By: Per Petterson Publisher: Graywolf Press Average Rating: Binding: Hardcover Label: Graywolf Press Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 250 Publication Date: April 17, 2007 Release Date: April 17, 2007
We were going out stealing horses. That was what he said, standing at the door to the cabin where I was spending the summer with my father. I was fifteen. It was 1948 and oneof the first days of July.
Trond’s friend Jon often appeared at his doorstep with an adventure in mind for the two of them. But this morning was different. What began as a joy ride on “borrowed” horses ends with Jon falling into a strange trance of grief. Trond soon learns what befell Jon earlier that day—an incident that marks the beginning of a series of vital losses for both boys.
Set in the easternmost region of Norway, Out Stealing Horses begins with an ending. Sixty-seven-year-old Trond has settled into a rustic cabin in an isolated area to live the rest of his life with a quiet deliberation. A meeting with his only neighbor, however, forces him to reflect on that fateful summer.
Out Stealing Horses, a thought provoker It took a few pages to get into this book but then I could not leave it alone. It provided one of the better discussions we have had in our book club. Petterson's prose is spare but provides memorable visual images and captures both the intensity of feeling and restraint in emotional expression of its characters.
A beautiful work It's not everyday that I come across something as quietly profound as this slim novel--about a man in his retirement years looking back on his youth, a certain summer when he was twelve's years old. There are many things Trond tells us about: logging with his father, a friend who he romped with, but had fled his home because of an unfortunate accident, and many other things that somehow finds deep significance in this man's life some fifty years hence.
If you are looking for a bang of a story--maybe in the vein of Cormac McCarthy and the like, then you may be disappointed. What makes this story so good is the quiet and slow recognition of it all. Not to give any of it away, but if you decide to read this story, pay attention, and look closely at this character, he's definitely talking about this time in his youth for a reason. You will see why by the novel's end, but it is so subtle. And once you do see it, it will make you shudder. It's that kind of story.
Wounded sons I have read some of the reviews here, some not so favorable as well as the ones that lauded this quiet, but powerful little narrative. Many asked very smart questions. I, too, wondered about the twins, Jon, his wife. But as I sat within the space I was left with upon completing the novel, I realized that all the answers as to why Trond chooses, in his early retirement years (he is only 67), to isolate himself are right under our collective nose.
The father-wound is one we readers don't get a lot of, yet it is a big issue with men.
We lock into Trond's recollection of a very special summer when he was 12, a year when so many things occurred. Jon's escape from his home, the incident with the twins, and the bonding Trond experienced with his dad are just a few of these events. There is no accident that this particular summer is the one Trond wants us to know about. And we allow him to go into the feelings, the descriptions of so much beauty, and most of all, the scenes with Dad as they roll those logs into the river to be carted off by the rapids into neighboring Sweden.
Trond is trying to tell us something here. And here he is, all of 67 years old, and not exactly clear on what kind of man he became as a result of not only that summer, but of what came after.
Once you get this, you will see the power of this story in all its beauty and chilling subtlety. It's no wonder we have the fresh, icy Norweigian tundra to accompany our foray into the soul of this character who so deeply feels a condition he still hasn't come to terms with, and that is exactly why this novel is so gorgeous and powerful, at least, to this reader.
Disappointed Well, as an avid reader, I was reeled in by the rave reviews this book was getting, and I stuck with it, thinking it was going to get better as I read on. It didn't. It seemed a bit predictable, poorly translated maybe?, and flat. A very literate friend of mine shared this opinion when I gave him the book and asked what I might be missing. I expected a Jim Harrison, or Cormak McCarthy, but found niehter. I finished the book, hopeful to the end, but wound up using it to nod off to sleep each evening.
Needed a better ending... I find this book a bit difficult to review. I enjoyed the story and the main character. I liked the way the book shifted between past and present and thought it was a beautifully written, bittersweet story.
***POSSIBLE SPOILER***
The ending, however, is definitely lacking. It seems as though there should have been more there. Not that all the loose ends should have been neatly tied up, but I feel it would have been better to end the book in the present, not the past. Also, Trond's mother being a central character at the end, when she was barely mentioned throughout the rest of the book didn't make sense to me. A nice book, that could have ended better.
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