Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson
Published 2007 · 264 pages · 74,263 words · about 6 hours at an average pace · Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction
How hard is Out Stealing Horses to read?
Out Stealing Horses scores 72 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it very challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 55 out of 100
- The prose employs a generally accessible, contemporary vocabulary, avoiding archaic terms or invented language. While specific rural and technical terms like "smallholder," "moraine ridge," "pike pole," and "silage" appear, they are either common or clarified by context, placing it above simple contemporary fiction but well below highly experimental works.
- Sentence structure: 62 out of 100
- The narrative features a mix of direct, declarative sentences and longer, more intricate constructions, particularly during moments of introspection and detailed description. Sentences with multiple subordinate clauses are common, such as the narrator's reflections on his father's character or the meaning of trust, requiring sustained attention, though it lacks the extreme hypotaxis or unpunctuated passages found in more challenging modernist texts.
- Abstraction: 72 out of 100
- The book frequently transcends concrete narrative to explore profound philosophical and existential themes, such as the nature of time, memory, loss, and identity. The narrator's extensive internal monologues and reflections on the meaning of events, like his musings on 'time' or the symbolic dream of Magritte's painting, elevate the text beyond simple storytelling, making abstract concepts central to the reading experience.
- Information density: 73 out of 100
- The text is rich with interwoven narratives, shifting between present and past, and embedding detailed accounts of historical events (e.g., Odd's death, the Resistance work) and personal tragedies. This layering of timelines, sensory detail, and deep emotional introspection demands close attention to connect disparate elements and fully grasp the complex tapestry of the characters' lives and experiences.
- Narrative indirection: 75 out of 100
- The narrative frequently requires readers to infer meaning, as the older narrator, Trond, reflects on his past and present with admitted gaps in understanding. He explicitly states, 'I do not know whether I began filling out this painting at once, or if it is something I have done over the years,' inviting the reader to actively construct the 'truth' from his subjective memory. Trond also consciously withholds his true feelings from others, creating a layer of unspoken meaning that the reader must decipher, similar to the self-aware unreliability in 'Lolita' or 'The Great Gatsby,' but with a more profound engagement with the nature of memory itself.
- Symbolic density: 70 out of 100
- The text is rich with recurring motifs that carry meaning beyond their literal presence, such as the river representing boundaries and the flow of time, the forest as a place of both solitude and hidden dangers, and horses symbolizing youthful freedom and recklessness. The 'boy with the golden trousers' nickname, initially a symbol of luck, becomes ironic as Trond recounts personal tragedies. These symbols are deeply integrated into the narrative, enhancing its emotional and thematic depth without becoming purely allegorical, placing it higher than 'To Kill a Mockingbird' but less dense than 'Moby-Dick'.
- Ironic distance: 68 out of 100
- A significant ironic distance is created by the older Trond's retrospective narration, as he often views his younger self's naivete and lack of understanding with a gentle, yet clear, detachment. He reflects on how others perceive him versus his inner reality, stating, 'they think they know you, but they do not, they know about you, for what they are let in on are facts, not feelings,' highlighting the gap between appearance and truth. This distance is less about overt satire and more about the nuanced interplay between past innocence and present wisdom, akin to the reflective irony in 'The Great Gatsby' but with a more personal, internal focus.
- Resolution withholding: 80 out of 100
- The narrative deliberately withholds definitive closure on several central mysteries and character fates, leaving significant questions unanswered. The ultimate fate of Trond's father after his departure, and the full story of Jon's life and his relationship with Lars, remain ambiguous, with Trond explicitly stating his uncertainty about his father's intentions. The ending of the excerpt finds Trond still grappling with his past and present, suggesting an ongoing process of understanding rather than a neat resolution, which is more pronounced than 'The Great Gatsby' and closer to the open-endedness of 'Crying of Lot 49' or '2666'.
- Structural complexity: 80 out of 100
- The novel employs a consistently non-linear structure, alternating between Trond's present-day experiences in late 1999 and his vivid memories of the summer of 1948. This dual timeline is frequently interwoven, with present observations triggering detailed flashbacks, and is further complicated by embedded narratives where characters recount events Trond did not witness directly. The narrator's explicit acknowledgment of reconstructing memory ('I do not know whether I began filling out this painting at once, or if it is something I have done over the years') adds a meta-narrative layer, making the structure more complex than simple flashbacks and approaching the fragmented chronology of 'Flights'.
How Out Stealing Horses is regarded
Out Stealing Horses holds a literary regard score of 56 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.