Helpful Score: 6
One review suggested that the main character here is really time. I concur. There are many layers in this coming of age story. Many people thought it was a "Man's story" because moments were described in depth, but feelings were not. Looking forward to hearing what others have to say!
Written by a reknown Norwegian author. Very descriptive of the surrounding and thoughts, but did not feel the characters were well developed, and female roles, with the exception of one were minimal and secondary. I concur that it is written for men. It is a coming of age and learning to accept lifes disappointments and challenges.
Helpful Score: 2
Lyrical and thought provoking. It reads like an onion, shifting back and forth in chronology with every shift peeling back a layer of time, recasting what we've already learned, and slowly revealing the full story of that pivotal summer. I wish the PBS book description didn't give away so much of the plot; the back cover blurb reveals much less and I think my experience of the book was the better for it.
Helpful Score: 2
I can't say enough good about this book. I throughly enjoyed it!
Helpful Score: 1
This book is VERY detailed. To the point of loosing the story. Sadly I just couldnt get into it, and didnt finish it.
Helpful Score: 1
I recommend this book to those who love beautiful writing with evocative prose. Loved it.
Helpful Score: 1
What a strange but interesting book! Trond is 67 when the book opens and he has moved to a cabin in a remote area of Norway to live out his life alone. Being there begins his remembering the summer when he was 14 or 15. What happened that summer stayed with him all his life.
The part that I found strange was that the time being written about could change within a paragraph. It was not easy to keep track of where you were in the story.
This was a fascinating story, but just because the book is small, do not think it will be a quick and easy read. You must pay attention all the time you're reading or you'll be lost. I believe that part of that is the translation.
If you take the time to read this one, I think you'll find it interesting and enjoyable!
The part that I found strange was that the time being written about could change within a paragraph. It was not easy to keep track of where you were in the story.
This was a fascinating story, but just because the book is small, do not think it will be a quick and easy read. You must pay attention all the time you're reading or you'll be lost. I believe that part of that is the translation.
If you take the time to read this one, I think you'll find it interesting and enjoyable!
Helpful Score: 1
Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson: While the book was quite different from its cover description I found I enjoyed it. Trond has raised a family and lost two wives. When he walks away from the accident that killed his second wife, he retires and moves to a cabin in the woods without telling his daughters. Too busy, he thinks. He relishes the solitude and the chance to live a simple life reflecting over and over how his father did the things he now finds himself doing. As he restores his humble home slowly (he has plenty of time), he finds himself recalling over and over incidents from his life with his parents, sister, friends, and his own family. These experiences and memories have molded him into the individual he is. However, Trond finds that memories are not enough. He does indeed need his daughters and friends. The author weaves the memories and incidents throughout the story with great skill so that the story flows smoothly. Very good read.
Helpful Score: 1
It was really boring, and didn't go anywhere. All memebers of my book club agreed - it was one of the worst books we'd read.
Helpful Score: 1
I enjoyed this book so much that I was able to overlook the fact that large portions of it are in the present tense, which is usually an abomination for me. The translation is so good that it seems as if the book had originally been written in English.
Helpful Score: 1
Trond Sander moves back and forth between current day and his life 40 years ago as a post-WWII teen. The tale recalls life with his father when Trond was 15 years old living in a wooded cabin in Norway. Trond's father's mysterious life and the unexplained disappearance of neighbors in the woods continue to engage Trond's curiousity and contemplation all these years later. Full of surprises and often dark, Out Stealing Horses is a quick read and a memorable one.
This is historical fiction taking place in Norway during World War II and then again many years later. The subject matter is dark, but good. It depicts not an easy life in the countryside, but also shows the beauty too. The book goes back and forth from the present to the past (World War II), when the protagonist was a teenager. We are reading it for our book club book next month.
This was an interesting story with very descriptive writing -- you can really get a sense of the Norwegian countryside as you read -- which looks at the events of one man's youth from his perspective as an adult. The English translation is good, but it is a read which requires close attention, since the time frame can shift from the past to the present very readily.
Set in an isolated corner of Norway, this haunting novel is as beautiful as it is melancholy. The story unfolds around a middle aged man (Trond)who has returned at the beginning of winter to a cabin he once lived in with his father because he needs to come to terms with something that has haunted him all his life, something that occurred when he and his father spent the summer there in 1948. And so the reader is gradually drawn into what Trond is remembering and the impact it has had on him. The author takes us back and forth between the present as Trond discovers that his nearest neighbor is actually the younger brother of Jon, Tronds strange boyhood friend with whom he used to go out stealing horses, and the things that actually took place that long ago summer. Gradually we discover what happened -- events that involved Tronds friendship with Jon and his family, as well as discoveries Trond was making about his own father. Its a poignant story but one that the reader must work hard at deciphering because Trond himself is very guarded and reticent when it comes to revealing whats going on inside him. Its as if the deeper his memories take him into the past, the harder he works at keeping himself from from betraying the impact they are having on him, and the feelings that go along with it. Instead he tries to skirt around them by paying an inordinate amount of attention to describing his surroundings, his rambles with his dog, his work getting the cabin in order for the winter, etc. Slowly the reader begins to realize how difficult it is for Trond to deal with what happened when he was a child and the deep sadness he has carried with him all his life. What I found most remarkable about this book is how adept the author was at letting us discover the depth of Tronds feelings even though Trond himself was so unable to articulate them.
This book is a very detailed account of an old man thinking back on one summer and living his present life. If you like that it is a good book. In many ways I felt I was reading someone's blog. And I never read blogs.
A sixty year wanting to get back into a quiet cabin after the death of his wife and sister. It was the cabin he when with his father as a 15 year old. After meeting his only neighbor memories and reflections seem to flood in about the summer in 1948 and the events that unfolded at that time.
quietly engrossing
Excellent...great story and character development.
This is a good read and weaves the past with the present in an engaging way.
Charles Merrill
Charles Merrill
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 one of 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.
The book takes place in 1999 with frequent flashbacks to 1948. The story concerns Trond Sander, a 67-year-old man coming to terms with his aging body and still grieving three years after the deaths of his wife and sister. Telling no one, not even his two grown daughters, Trond takes his pension and moves to an isolated lakeside cabin in the wilds of northern Norway.
Circumstances bring Trond together with one of his neighbors, Lars Haug, another solitary man. It doesn't take both men very long to realize that they share a mysterious common heritage of heartache some fifty years earlier when Trond was 15 and Lars was a 10-year-old neighbor boy, the little brother of his close friend Jon. Long dormant memories are awakened and old wounds opened.
Circumstances bring Trond together with one of his neighbors, Lars Haug, another solitary man. It doesn't take both men very long to realize that they share a mysterious common heritage of heartache some fifty years earlier when Trond was 15 and Lars was a 10-year-old neighbor boy, the little brother of his close friend Jon. Long dormant memories are awakened and old wounds opened.
I read this book for my book club.We had a lot to discuss after reading this book.It was an okay book.This book is about a man who reminisces about his youth.This book is also tragic.
Wonderful! Jeg anbefaler denne boken.
