Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Out Stealing Horses



Another WWII era story about stealing things.  I found this book to be a little annoying, it kind of had that artsy-fartsy tone where you think the author is trying to show that he is smarter than you because he is so creative and not subject to the rules of linear storytelling and wants to keep you guessing about exactly how far over your head he is.  Which is probably why the NY Times picked as one of the 10 best books of the year, because those Times book reviewers obvi can't admit that anyone is over their heads.  However, to be fair, this book is translated from Norwegian, so it's hard to know how much the translator influenced the tone.  Here's a quote from the author according to Wikipedia:

When asked “How did the Nazi Occupation of Norway translate into the plot of your novel?” Mr. Petterson responded “Well, like I said, I do not plan, so that double meaning came up when I needed it. That is disappointing to some readers, I know. But for me it shows the strength of art. It is like carving out a sculpture from some material. You have to go with the quality of the material and not force upon it a form that it will not yield to anyway. That will only look awkward. Early in the book, in the 1948 part, I let the two fathers (of my main characters, Jon and Trond) have a problem with looking at each other. And I wondered, why is that? So I thought, well, it’s 1948, only three years after the Germans left Norway. It has to be something with the war. And then I thought, shit, I have to write about the war. You see, I hate research.”


It's kind of funny that he said shit, but seriously, it's that easy for you to spit out an award winning novel that you don't have to plan, you just rely on "the strength of the art"?  Vom.

And I also questioned the verisimilitude (shout out to Mr. Burke, my 10th grade english teacher) in Chapter 2 when the main character Trond, 15 years old at the time, jumps from a tree branch onto a running horse's back.  Maybe if Mr. Petterson did not hate research so much, he would know that no normal horse is going to let a human, esp. a teenage boy who probably weighs what, 140-150 lbs?, jump on its back from a tree.  Horses are fast, that's kind of how they survive...  And even if by some miracle the horse does not shy away and leave the would-be rider in the dust, no teenage boy who does not know how to ride is going to be able to hold on when the horse starts rearing and bucking.  As a general rule, I will love any book with the word Horses in the title, but geez, that scene was ridiculous.

But except for those problems, this book does have some beautiful imagery of the forests and lakes and rivers of northeastern Norway.  Lots of snow, spruce trees, and cold clear water.  Although it is a war story to a certain extent, it is really about a boy's discovery that his father, who disappears after the summer when most of the story occurs, is not the person he thought he knew, and how that discovery is kind of his final break with childhood.  I agree with that idea - you can't be your own person until you decide how you are going to be different from your parents.  Another theme that really resonated with me is the idea of being alone vs. being lonely, because I've been spending a lot of time alone lately.  Is it truly unnatural for a person to prefer being alone, is solitude a personal choice that we should have the right to make?  As an introvert myself, I feel like most introverts would choose to be extroverts if they could, but I doubt that most extroverts wish they were more introverted.  I can actually see myself living like Trond if I'm old and without my spouse, even though I hate to think about that - just going for walks with my dog, piddling around the house and yard, sitting on a bench thinking, reading Dickens by the woodstove at night... Except I would not move to a cabin in the forest with an outhouse :)

Up Next: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

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