Out Stealing Horses: A Novel (Paperback)

by Per Petterson (Author), Anne Born (Translator)
Key Phrases: out stealing horses, Lars Haug, Swan Lake, Port Said (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Award-winning Norwegian novelist Petterson renders the meditations of Trond Sander, a man nearing 70, dwelling in self-imposed exile at the eastern edge of Norway in a primitive cabin. Trond's peaceful existence is interrupted by a meeting with his only neighbor, who seems familiar. The meeting pries loose a memory from a summer day in 1948 when Trond's friend Jon suggests they go out and steal horses. That distant summer is transformative for Trond as he reflects on the fragility of life while discovering secrets about his father's wartime activities. The past also looms in the present: Trond realizes that his neighbor, Lars, is Jon's younger brother, who "pulls aside the fifty years with a lightness that seems almost indecent." Trond becomes immersed in his memory, recalling that summer that shaped the course of his life while, in the present, Trond and Lars prepare for the winter, allowing Petterson to dabble in parallels both bold and subtle. Petterson coaxes out of Trond's reticent, deliberate narration a story as vast as the Norwegian tundra. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From The New Yorker
In this quiet but compelling novel, Trond Sander, a widower nearing seventy, moves to a bare house in remote eastern Norway, seeking the life of quiet contemplation that he has always longed for. A chance encounter with a neighbor—the brother, as it happens, of his childhood friend Jon—causes him to ruminate on the summer of 1948, the last he spent with his adored father, who abandoned the family soon afterward. Trond’s recollections center on a single afternoon, when he and Jon set out to take some horses from a nearby farm; what began as an exhilarating adventure ended abruptly and traumatically in an act of unexpected cruelty. Petterson’s spare and deliberate prose has astonishing force, and the narrative gains further power from the artful interplay of Trond’s childhood and adult perspectives. Loss is conveyed with all the intensity of a boy’s perception, but acquires new resonance in the brooding consciousness of the older man.
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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Picador; 1st edition (April 29, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312427085
• ISBN-13: 978-0312427085
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (154 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #714 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

62 of 65 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Memory and Essence, July 29, 2007

By	Libra "MYK" (Tustin, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Out Stealing Horses: A Novel (Hardcover)

This book is the deserved winner of various prestigious literary awards, and has received considerable critical acclaim as an important work of literature. Translated from Norwegian, the prose is simple although a bit sparse, but both the piecemeal unfolding of the story and the abrupt chronological changes complicate Petterson's novel. The narrative begins in November of 1999, and is told in first person by 67 year old Trond, who has just isolated himself in a remote forest village in Norway where he plans to live out the rest of the years alloted him.

After the first twelve pages, in which he does not divulge a whole lot about himself, Trond begins relating an incident from 1948 when he was fifteen, and so he continues switching back and forth from the last months of 1999 to a period ranging from 1948 to 1942. The major part of the novel takes place during this latter time span. Because of the way that the narrative develops, I did not feel that I knew the whole story until I had read the very last line--"and we do decide for ourselves when it will hurt." This line first appears in the second chapter and runs like a refrain throughout the story. The episodes that Trond recalls in a rather elliptical fashion deal with formative events from his adolescence. During this period, he spent a summer with his father in a remote forest village in Norway, learned about his father's resistance activities during World War II, and suffered the loss of his father.

Outside of his memories from this adolescent past, Trond tells the reader little about his life. The novel as a whole, however, is extremely powerful. Upon finishing the book, I found it completely logical that a man in the last stages of his life would reflect back upon a time when his identity was formed. Trond's selective memories are inextricable from the essence of the person he has become. Whether he has turned out to be the hero of his own life, the pages of Trond's story (like the pages of David Copperfield's story) must show!

104 of 115 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lyrical memories of war and betrayal, May 29, 2007

By	Nimbolina (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Out Stealing Horses: A Novel (Hardcover)

This is one of the best novels to come out of Scandinavia in recent years. Written from the point of view of a 70-year old man reflecting on the time he spent with his father near the Swedish border during the Second World War, the narrative present of the novel alternates back and forth between his current solitude and his adolescent confusion over his father's wartime activities. The novel is enormously sad and haunting, and the language beautifully simple and evocative.

112 of 125 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Sumptuous Prose, but Largely Redundant, February 8, 2008

By	Gregory Baird (Morristown, NJ) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Out Stealing Horses: A Novel (Hardcover)

Picking up this novel (translated from its original Norwegian), it is easy to understand why "Out Stealing Horses" has earned such high praise from critics; its author, Per Petterson, is a writer of astonishing talent. There are moments where his astute observations and beautiful descriptions sent chills down my spine. Petterson's depth of understanding for his main character, Trond, is palpable, and he is carefully rendered in an achingly believable portrait of an aging, grieving man. The novel's setting gets an equally loving respect from Petterson, whose description of Norway's trees, rivers, and skies should do wonders for the country's tourism ("I shut my eyes into a squint and looked across the water flowing past below the window, shining and glittering like a thousand stars, like the Milky Way could sometimes do in the autumn rushing foamingly on and winding through the night in an endless stream"). I would compare Petterson's writing to the heartaching beauty of Pulitzer Prize winner Marilynne Robinson's prose (her novel Housekeeping: A Novel is every bit as poetic and haunting as this one). The problem I have with this otherwise stellar book is that I feel like I've read it before - many times at that.

"Out Stealing Horses" finds Trond Sander living in a self-inflicted isolation as he heads into his twilight years. He has given up his former life for a solitary existence partially out of a life-long yearning to be left alone, but mostly out of grief for the sudden death of his beloved wife three years earlier. But when he realizes that his neighbor is a figure from his past it triggers a host of feelings and memories that Trond has been trying to avoid for a long time, and in flashbacks we are taken back with him to the summer of his fifteenth year - a summer that forever altered the course of his life, where friendly games of stealing horses gave way to tragedy and coming of age. Petterson acquits himself well enough in the unspooling of the narrative, but anyone who has ever read a Booker Prize winning novel will find the premise a little too familiar (The God of Small Things, The Sea, and The Gathering (Man Booker Prize), to name only a few, all have a similar premise with the main character reflecting on their tragic past). But the real shame of it is that "Out Stealing Horses" peters out in the climax, leaving it without the oomph that might have distinguished it from those novels. And what we are left with is a painfully standard story told with stunningly beautiful writing. I wanted to like the novel more than I did because of Petterson's talent as a writer, but the truth is that I just couldn't shake the boredom in the end. Which is quite a shame, because Petterson has a lot more to offer.

Grade: C+