Out Stealing Horses

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Out Stealing Horses

English language first ed.
Author Per Petterson
Original title Ut og stjæle hester
Translator Anne Born
Country Norway
Language Norwegian
Genre(s) literature
Publisher Harvill Secker (UK), Graywolf Press (USA)
Publication date 2003
Published in
English		 April 2007 (USA), November 2005 (UK)
Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages 240pp (UK hardback)
ISBN ISBN 1843432293 (UK), 1555974708 (USA)

Out Stealing Horses (Ut og stjæle hester) is a 2003 novel by Per Petterson. It was translated into English in 2005 by Anne Born, published in the UK that year, and in the US in 2007. In the original language the novel won the Bookseller's Prize, and in English it won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the 2007 Dublin IMPAC Award, one of the richest literary prizes in the world.

Contents

[edit] Cast

[edit] People

  • Barkald – The owner of a nearby farm with horses. “The biggest landowner in the district.”
  • Ellen Sander – Trond’s eldest daughter.
  • Franz – Trond’s father’s friend who lives near the cottage.
  • Jon Haug – Trond’s friend in the summer of 1948. He is 15 years old that summer.
  • Lars Haug – Younger brother of Jon’s and the twin of Odd. He is 10 years old in the summer of 1948. Also, Trond’s neighbor in the later episode.
  • Odd Haug – Younger brother of Jon’s and the twin of Lars. He is 10 years old in the summer of 1948.
  • Olaf – The mechanic in the later episode.
  • Trond Tobias Sander – The story’s narrator and main character. He is 15 years old in the summer of 1948. He is 67 in the later episode.
  • Trond’s father
  • Trond’s mother
  • Uncle Arne – A brother of Trond’s mother. A twin of Uncle Amound.
  • Uncle Amound – A brother of Trond’s mother. A twin of Uncle Arne.

[edit] Animals

  • Bramina – The Haug’s horse, mentioned in 1944 and in the summer of 1948.
  • Brona – Barkald’s horse that he gives to Trond’s dad for helping with his hay making.
  • Lyra – Trond’s dog in the later episode.
  • Poker – Lars’ dog in the later episode.

[edit] Chronology

  • April 9, 1940 – The Germans arrive in Oslo. Trond and his sister and mother and father live in Oslo. “Not long after” the Germans arrived in Oslo, Trond’s father went away for the first time.
  • 1942 – Trond’s father meets Franz and moves into a vacant cabin owned by Barkald. He uses the cabin for two years.
  • 1943 – Uncle Arne is shot and killed by the Germans when he tries to escape from a police station somewhere in Sorlandet on the south coast.
  • Autumn, 1944 – The Germans detect Jon’s mother with the man in her boat, Franz blows up the bridge, the Germans shoot and kill the man, and Trond’s father and Jon’s mother flee to Sweden together.
  • 1945 – The Germans leave Norway.
  • June 1945 – Trond’s father returns to his family’s home in Oslo.
  • The summer of 1948 –
    • Mid June – Trond and his father go to the cottage for the summer.
    • Two days before “one of the first days of July” – Jon’s mother goes to Innbygda.
    • The next day – Lars accidentally shoots and kills his twin brother Odd with Jon’s gun. Their father goes to get their mother and brings her home from Innbygda.
    • The next day – Trond and Jon go out stealing horses, and Jon takes an egg from a goldcrest nest and drops it on the ground.
    • Three days later – Odd’s funeral.
    • “A few days after the funeral” – Jon leaves for Innbygda on the bus. He is then “at sea”.
    • Four days after the funeral – Trond and his father begin helping with the hay making.
    • Some time later – Trond, Trond’s father, Jon’s father, Jon’s mother, Franz, and Brona begin cutting the timber.
    • A week into the timber cutting job – Jon’s father breaks his leg and injures his shoulder. He is taken to the Innbygda hospital. He never returns home.
    • The next day – Early in the morning, Trond sees his father with Jon’s mother outside her house. Trond then goes to Franz’ house for breakfast, and Franz tells him about what happened during the German occupation of Norway.
    • “The day that summer was over” – Trond’s father puts Trond on the bus to Elverum. Trond then takes the train to Oslo. That is the last time Trond sees his father.
  • Late autumn of 1948 –
    • Trond’s father writes his family that he is not coming home any more and that there is money for the timber felled that summer in the Warmlandsbank in Karlstad.
    • Trond’s mother borrows money from Uncle Amound to travel to Karlstad.
    • Trond and his mother travel by train to Karlstad, get the money from the Warmlandsbank, and buy Trond a suit.
  • 1957 –
    • Jon returns home to take over the farm. He is 24.
    • Lars leaves home on his 20th birthday.
  • Later –
    • Trond marries and has two children who are grown and have children themselves by 1999.
    • Trond marries a second wife.
  • 1996 –
    • Trond’s second wife dies in an auto accident that Trond only just survives himself.
    • Trond’s sister dies of cancer within one month of Trond’s wife’s death.
    • Some time after the accident – Trond “pensions himself off”.
  • 1999 –
    • Trond’s two children are grown and have children themselves.
    • Autumn – Trond lives alone “in a small house in the far east of Norway”.
    • “Early November” – Trond meets Lars when Lars is out looking for his dog. Soon thereafter Lars comes to his house for dinner and they acknowledge that they know each other from the summer of 1948.
    • Ellen visits Trond in his home.

[edit] Critical reaction

Time magazine's Lev Grossman named it one of the Top 10 Fiction Books of 2007, ranking it at #4, and praising it as a "page-turner".[1][2]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Grossman, Lev; "The 10 Best Fiction Books"; Time magazine; December 24, 2007; Pages 44 - 45.
  2. ^ Grossman, Lev; Top 10 Fiction Books; time.com

[edit] External links

[edit] Reviews