself among their lives. Despite the fact that she is almost an 'old hand' at visiting Iceland, she still makes mistakes--her hosts refuse her gifts of citrus fruit (too expensive) and that pesky third gender in the language means a faux pas. One of my favorite parts of the book is her attachment to the anti-hero Grettir, whose life story peppers the book. I laughed out loud to learn that when the comic GARFIELD came to Iceland, his name translated to GRETTIR--both are pot-bellied, red-headed, and sour-tempered!
  
  These are no ordinary horses, though, and she lists the reasons why this horse is so unique, and so worthy of respect and protection. Listing these reasons are too close to spoilers, as they are one of the richest aspects of the book. End the end, she has to ask herself the hardest question about the Icelandic horse, and in doing it discovers that the 'perfect horse'. Put his one on your 'buy an extra' shelf because you may loan one out without getting it back!
• 
  S.

  As an expat in Iceland and owner of two Icelandic horses, this book was obviously relevant to my interests and got recommended to me by a good friend (who I also met through horses). The book loosely classifies as a memoir about a certain time in the author's life, namely when she went to Iceland to buy two Icelandic horses to export to her home in America.
  
  The book starts a bit slow for my taste, and the writing feels scattered, as the author digresses a lot. On the other hand, it was nice to read excerpts from popular Icelandic sagas (about and including horses, of course), even though they were shortened. Although the book was published 20 years ago, many observations about Iceland, Icelanders, and Icelandic equestrians were still apt and made me chuckle or roll my eyes sympathetically more than once. Some of her descriptions, especially of people, came across as a bit harsh to me, however. I absolutely loved the parts about riding and picking out horses, as they reminded me of my own thoughts, feelings, and decisions in similar situations. It really picked up after the first third and the ending was sweet, but not kitschy.
  
  Definitely worth a read for people who love horses, especially Icelandic horses, and/or Iceland!
• 
  Kerry Hennigan

  Nancy Marie Brown takes her readers on a truly memorable journey through the land and lore of the breeders, trainers and riders of Icelandic horses. It’s a breed she has been obsessed with, and the bulk of “A Good Horse Has No Color” is devoted to her quest to find two suitable steeds to take back to America. Along the way we learn about the lifestyle of her friends and acquaintances on this lonely outcrop of humanity (and horses) in the far north of the Atlantic, and the landscape as they used to know it, and as it is today.
  
  By most modern standards, it’s still a pretty austere kind of existence, as the author had already experienced on summer holidays there with her husband and son. But now she was on a solo journey to find the ideal horses for her own limited skills. At least in terms of Icelandics, for as is explained to her, riding one of these steeds requires quite a different discipline than taught in riding lessons back home.
  
  The title of the book is important, as the reader will eventually understand. Nancy has a wish list of what she wants in her horses, one of which is an attractive colour. But it is one of the last things a potential purchaser should be considering, she discovers, because it can blind one to the horse’s actual suitability.
  
  In the end though, she has to come to terms not only with competing buyers from Europe and Japan, but with the fact that any horse she sets her heart on has to reciprocate the attraction. In other words, she is told, the horse must also choose you.
  
  A delightful book that blends travel, life changes and (Icelandic) horse lore, combined with some quite extraordinary characters who make their home in that often-inhospitable landscape.
• 
  Rebecca

  I took this book along as reading during a 6-day packing trip into the Bob Marshall Wilderness in Montana on horseback. I figured it would be a good read in this environment and it actually was quite good and entirely appropriate. I probably enjoyed it more in this setting, as each day was an exercise in getting to know the 2 horses I rode in those 6 days and perceiving their strengths and faults and contemplating my own in the process. I could therefore identify to some extent with the author's anguish in trying to discern "the perfect horse". It helps if you're a "horsey" person but even if you're not the human characters in her story are captivating and the digressions onto self-assessment are very sympathetic.
• 
  Laura

  This was a really lovely read if you are a horse lover and/or have an interest in the horse culture of Iceland! This book includes a lot of references to the sagas, as well as Icelandic poems and feels like a ride through one of the most important influences in Icelandic history and culture, the Icelandic horse. It also offers a glimpse into the author's journey to overcome her fears as a horsewoman, a struggle which is primarily one that she wages with herself.
• 
  Abigail Smith

  I found the author and her perspective hard to relate to in many ways, and some of the things she wrote I found jarringly blunt and off-putting, but she does have an eye for a descriptive scene, and there are some beautiful segments. An odd book. Incongruous, I suppose.
  
  I loved the literary references.
• 
  Marie

  I read it because I started riding Icelandic horses. This book did not disappoint. Only now I want to go ride in Iceland. (Note to self - bucket list idea!) Not just about a search for a horse but a nice look at Iceland and some of the mythology of the region.
• 
  Tim Middaugh

  Interesting and educational book of Icelandic Horses
  
  I learned a great deal about the culture of Iceland, the people, horses, the landscape and sagas. I especially enjoyed the quest for the 2 chosen horses and the concept of color being the least important trait.
• 
  Kim Zarins

  If you like shaggy Icelandic horses, this book will make you just want to pet them and hug their furry necks.
• 
  Tom Johnson

  if i knew horses...i would probably have given this book a "5" - happy to have found Nancy as i have now thoroughly enjoyed 3 of her books - might get the 4th book but a copy of INDEPENDENT PEOPLE awaits my perusal. Nancy's struggles with communicating in Icelandic with the human Icelanders was not unlike her struggles learning the nuances of Icelandic Horse. Way Back in the '60s, every summer, grades 8-12, i worked on my uncles farm (as in the book - it was my mom's brother) and every summer it took 2 weeks before i gained a comfort level with the milk cows (the ubiquitous humongous Holstein) - yes, cows - how much more it would have taken to gain a comfort level with the more spirited and intelligent horse - Orville had 4 or 5 horses but i didn't interact with them on a daily basis and not nearly so up close and personal (a horses is an even larger beast). dairy cows have unique personalities - horses much more so, more like people there not being a few you'd like to take a 2x4 to (OK, here i'm thinking more of the cows, especially when they were bulling, cripes). god i miss that, there's nothing quite like the smell of a dairy barn - loved the smell of the horse shed too but hated having to fork out the h.s. - it was dry, the beasts would waste so much hay by dragging it out into the pen and being heavy they could really pack it down - stick a fork in it, pry, and the whole damned floor wanted to lift up - Thor i am not.
• 
  Jenny

  What a lovely book. I give it a solid 4.5 stars. The author is a scholar of the Icelandic sagas, and I previously read her tale of Gudrid last fall, a book that I also very much liked. In this book, the author leaves home after having suffered violent tragedy in the family, and she sets out for Iceland with the quest of purchasing two Icelandic horses to bring home to the United States. What follows is a journey of one woman's healing and discovery, set in the beautiful landscape of Iceland and the rich interactions with rural Icelandic people. You need not love horses to understand and appreciate this book, as Ms. Brown's passion for the subject sweeps the reader up in it regardless. It was wonderful to read a book about an American seeing Iceland, a country that she clearly loves, without the touristy piece of staying in hostels. Instead, we are taken into the kitchens of the horsemen and horsewomen that she comes to know, and we become privy to their honest conversations. Throughout the book, the author deftly incorporates Icelandic sagas as they pertain to the places she sees and the horses she dreams of. I recommend it to anyone who wants to become temporarily engrossed in a world that is likely quite different from her or his own.
• 
  Randine

  Since i am in the process of searching for a horse myself, I found this story to be poignant and true. After all the "must haves" on your list for the perfect horse, it comes down to 'who will be a willing partner with me?" It's almost impossible to know if you are being told the truth as you search - they don't call it horse-trading for nothing and Ms. Brown throws in a lot of excellent Icelandic horse tales to boot. Very good read.
• 
  Sue

  Having been to Iceland, it was interesting to read more about the country and the famous Icelandic horses. Icelandic culture and customs were explained through the eyes of a central PA resident, and she did a nice job of helping American readers understand these customs.
  
• 
  Laura Stewart

  Very interesting book about Iceland, touches on some Icelandic sagas. Helpful to know some background on Iceland and Icelandic horses to fully appreciate the content. Definitely give the reader incite on the way of life in Iceland.
• 
  Alisa Kester

  What a beautiful, interesting book this was. Totally fueled my decision to add a few days in Iceland to my upcoming trip!