Posted by Steven on 19/3/2012, 8:52:37, in reply to "Out Stealing Horses"
76.186.47.15
I read Out Stealing Horses a few years ago. It was the same year we read Banville's The Sea, and I noted the many similarities in those two books (and now The Sense of an Ending joins the group).
I don't recall the story in any great detail, but I did enjoy it.
I like your comments about coincidence. One remarkable coincidence is permissible because they do happen, and it is the reason we have a novel. One coincidence after another becomes a problem. Earlier generations could assume it was Fate, or the workings of a deity. And in the case of a writer like Dickens, we must tell ourselves that we don't have to believe it to enjoy it.
In some cases a coincidental meeting with a character from a previous chapter isn't necessary for the plot, it just saves the author the trouble of creating and describing a new character of the same type, and the reader the burden of learning a new character.
In other cases what seem like unlikely coincidences may just reflect a small social circle. When I read the 12 novels of A Dance to the Music of Time I was initially bothered at how many times the narrator runs into the same people. But then when you're talking about upper class Englishmen with artistic inclinations, you aren't dealing with a population of millions or even thousands.
The worst modern novel I've read for improbable coincidences was The Kite Runner. But the worst offenders of all are in Hollywood. I've completely given up on movies for several reasons, unbelievable plots being one of them.
--Previous Message--
: Canadian and Turkish Women's group discussed Out
: Stealing Horses by Per Petterson. Except for myself
: and another lady who is from Norway, everyone had high
: praise for the book. I thought it was OK, the stories
: in the past were interesting but it wasn't that
: compelling. I didn't think it was exceptional in any
: way.
:
: One of the ladies had seen a TV interview with the
: author. He said that his writing style was sentence by
: sentence (meaning that he didn't have a plan, he
: didn't know what the next sentence was going to be). I
: think that was evident in the book. For instance,
: Franz made his entrance after one third of the book
: was over.
:
: One lady attributed the loose ends to "men being
: men, not asking the simplest of questions."
:
: There were a few quotable quotes, such as "you
: decide when it hurts."
:
: I thought the mother of the three boys was sometimes
: acting quite out of character. For instance, it was
: very mean of her to say to Lars (about the dog that
: was menacing the live stock) "here is a job for
: you."
:
: The meeting of the two men in the middle of nowhere
: was very Dickens of course and the author explained
: that very well:
:
: "Now suddenly I am sure. Lars is Lars even though
: I saw him last when he was ten years old, and now he's
: past sixty, and if this had been something in a novel
: it would just have been irritating. I have in fact
: done a lot of reading particularly during the last few
: years, but earlier too, by all means, and I have
: thought about what I've read, and that kind of
: coincidence seems far-fetched in fiction, in modern
: novels anyway, and I find it hard to accept. It may be
: well in Dickens, but when you read Dickens you're
: reading a long ballad from a vanished world, where
: everything has to come together in the end like an
: equation, where the balance of what was once disturbed
: must be restored so that the gods can smile again. A
: consolation, maybe, or a protest against a world gone
: off the rails, but it is not like that any more, my
: world is not like that, and I have never gone along
: with those who believe our lives are governed by fate.
: They whine, they wash their hands and crave pity. I
: believe we shape our lives ourselves, at any rate I
: have shaped mine, for what it's worth, and I take
: complete responsibility. But of all the places I might
: have moved to, I had to land up precisely here."
:
: I was OK with this coincidence. Because of this
: coincidence there is a novel. Something unlikely makes
: a story.
:
: I wasn't OK with the dozens and dozens of coincidences
: that took place in Doctor Zhivago. People keep bumping
: into one another in the vastness of Russia... Up until
: the end, every character, new or old, is related to
: some other character or event... It was a little too
: much.
:
: But just one big coincidence that the novel is based
: on or takes life from is fine.
:
: The ladies in the reading group speculated much about
: the behaviour of the Swedish, why the mother and son
: were treated so poorly, whether or not the bank,
: conforming to the general nastiness, had tried to rip
: them off of their money...
:
: And we were very curious about what happened to the
: father and the woman (mother of Lars) when the older
: boy returned to claim the farm.
:
: Lale
:
:
:
:
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