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| Out Stealing Horses: A Novel | 
 enlarge | Author: Per Petterson
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Category: Book
List Price: $22.00
Buy Used: $10.50
You Save: $11.50 (52%)
New (22) Used (23) Collectible (2) from $10.50
Avg. Customer Rating:  104 reviews
Sales Rank: 8475
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 250
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.5 x 5.4 x 1.2
ISBN: 1555974708
Dewey Decimal Number: 839.82374
EAN: 9781555974701
ASIN: 1555974708
Publication Date: April 17, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
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 oneof 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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 99 more reviews...
 "Everything merges into a single pulse" November 29, 2008
There are many lessons in this book. For instance, whether it is intentional or not, Per Petterson has captured the rhythm, synergy, and energy that results from true teamwork.
"We started in the morning just after seven and kept on until evening when we fell into bed and slept like the dead until we woke with the light and went at it again. For a time it looked as if we would never get to the end of those trees, because you can walk along a path and think that what is around you is a nice little wood, but when each spruce has to be felled with the cross-cut saw, and you begin to count, you can easily lose heart and feel certain you will never finish. But when you are in the swing, and all of you have fallen into a good rhythm, the beginning and the end have no meaning at all, not there, not then, and the only vital thing is that you keep going until everything merges into a single pulse that beats and works under its own steam, and you take a break at the right time and you work again, and you eat enough but not too much, and you drink enough but not too much, and sleep well when the time comes; eight hours at night, and at least one hour during the day."
Think about it: when people work together, or play together, when they are in rhythm they are in fact a "single pulse." I believe this applies to many aspects of life, including work, play, even government and politics.
Thank you Per Petterson for a truly great book.
I recommend and that is unusual November 28, 2008
This is the second novel I have read in the past 8 months..the first was cellist of......
I found this hard to put down, i found myself thinking about it during the day. I found myself craving for time to read..when I was supposed to be working, driving, sleeping. i made myself put this book down because it is like chocolat, if you do not take the time to savor every morsel, you may as well not bother to eat it.
This book is well worth savoring,,,,every chapter,,every sentence,,every word..I was disappointed when it ended...
I would place this book with the classics....and it would stand proudly and taller than hemingway
I have yet to find another novel worthy of my time....
 Loss and recovery; hurt and compensation; pain and survival November 22, 2008
Per Petterson is a subtle and sensitive storyteller. In his novel Out Stealing Horses, he uses a post-modern shifting of time between a young man on the verge of adulthood and the same man more than 50 years later, with only vague hints as to life lived between that eventful adolescence and the onset of an old age seeking isolation.
In the novel, Trond is seen as a young man becoming sexually aware, but also strongly attached to his best friend Jon and to his virile, action oriented father. Much of his life, especially his youth, is highly influenced by a series of events that occur around World War II in which a terrible accident at a neighbor's home leads to the loss of his best friend Jon and eventually to the abandonment of his family by his father for a neighbor's wife.
Much of the structure of the novel is a series of actions on the part of Trond's father, which are initially mysterious but eventually are revealed, to which Trond reacts as an adolescent and upon which he later reflects. As Trond grows ever more mature, he unwittingly gives his father stronger self-justification to abandon the family for his affair with a neighbor's beautiful wife. The abandonment of his family is subtly portrayed here since the feelings of anger and resentment may be deeply buried under the awe of a father who at times displayed heroic action and risk.
For Trond, his maturity offered a justification for the abandonment, thus giving a sense of guilt where none should be felt. There is a wonderful passage in the book where Trond and his father go into Sweden to check on the logs they have sent downriver to the sawmills and to un-wedge any logs stuck in the shallows. Trond does not realize at the time that these logs are meant to be a cash payment for the family once the father leaves home. The father does not want to leave the family without resources and so he works diligently to do some logging to get a small amount of money to leave his wife, daughter, and son. A stack of logs are found and Trond figures out how to dislodge them, demonstrating to his father that he is mature, takes responsibility, and can solve practical problems. Trond's father feels pride but also now feels less guilty about leaving his family for he feels that Trond has become a man.
There is a sense of sadness and loss that permeates the book. A terrible accident at the neighbor's home results in his best friend leaving the home and returning only many years later. Trond's father leaves the family and Trond never sees him again. The reader gets the impression that this loss of the father permeates Trond's life, though Trond's two marriages and children are only briefly mentioned, and carries forward even as he reaches age 67 and is attempting to retire into solitude.
The book is beautifully written. The descriptions of the Norwegian rural wilderness are vivid and yet not overdone or over emphasized. I was left with an overall appreciation for Petterson's descriptive art, and his ability to convey the cycles of loss and recovery, hurt and compensation, pain and survival, that are integral to the human experience.
A Book I Read Slowly November 12, 2008
I don't read as much as I would like and that is usually my fault. Sometimes it is the book's fault for not pulling me in. This one had no trouble and the sparse prose is perfectly descriptive of the state of mind of both the man and boy in this novel. I felt I could almost smell the air in the book with barely a word to describe it, but somehow it comes across. The writing is simple yet leaves you touched by this character's experience. It is like wandering into a room you used to inhabit as a child. You can pinpoint the exact smell but something pulls a flood of emotion back into your consciousness that has been lost somewhere. This book feels like that throughout and is one of the best books I have read since "East of Eden". Like life, it is neither happy nor sad, but simply is what we make of it.
 Gave up on page 52 November 11, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
My expectations were high, but I couldn't talk myself into reading past page 52. It wasn't awful, just very flat for my taste. I wasn't particularily taken by the writing, as many have raved about, nor was I at all interested in the characters. Nothing here for me...
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