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No fairy-tale ending for Madonna
Independent, The (London), Aug 27, 2005 by Camille Paglia
Among less world-shaking mishaps was Madonna falling off her horse and breaking some bones at her estate two weeks ago. Naturally, I followed the scanty news via the web.
I was distinctly unsettled when I saw the August cover story of American Vogue, with Madonna ostentatiously posing in riding habit and boots on a horse whose reins she is awkwardly and incorrectly holding. We are told she has been throwing herself into country pursuits to please her macho husband, Guy Ritchie. As a professionally trained dancer, tireless jogger and practitioner of extreme yoga, Madonna is an accomplished athlete. But riding is not just another routine challenge that she can master through sheer willpower. Along with physical skills, riding requires relaxation and self-subordination, an intuitive opening to the horse. Knowledge of horses needs to be accumulated by riders over a lifetime.
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A hyperactive planner with a draconian daily schedule, Madonna may not be the ideal rider. Her tension and distraction can easily be picked up by a skittish horse, as evidently happened here. On this day, she was just back from the US " a point missed in news reports. It was certainly ill-advised for Madonna, a 47-year-old novice rider, to mount a strange new horse the next day in Wiltshire " a thoroughbred that had just been trucked in as a birthday gift from her husband. That misjudgement " which could have had more severe and even fatal consequences " suggests there are dangerous lacunae in the Ritchies' horse sense.
Madonna will surely persist and may well triumph as a rider. But until then, let's hope she avoids the facile, disrespectful use of horses as props and fashion statements.
Speaking of Madonna, I haven't been beating down bookshop doors to find her children's books. The first volume, The English Roses, was cringe- making enough with its preachy messages and saintly, put- upon heroine. As someone teethed on Lewis Carroll's Alice books, I prefer dream tales with less obtrusive moralism. A contemporary author who, unlike Madonna, magically re-creates the child's world view is Lucy Cousins. Her star creation, the amiable mouse Maisy, is a virtual resident of my house. Child entertainment has been my happy duty since my partner Alison gave birth to a son, Lucien, three years ago. Hence I have been absorbed in Maisy's modest wonderland, with its gingerbread and lemon trees. Thank you, Lucy Cousins, for your sparkling imagination!
Copyright 2005 Independent Newspapers UK Limited
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