Norwegian Woodsman -- Blue Story of Teenage Memories

books:


	• Out Stealing Horses: A Novel Per Petterson Picador, 2008 - 256 pages average customer review:based on 81 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Personal Search/Reflection on a life

This is a brief but large beautifully written book. A grieving man retreats to the solitude of his youth-the woods of Norway-the place of his father, the place where he grows from adolescence to young adulthood. Don't expect the loose ends to be tied. The author leaves questions. A great book club selection.

So wanted to like this, but...

The writing is this book is beautiful. I could feel the cold when reading. And, the premise of the story -- a man attempting to escape his past but events just will not let them, is a good one. However, after a while, I just felt like I was missing something. The time sequence of the novel moves from present to past and back again and at times I had difficulty making those moves. This is definitely a study in characterization, not plot. I agree with those that praised the writing style, and agreed with those that felt it left them somehow unfulfilled.

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Norwegian Woodsman -- Blue Story of Teenage Memories

Per Petterson's account of 67-year old Trond Sander's fatalistic meeting with new neighbor Lars Haug triggers highly emotional memories of his 1948 summer, as a fifteen year old lad, who lives in a cabin with his father on a timber-lined river front.

Lars ends up having been the younger brother of Trond's summer mate. Their lives through 1948 crossed one another immensely. But, the summer of 1948 also proves to be tragic. For Lars, for Lars' brother Jon, for Lars' parents and for Trond's parents.

As the pages turn, we learn that there is a past during the Nazi occupation of Norway that led the Haugs and Sanders to meet, and actually work, with one another. Occupational relationships apparently grew, and eventually Trond pieces together the parts as best he can from a story never completely told to him. At the end, we readers must assume or believe certain events occurred - but factual proof of same is not delivered. We cannot totally know what really happened, conjecture cannot be dispositive.

Norwegian dialogue is minimal and sometimes awkward to the American reader. When people are delighted, they may say "Can't be denied." Smiles are infrequent among the characters. Giddiness occurs rarely. If this book were a painting, it would be entirely tones of blue.

But, the uniquity of the Norwegian verse makes this book resonate to this reader. It is different. And, different in a good way. The clean and crisp short sentences, combined with the delicate but not embellished storyline, make the book an easy read and mostly pleasant.

Of all other books read over the past several years, this reminds me most of "The Gathering." Each are reflections of a past, much of which is tortured, but predominately overcome. As each is written by European pen, I forewarn readers of light fare to understand that these novels may not be their classic choice. However, to such readers I offer this advice: giving this book a try should "not be denied."

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Good Read

This book loses something in the translation. It starts out a little slow. Although this is a good story, it is not written as well as I would have preferred.

A most extraordinary voice

First, I read In The Wake, then Out Stealing Horses. Both books affected me in the same way; I was mesmerized. This is a writer who controls his reader from the start. He draws you in while you drum your fingers impatiently -- what a slow book, you are thinking -- then he owns you.

After finishing In The Wake, my first thought was...eat your heart out, Ernest Hemingway. This author is more knowing, more skilled, larger, unmannered. (Perhaps appearing unmannered is his skill?) I didn't want to read another author for a week or two; they all read like amateurs.

I am reading Nadine Gordimer's The Conservationist. She has much of the same hypnotic power and control over the reader.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
A TIME MAGAZINE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
WINNER OF THE IMPAC DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD

Out Stealing Horses has been embraced across the world as a classic, a novel of universal relevance and power. Panoramic and gripping, it tells the story of Trond Sander, a sixty-seven-year-old man who has moved from the city to a remote, riverside cabin, only to have all the turbulence, grief, and overwhelming beauty of his youth come back to him one night while he's out on a walk. From the moment Trond sees a strange figure coming out of the dark behind his home, the reader is immersed in a decades-deep story of searching and loss, and in the precise, irresistible prose of a newly crowned master of fiction.

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