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A Novel
by Per Petterson
Book Reviewed by: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.
I
Early November. It’s nine o’clock. The titmice are banging against the
window. Sometimes they fly dizzily off after the impact, other times
they fall and lie struggling in the new snow until they can take off
again. I don’t know what they want that I have. I look out the window
at the forest. There is a reddish light over the trees by the lake. It
is starting to blow. I can see the shape of the wind on the water.
I live here now, in a small house in the far east of Norway. A river
flows into the lake. It is not much of a river, and it gets shallow in
the summer, but in the spring and autumn it runs briskly, and there are
trout in it. I have caught some myself. The mouth of the river is only
a hundred metres from here. I can just see it from my kitchen window
once the birch leaves have fallen. As now in November. There is a
cottage down by the river that I can see when its lights are on if I go
out onto my doorstep. A man lives there. He is older ...
Many authors ladle out plot in great splashy dollops, Per Peterson measures his with quiet coffee spoons. What at first looks to be a classic coming-of-age story set in Norway, slowly reveals itself to be something more. What that something is is not entirely spelled out, which makes Out Stealing Horses a literary treat for readers who prefer not to be spoon-fed every detail, and instead enjoy filling in some of the gaps for themselves...continued
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(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
Norway is one of the three kingdoms in the geographical region known as Scandinavia (map); the others being Denmark and Sweden. Finland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands are sometimes described as Scandinavian because of their close geographical and historic connections with Scandinavia, although technically speaking these countries belong to the wider definition of "Nordic countries", of which Denmark, Sweden and Norway are also a part.
Up until the 9th century AD, Norway consisted of various small kingdoms, which were united for the first time in 872 by King Harald Finehair. His descendents ruled until the late 14th century, at which time the country fell into what Norwegians call "the 400-year-night" triggered by the Black Death (bubonic ...
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