Out Stealing Horses
and over 900,000 other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store for more details. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
"This stunning novel will tell you more about the Norwegian countryside and psyche than the most enthusiastically well-informed guidebook."-"Sunday Telegraph"
"[Petterson] captures the essence of a man's vast existence with a clean-lined freshness that hits you like a burst of winter air - surprising and breathtaking."-"Daily Express"
." . . a true gem, compact yet radiant."-"Independent on Sunday"
." . . a minor masterpiece of death and delusion."-"The Guardian"
"[Petterson] captures the essence of a man's vast existence with a clean-lined freshness that hits you like a burst of winter air - surprising and breathtaking."-"Daily Express"
." . . a true gem, compact yet radiant."-"Independent on Sunday"
." . . a minor masterpiece of death and delusion."-"The Guardian"
The Saturday Herald Books of the Year. Chosen by Ruaridh Nicoll.
`It is a small-scale, yet perfect study of humanity. I wish I'd
written it.'
written it.'
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hypnotic, atmospheric,
By
This review is from: Out Stealing Horses (Paperback)
This is such a lovely book - I haven't read anything quite so evocative and atmospheric for a long time. Simple but majestic prose, I found myself narrating incidents in my own life with the same stark yet intimate tone. (Perhaps that's a strange quirk of mine, but I only do that when I feel completely involved and at one with a book and a writer.) Set in Norway, the book is about Trond, a man who has set up home in the middle of nowhere almost as a retreat from life; he is nearing old age. So proceeds a description of his current state of mind intertwined with memories of a youthful summer spent with his Dad in a very similar area. And in Trond, Petterson creates a character whose honesty you immediately like, but only really understand at the very end of the book, keeping you engaged throughout. And even then you are left with questions, though perhaps that is the key. Trond is still finding out new things about himself, still surprising himself, even though he tells himself that he has withdrawn. The story burns slowly, but like watching fire grow, it draws you closer. This is a meditation on the things which make us, and the moments which you somehow remember, many of which you don't understand because they happen when we are too young. It's beautifully written, elegtant, and very moving. I loved it.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
lyrical, thoughtful, predominantly reflective - very satisfying,
By Mr. Ian A. Macfarlane "almac1975" (Fife, Scotland) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Out Stealing Horses (Paperback)
This is a lyrical book ; in many places, a beautiful one. The narrative is driven by three instances of traumatic loss. Trond, now 67, has sought solitude in a little cottage, not much more than a shack, in the Norwegian hinterland. You could say that he is running away from the world, but to some extent he is also returning to something like the kind of rural environment in which, as a boy and teenager, he achieved greatest happiness. His relationship with this setting has its positive side. He looks forward to making practical improvements to the cottage and enjoys the companionship of his dog, Lyra. Though he is shutting himself off, there is no feeling that he expects or wishes to fade away. From this situation, he reviews his life, and information from the past emerges so that eventually we have a fairly complete picture of his formative years.
The book is really beautifully written. Descriptions of the surroundings, the trees, the water, the tracks, journeys (including one on horseback into Sweden), the simple life in the cottage are marvellous and sometimes deeply satisfying. A key element is Trond's relationship with his father (it is with his father that he makes the journey into Sweden), a crucial relationship in his life, and this is handled with understated delicacy. His father's life, which includes wartime work with the Norwegian resistance is seen through the boy's eyes. Trond may have become a recluse, but he is courteous and still likes people - he gradually makes contact with his neighbour, Lars, and he welcomes a visit from his daughter, though both of these encounters bring memories from the past which are not wholly positive. The book ends with a visit Trond and his mother make to Karlstad, and it would be quite natural for that ending to be bitter and negative, but it is not so, not at all, and we see that Trond, who has been through very hard times, is a survivor ; as his father had said (picking nettles) 'we decide for ourselves when it will hurt'. The translation seems fine to me - it reads well. A feature of Petterson's style is the use of very long, rather meandering sentences, but he uses them with great skill, adding detail to detail in a way which works well. Overall, it's an unusual book - a good thing! - and a thoughtful one - as The Independent reviewer wrote, 'a luminous story, a genuine work of art'.
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
a lonely old man with no redeeming qualities,
By
This review is from: Out Stealing Horses (Paperback)
I'm not sure I agree at all that this is a story about nostalgia. This story is about an old man disconnected from his family, without real friends, who recalls the events of a summer when he was 15 years old a couple of years after the end of WW2 and the Nazi occupation of Norway.
For me the book is about how the boy's very weak relationship with his father flowered briefly that summer, but was suddenly cut off by what appears to be the utter selfishness of the parent. In looking back on the events of that summer, the old man just recalls the facts. The author I think is leaving it to the reader to decide whether the lack of a lasting relationship of any depth with his father has caused the old man to have little real connection with his own two wives (though that isn't specifically addressed in the book), or with his own children. He doesn't even seem to care much that his daughter tracked him down in the backwoods of Norway and paid him a visit. The old man isn't really making any effort to cultivate genuine relationships with his neighbour (though they do have a tragic event that summer very much in common)or with the local inhabitants beyond mundane necessity. In some ways this is a rather sad book, revealing the rather stunted emotional responses of this old man. The final line of the novel really is the whole point - we do decide when things hurt - and this man seems to have turned off his emotions to make sure things affect him as little as possible.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews |
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
