Book Review - Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson

My book club reviewed "Out Stealing Horses" this week. I get so much more enjoyment from a book when I can discuss it with such a lively group that is my book club. I listened to the book on CD on my trip back from Connecticut and then I reread it in the past couple weeks so I would be well prepared. I still missed things that other people found. Despite the title, this book is not about horses. Horses are in a couple chapters but they play a minor role. The book is about a man, an older man who is living in solitude trying to make sense of his younger years spent in the same area he lives now. This man was abandoned by his father when he was 15 and abandonment is a big theme throughout the story. He and his father were close right before the abandonment. I think it is especially cruel of the father to get that close when he knew he was going to leave him. In one memorable scene, the father and son (living for the summer in a cabin in the woods) come in from a hard day of work just as a hard rainstorm strikes. They decide to cool off and clean up by taking a shower in the rain. They lather up their bodies and go outside to rinse, performing handstands in the pounding rain. Now, that is togetherness. The book was written in Norwegian and translated into English. I could hardly tell it was a translation. The descriptions of the pine filled forests and fjords of Norway, close to Sweden, are beautiful. The book is set in the time during WWII. Some Norwegians were part of the Nazi resistance. I cannot imagine living in an occupied country. This book describes the German soldiers traveling on motorcycle through the Norwegian countryside and inspecting farmyards for suspicious activity. We talked about leadership during times of war. The King of Norway, during the Nazi occupation, fled the country. The King of Denmark stayed. When told he may have to mark the Jewish citizens with yellow stars, the King of Denmark said all Danes would wear yellow stars including himself. As a result, the Germans never asked the Danes to mark their Jewish citizens with yellow stars. How would I react in such a situation. Would I be more like the King of Norway or the King of Denmark? I pray I will never find out.