I like broccoli. By no means is it my favorite vegetable that honor belongs to brussels sprouts, but I rank it high above green beans. Sometimes I just move the broccoli around on my plate until I am ready to eat it. Sometimes, especially in stir-fry, I just leave it on my plate for no reason other than I would rather eat the carrots and bell peppers. Sometimes I come back to it. Sometimes I don't. Sometimes I need a little cheese or butter to make the broccoli go down a little better. Broccoli is good for me and really is a fine tasting vegetable.
My feelings towards broccoli can also be applied to my experience reading Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson, a literary work that nourishes me with both a compelling narrative and a nuanced literary style. But, like my desire for broccoli, my enthusiasm levels for this book wane substantially. Sometimes I want to devour and sometimes I want to leave it. Sometimes I prefer something with a different flavor. But, every time I come back it, Petterson's prose sustains and enriches me.
Out Stealing Horses is not a quick beach read or even a practical novel for busy moms who do not have long stretches of time to read. Fortunately, due to the brevity of this detailed-filled and weighty book, not many long uninterrupted sessions are needed, but sporadic readings do not work well with this novel, a slow and quiet work of literary fiction.
Petterson's novel develops as slowly and quietly as the secluded and tranquil environment in Eastern Norway that becomes home for Trond Sander, a 67-year-old city dweller, who no longer has an interest in society after the death of his second wife and his sister. His plans to cure his loneliness and melancholy through solitude, communing with nature and by engaging in hard physical labor. He shows no remorse about not communicating with his two adult daughters from his first marriage and has no interest in making new friends. He is content listening to World BBC on his radio and re-reading Charles Dickens novels, a life-long passion. He functions adequately with his emotional malaise until one night he meets his (many miles away) neighbor and his past comes back to hit him with the same force of the car accident the killed his wife three years prior.
The man who steps out of the shadows is Lars, the brother of his best childhood friend. Their encounter disrupts Trond's tranquility and gives him an emotional jolt of remembrance. Seeing Lars catapults him back to the summer of 1948, when he was fifteen-years-old and participated in the playful game of stealing horses, which is simply borrowing the neighbor's horses for a joyful gallop across the countryside with his favorite childhood companion, Jon. But the glory of the pastoral summer did not last long when Trond and Jon's game of stealing horses ultimately leads to Lars accidentally shooting his twin brother by the name of Odd; this tragedy triggers Trond's coming of age as well as the loss of both his best friend and his father.
Petterson slowly allows the story to unfold through subtle alternating between Trond as an old man, who is tightly-wound, spiritually vacant, and emotionally numb and Trond as a young man, who is coming to terms with his forced manhood and the issues of sexuality, adultery, wage-earning, and war time activities. When chronically listing the events of the story, there are many intense and action filled moments in this novel. But, Petterson prefers to tell the story in way that conceals any excitement or adventure. He conveys the details of a shooting during an act from the Norwegian Resistance Movement after World War II with the same snail pace as he recounts timbers falling in the forest. Nothing moves swiftly in this book, which is part of its charm and its tediousness. (I recommend reading this book in an upright position and armed with caffeine. Read only at bedtime, if you want to fall asleep immediately).
Much like my ambivalent feelings towards the novel's pacing, I have mixed feelings about the protagonist. On one hand, he is a tragic man who evokes sympathy and empathy. He is a victim. As a boy, he is abandoned by his father. He is a man scorned by his first wife and becomes a mourning hermit after his second wife's death. He knows pain and sadness. But, is that pain and sadness a good enough excuse to repeat his father's mistake of disappearing without making his children aware of his location, situation or intentions? Trond as an old man is emotionally impotent. When he had the chance to resolve the mystery of his childhood by asking Lars: "Did you take the place that was rightfully mine? Did you have years out my life that I should have lived?" He didn't do it. When he had the chance to make things right with his daughter, the most he could do was promise her that he would get a telephone. Trond is a man of inaction and leaves his past and present unsettled perhaps purposefully, perhaps intentionally but most likely out of fear. Because of his hesitation and reticence, Trond's story plays out nothing like the Dickens' novels that inspire him. There is no nice and neat Dickensian ending, where all the characters end up where they should be and with the good people who love them. Trond remains alone and unsettled -- very Norwegian and Post-Modern.
Overall, I appreciate this novel for its artistry and restraint in language (this probably should be attributed to the English translation), and its compelling story. But, I did not fall in the love with this novel because I failed to connect to the characters, setting or time period. This novel falls in three major genres: a boys' coming of age tale, a father-son drama, and a personal history (told from an old man's perspective). Truthfully, as sexist as it may be, I tend to not embrace stories with male protagonists; probably the reason why I didn't like Moby Dick or Catcher in the Rye. Perhaps I would have been more likely to latch onto this story if it was told from a feminine perspective. I certainly have an obsession with mother-daughter tales, and Moll Flanders remains my favorite bildungsroman. I love to fall in love with books; it just didn't happen in case. Out Stealing Horses is a nice book with adequate flavor; it is a book that I will not savor for very long or have any desire to re-visit. But like broccoli, it wasn't the best or the worse thing to consume. So if you have nothing else on your plate that interests your palate, give Per Petterson's novel a try.
Author's Note: For our book club thumbs up/thumbs down survey, I give it a firm thumbs in the middle. Ladies, have a productive and entertaining meeting without me. I'll be back for July's meeting to discuss The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I am starting the book today and am dreading going so far outside of my comfort zone with crime fiction, but the reviews are good and it has won awards. So, I am not taking that big of a risk. Thank you so much for not torturing me Twilight.
