Although I really wanted to like this book, I ended up losing interest about half way and had a difficult time picking it up after that juncture. I did finish it though. But mainly, I found the characters very tedious and unlikeable. I enjoy spare prose and when the reader gets to fill in the blanks (and use some intelligence in the process), but frankly, I never cared much what happened to these people. It is a very male-centered book, with much posturing between the father and son; the father and his "friend" and the protagonist and his friend John, much of which made very little sense (but maybe that was the point?). There is a huge amount of space given to the manly world of timber felling and sales; and a good bit on "stealing horses" (riding other peoples' horses, basically, as they are not stolen). It seemed everyone went so far out of their way to avoid dealing with the reality of the situations and each other ~ to the point where it was rather goofy. Despite all, I found the writing quite beautiful in spots, the locale interesting and certainly unique for a U.S. reader. However, I cannot really think of a person I'd recommend this to. It is very slow and the characters dull and frustrating. ( )

Well-written, atmospheric, Hemingway-esque in both style and substance--manly men doing manly tasks in rather excessively detailed yet somehow mesmerizing prose. Trond as an old man has retreated to an isolated cabin, but his past is painfully close--literally, in the form of his only neighbor, Lars, who is the brother of his boyhood friend, Jon. Lars accidentally shot his twin brother with Jon's gun, and this tragedy marked the end of Jon and Trond's friendship, as Jon left home irretrievably damaged. The narrative moves back and forth between this time in the past--Trond's critical 15th year--and his isolated present. The father he idolizes turns out to have been part of the Resistance, and while leading this weird double life in which he spends much of his time living apart from his family in a remote village near the Swedish border has fallen in love with his cohort, Jon's mother. During the summer in question, he's decided to fell all the timber on his land and sell it and enlists Trond to help. The proceeds from the sale (which turn out to be about enough to buy one man's suit--for Trond) are intended to be left for his wife and family after he abandons them, for he never returns home after that summer. This pivotal abandonment shapes Trond's life and brings him to where he is in the present. ("Out stealing horses," incidentally, is a password, for moving information along the underground Resistance route.) ( )

I wish I could have read this book in its original language; there were times when the translations were not quite right, at least not for American English. (I'm not a writer and when I start thinking of what I think would be a better word, that's not good!) And afterwards, I thought, "Come on, Trond! Why didn't you go back to...?" or "You mean you really NEVER had any more contact with...?" That's OK because I was talking to Trond, not the author, but there was one key plot point that seemed sooo improbable to me that I got distracted thinking about how the author could have brought these two characters together in a different way, or whether he even needed to. This was a quiet book, but I'm a sucker for coming-of-age stories, so was deeply interested in finding out all that did happen that summer when Trond was fifteen that led to him to want to be so alone at 67. Overall, I'm not sure I would be all that satisfied with this book if the author had not written the perfect last half of a last sentence which so neatly summed up (and made me feel so much more empathy for) what the narrator was struggling with throughout this story. ( )

Beautifully written, atmospheric and memorable. Read it. ( )

(#26 in the 2009 Book Challenge)

One of those books where nothing much manages to happen on the surface, but the writing is descriptive and thoughtful and makes you pine for the fjords. An older man reflects back on his life, in particular the summer he spent with his father in a family cabin in the woods near the border of Norway and Sweden during WWII. The war is hardly ever happening on the page, but the book does that tricky thing where when you are finished, you realize it was all about the war the entire time. I was impressed.

Grade: A
Recommended: Yes, as long as you aren't expecting a lot of action. Even when there is action, it seems hazy in a stoically Scandinavian way. ( )