November book club- Out Stealing Horses - 29th November
Posted 14:36, 13 November 2017
Out Stealing Horses is a 2003 Norwegian 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. Among other awards it won the 2007 Dublin IMAC Award, one of the richest literary prizes in the world.
Per Petterson offers a poignant and moving novel about the changing perspective on the world, from youthful innocence to the difficult acceptance of betrayal and abandonment.The major part of the story revolves around a father and son who spend one summer together, in 1948, in a small cabin, removed from the rest of the world.The young boy and narrator of this novel, Trond Sander, is fifteen in 1948, but he is a sixty-year-old looking back on that remarkable summer in other parts of the novel. It was during that 1948 summer that Trond was transformed from a boy to a man. Between the two versions of the narrator, a son’s love for his father, which is duly returned, is made quietly apparent.
Petterson’s writing is quiet and thoughtful and even a little sly. Critics describe the tendency of this novel to sneak up on readers and capture them without their being aware of it.Out Stealing Horses has received enthusiastic praise and was called a "book to cherish and remember" by The Guardian.
As always attendance is free but please book tickets in advance so we know how many people are coming. If you would like us to reserve you a copy please email us.