Thursday, October 16, 2008

Going out on a limb here.....

A couple of weeks ago, I finished reading Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson. It was awarded Time Magazine Best Book of the Year, and was the winner of the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and one of the Ten Best Books of the Year from the New York Times Book Review.

The author lives in Oslo, Norway and the book is set in Norway. It is told by a 67 year old man, Trond Sander, who, after his wife has died, moves to a remote cabin in the place where his father used to take him as a child. One evening he sees a man outside and realizes it is someone from his childhood and that begins to bring up many memories and questions for him.

I liked the book, but when I began reading other reviews of it, I got pretty confused. Was this the same book that I read? My impression of the book was that Trond's father was working for the Resistance during WWII, when he disappeared. Was that not correct? Did I miss something in the book? Others wrote about the others in that area being Nazi's, etc. Really? How did I miss that?

I guess at some point I will reread this book. It was a good story, so I am not opposed to reading it again. I hate to think that I read a whole book and missed the whole point.

Please, someone else read this book and tell me your thoughts!

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