Out Stealing Horses

The Scandinavian landscape has famously lent itself to a minimalist aesthetic in design, cinema, and literature, and it is through this minimalist aesthetic that Per Petterson brings his characters’ inner conflicts to life. Small moments, gestures, and images have significant meaning and profound emotional depth. Characters who rely on action rather than words and who feel they are a part of the natural world create the dramatic tension. Because of this, the climax is an emotional shift rather than a dramatic confrontation, and the resolution lies in the philosophies or ideas the reader can take from the narrative.

Petterson’s writing also demonstrates poetic elements including lyricism, personification, and imagery that characterize Scandinavian literature. James Wood in The New Yorker wrote that “his sentences yearn to fly away into poetry” (Wood, James. “Late and Soon.” The New Yorker, 2 Dec. 2012). This is apparent from the first paragraph of Out Stealing Horses, when the narrator, Trond, observes, “There is a reddish light over the trees by the lake. It is starting to blow. I can see the shape of the wind on the water” (5).