A true Paasilinna fable complete with the dark Finnish landscape, eccentric characters, the vodka always lurking in the background; and a true and special friendship between a man and a hare.
Original title: Jäniksen vuosi
First published: 1975
Available in English
Karlo Vatanen is a journalist working a case in the Finnish forest together with a photographer. While driving back at night they hit a hare with their car. Vatanen jumps out of the car and follows the rabbit — in an Alice in Wonderland-sense — into the forest.
He never looks back.
Within a week Vatanen has left his former life for good. He quits his job, leaves his wife, sells his treasured boat and travels with the hare all over Finland. He takes odd jobs here and there, almost loses his hare to veterinarians and posh, upper-class women, fights ravens and policemen and — perhaps the highlight of the book — follows a mean old bear across the border into the Soviet Union. He also manages to get engaged without remembering it during a particularly heavy period of binge drinking.
The book is short, like all Paasilinna novels, but is filled with episodes from the year Vatanen spends traveling around the country with his beloved hare (one memorable episode features Vatanen trying to pull a cow up from a marsh).
It is difficult to re-tell as the charm and cleverness of the book lie in the surprising and absurd episodes, which one has to read for oneself.
It is supposed to be Paasillina`s own favourite, and I do not blame him. It is absurd, and funny, and different, and brave. Although it doesn’t, in my opinion, beat the hilarious “Collective Suicide”, it is still a classic in its own right.
Perhaps it would do several of us some good to meet a hare in the forest one day, and take a good look at our lives and how we are leading them..?
Hi. I read this book over Christmas and loved it too! I linked to your review from my blog, hope you dont mind
Ragnhild
Thanks! =) I’ll check out your site asap. Marianne