I’m sure that everybody knows that Black Beauty is a novel about a horse, but what a lot of people probably don’t know that it is a novel told from the perspective of a horse. That was quite a surprise to me, when I started, but a pleasant one, because I’ve never read a story that’s narrated by a horse before.
It all follows the titular Black Beauty – a horse who goes through many different names as he changes hands throughout the course of the novel. His voice was one that I really liked actually. The author has done a good job of imbuing him with a sort of animal innocence, but without making it so that the writing lacks depth and is super simplistic. A lot of the time, he condemns humanity’s treatment of horses (usually based on horrible things he sees happen, or even that happen to him directly) but the innocent quality to the writing stops it from ever feeling self-righteous to me.
I admire it for tackling animal rights, because I have yet to read any other book from its era that goes out of its way to advocate for them. Indeed, it’s much more common to read stuff from the 19th century which reflects a sort of callous disregard for the wellbeing of animals.
I was shocked by how bleak the story was at times, because when you hear something is told from the perspective of an animal, the initial thought is that it is probably going to be light-hearted. I’d actually compare it to Animal Farm, where animal characters are used to share quite a serious message, except that I think it manages to be much more engaging and to do a better job than Animal Farm.
Black Beauty’s journey between different owners can sometimes feel a little bit aimless and to be honest, it doesn’t have a particularly well-defined over-arching plot. Sometimes it can be a little bit hard to keep track of all the human characters, because they seem to come and go so often. I also felt that chapters were so short that it felt like it was stopping and starting a lot, and I say that as a lover of short chapters.
But, ultimately, I am don’t have a lot to criticise Black Beauty. It’s a very pure novel in a lot of ways and that endears me to it. It’s a perfect example of a piece of children’s literature that appeals to all ages because it doesn’t talk down to the reader.
Rating: 7.5/10
