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Dec 17, 2009

Mark rated it:

I have a feeling this book may take root and blossom further within me over time, but for now, I must stop one star short of my top rating.

"Out Stealing Horses" won the world's richest literary prize (The Impac, out of Dublin) last year, and it has had enough buzz that I had to wait weeks for it to come off the reserve list at our local library.

It is the tale of a 67-year-old Norwegian man who retreats to the north woods to review his life, and particularly, a f More...

6 comments like (37 people liked it)

Jun 27, 2008

Anna rated it:

I was sorry when I turned to the last page. And surprised--my right hand still held several pages of the book, and I hadn't realized they were the blank ones that often come at the end.

I was sorry, because I wanted to spend more time in this space--rural Norway, mostly, with ventures into Oslo and Sweden. I wanted to spend more time with the narrator, Trond, whose name rarely emerges in the text and who we follow when he is fifteen and when he is sixty-seven, with ventures elsewhere More...

0 comments like (19 people liked it)

Aug 02, 2011

Jessica rated it:

having finished:
The story grew on me as it began to center more on the father-son relationship, but I did not fall in love... I liked how it was structured, I liked the evocation of landscape and season, but the characters were shadowy for me and it never reached the point of intensity that I wanted it to...that was perhaps the point: not to, to have many small flickers of light instead of one really bright & intense one, but it's what I wanted. I wanted less shadowy characters--for at lea More...

27 comments like (8 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Jim rated it:

"You decide yourself when it will hurt."

Pet Petterson's novel about a man in late middle age who has exiled himself to a cottage in the remote Norwegian countryside has garnered literary prizes and rave reviews almost everywhere. I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I was... well, underwhelmed.

I confess I'm an aficionado of bleak fiction, of those sour almost hopeless ruminations on the fate of age and solitude that might fill more cheery readers with despair. S More...

0 comments like (11 people liked it)

Jan 09, 2010

brian rated it:

a third of the way through and i was certain i'd give this book four or five stars... spare, strong sentences, a jumping chronology, meandering, mysterious... i loved it. and had it remained how it had started -- that is, a book of sketches strung together by a common element -- i would have loved it... but it doesn't. in a way, i think, petterson lacks confidence in his own abilities: he introduces certain plot elements i found wholly unnecessary (not to mention an incredibly anti-climactic re More...

5 comments like (9 people liked it)

Dec 07, 2008

Nathan rated it:

A quiet, reflective novel of one man's attempt to understand and escape from a deep sadness he has carried with him since he was a child. Alone in a remote cabin with the harsh Norway winter fast approaching, Trond searches for a way to explain a single, piercing childhood tragedy that has echoed hauntingly throughout his life. As the focus of the novel shifts seamlessly between a summer Trond spent working with his father and the silent time he now spends alone in his cold, tiny cabin, the de More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Jul 21, 2008

Lisa rated it:

This slender yet powerful book is one to read and reread.

Following the death of his second wife when he "lost interest in talking to people," the aging narrator, Trond, has retired to a remote forest-village in Norway. When his nearest neighbor turns out to be a figure from his past, from a summer spent with his father which shaped the rest of his life, Trond’s memories begin to churn, despite attempts to lose himself in the details of surviving in his new environment (woo More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jun 28, 2008

Lars rated it:

As chilly as its Norwegian setting, Petterson's novel continues to haunt my thoughts weeks after reading it. Its very title and the many allusions to cowboy culture made me think about what frontier and re-invention means if the edge of the world is vast and dramatically sculpted desert that only ends with limitless ocean, or claustrophobic forest that transitions into Arctic ice. But mostly it made me think about no matter how much we think we know about others and ourselves, it's never compl More...

0 comments like (9 people liked it)

Apr 24, 2008

Gregory rated it:

Sumptuous Prose, but Largely Redundant

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 be More...

0 comments like (15 people liked it)

Nov 14, 2008

Johnny rated it:

This books belongs in the category of 'savory fiction.'
These are the titles that you must take your time and enjoy, reading at a slower pace to fully absorb the nuances and flavors of the story.
Out Stealing Horses is a beautiful book, however most of its charm for me was in the way it connected to my own previous experiences (not literally!)... this book and my rural upbringing were giving each other knowing glances behind my back the entire time. Weird.
I would say th More...

3 comments like (4 people liked it)

Apr 09, 2011

Emily added it

Although my interest in writing about books generally takes a more analytical bent—diving into an author's bag of tricks, dissecting how an effect was achieved or tracing the iterations of a motif along its winding course—there does occasionally come a book that elicits an unexpectedly more personal reaction, one that overshadows my analytical perceptions for a time, and such a book was Per Petterson's 2003 novel Out Stealing Horses. I hope, eventually, to return to a rather crafty meta-techniq More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 13, 2011

THE rated it:

Memories revealed, pondered, untangled...apearing like nested ornamental Chinese boxes...somehow fit to form a most impressive novel by Norwegian author Per Petterson. It is November 1999 and 67-year-old Trond Sander, who has recently lost his wife and sister, embarks on a new life in a rural cabin in eastern Norway (far from modern Oslo) where he intends to live in a simple setting far away from people, electronic devices, and global events that no longer influence his views. Trond is Thoreau- More...

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 22, 2008

Lynn rated it:

5 stars! I can't say what it is about this beautiful book, in which not much really happens, but I couldn't put it down. It is a narrative by this 67 year old loner living in the woods in eastern Norway on the Swedish border.

He has moved there following the deaths of his wife and sister to live out the rest of his very simply on his own, with his dog. Much of the book consists of flashbacks of his 15th summer (1948), which he spent in a similar type of place with his father, after w More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Jun 26, 2008

Rebecca rated it:

It's been a while, no?

Well, that's because I've been juggling many a book while finishing not a one. I've also been on a roll watching mediocre movies (with the exception of Charlie Bartlett as that was quite good).

Five stars for Per Petterson's novel. According to the New York Times Book Review, this was one of the 10 best books of 2007. I'd like to take a moment to: 1. thank Anne Born for her skill in translating this book and 2. ask someone to teach me Norwegian and More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Sep 15, 2007

Bobby rated it:

I have so little time for thoughtful review; instead, I opt for a series of favorite passages from each book; (my apologies to authors everywhere for confounding intent by taking these out of context!) -

"People like it when you tell them things, in suitable portions, in a modest, intimate tone, and they think they know you, but they do not, they know about you, for what they are let in on are facts, not feelings, not what your opinion is about anything at all, not how what has More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Sep 01, 2008

Laura rated it:

I did NOT want this book to end... ever. The pull of memory and the importance of place in lives marked by loss are the central themes of this small novel, set primarily in the deep woods of Norway, across a span of fifty or so years, from World War II to the present. It's hard to explain the power of such a quiet and modest book, and yet the pure, spare voice of the protagonist plays a large part. The descriptions of the natural world and the work required to live in it, the oblique way in whic More...

3 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 19, 2009

Barbara rated it:

This beautifully written coming-of-age story is set in Norway. Told by Trond, a 67 year old man, the book focuses on the summer of 1948 when he was 15 year old and spent several weeks at a cottage in the country with his father. The story flows back and forth in time, recounting a bit of his father's earlier life during World War II when he was a member of the Resistance, a period that greatly affected what happens during that 1948 summer. Now at 67, Trond has found a cottage in the country, More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Feb 01, 2009

Roger rated it:

I wasn't familiar with Per Petterson until my wife read this book and suggested that I read it. This is perhaps the best book I've read over the past year. Even when translated from Norwegian, the language is sparse, simple, and beautiful, evoking deep emotions of regret, speaking to the hard-earned understanding of life that comes with age. It's an unusual coming-of-age story, sometimes depressing but always real. I will read more of his work.

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 06, 2007

Lawrence rated it:

I don't know what this book is really about. There is much sadness and loss, revelations about self and others that make one wonder if you really know them at all, some times of exquisite joy. And some very irritating sentence structure. Maybe it's just too subtle or the result of a different set of cultural references. But, again, I have no idea what this book is really about.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 09, 2009

Susan rated it:

Per Petterson trusts me. I felt this with some satisfaction while reading Out Stealing Horses. He unfolds his story with no unnecessary signposts or reminders or references, trusting that his reader will care enough to gather up every quiet detail as it is shared and infer those that didn’t need to be put down. It is a simple story with many pieces that never snap together so much as they are smoothed into place with time, just as the narrator’s memories are.

His power of description More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 31, 2009

Ceridwen rated it:

There are books that are Gifts, and then there are books that are gifts. One gives you something you didn't expect, the other comes wrapped in paper on holidays or birthdays. This is one of the latter.

I can see why it was chosen. Some very heavy hitters have blurbed the crap out of the back cover. The author is from Norway; some of my great-grandparents were Norwegian. Very well.

I think I've said this before, but it bears repeating: I've never had the bother of trying to More...

18 comments like (11 people liked it)

Mar 26, 2010

Joan rated it:

I'm reading this for the second time with the adult school novel class I take with Debra Ratner. I loved it the first time; I'm getting even more out of it as our class does a close reading.

5 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 17, 2010

Annalisa rated it:

Approaching the end of his life, Trond Sanders leaves tragedy and his identity behind to live alone in a remote Norwegian village where he is haunted by the summer that defined his youth and set the course of his life. He mulls over the events of those months as a fifteen-year-old trying to make sense of the unanswered questions held within, especially with a father he did not know very well. A highly introspective tale, the story wanders seamlessly from the elderly man's physical surroundings t More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

May 29, 2011

Jeanette rated it:

Oh my! This one really worked for me. I stayed up way too late two nights in a row to read this.

Trond Sander is an elderly Norwegian widower. He moves to a tumble-down house on a river to be alone and lead a quiet, simpler life. A chance encounter with a neighbor one night stirs up memories and dreams of the summer of 1948. Trond was fifteen years old, and the experiences of that summer, both pleasant and unpleasant, led to a turning point in the boy's life.

The book al More...

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 03, 2008

Amanda rated it:

Out Stealing Horses (translated from the Norwegian) is the story of Trond, who has gone to the woods in the twilight of his life with only a dog for company; until a meeting with his only neighbor triggers the memory of a different wood in the summer of 1948. Petterson seamlessly weaves the different chronological threads together, and in general the writing has a quiet sort of beauty. But the novel isn't uneventful -- there's murder, Nazis, poverty, border crossings, timber felling, espionage, More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Jun 01, 2008

Chrissie rated it:

I read this book because it brought back to me exactly how it is to live in Dalarna, Sweden, ie immediately over the border on the Swedish side. A perfect picture of the laid back life style of rural central Sweden. What does a border mean? Very little. The lakes, gravel roads, small cottages, the timber hauling trucks that hog the roads, thunder storms. I love thunderstorms, but there I experienced one that continued for 3 hours and really made even me scared. I will never forget it! The birds More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 04, 2008

Megan rated it:

Gorgeous book! Quiet and melancholy as only the frozen north can be, this Norwegian novel has a way of creeping up on you. We follow Trond, a solitary man in his seventies who has relocated to a small cabin in a remote rural village. Living alone there with only a dog for company, he has plenty of time to think back on his life, but he really just thinks about the summer of 1948, when he was a fifteen-year-old boy staying in a logging village with his father for the season. We alternate betwee More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 25, 2008

Mia rated it:

Out Stealing Horses won numerous literary book awards. Now we got that out of the way, I have to say I struggled with the narration: The POV is very aloof, at times, so distant and coldly unemotional that any amount of expressed emotion felt forced: For example, when the father sends the son away and the author suddenly splices in with a movie scene, it was disconcerting, an unsympathetic way to describe the parting scene; not to mention it was garish and a cruel way to treat such a tender pass More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 07, 2011

Lorna rated it:

It took me over three weeks to read this relatively short novel. I didn't particularly care one way or the other about the main character - he was neither sympathetic nor repellent. I clearly didn't care enough about what happened to him to pick the book up regularly.

My main problem - While I generally don't mind a novel that doesn't take place chronologically, I found the jumping about in time quite annoying in this case. I feel that if there are two main time periods in one novel, ea More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 22, 2009

Gretchen rated it:

Given all the glowing reviews, I opened this book with great expectations of being wowed, but in the end, it was just okay for me. It reminds me of the kind of books I was assigned in high school English class- lots of symbolism and metaphors and phrases full of meaning to discuss. I found the book pretty anti-climatic; I couldn't quite figure out what it was about. I know it was about a man reminiscing about his younger years, but a lot of loose ends were left for me. At different times in More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)