Its difficult to define this book.  Its partly comic, but also comes into the category of fantasy, perhaps something along the lines of Baron Muchausen or Don Quixote, in that it is a set of fictional “adventures” which happen to the main character as he roams around the country.  The stories concern Vatanen, a journalist who’s car injures a young hare, and who feels inspired to bind up the little hare’s leg and adopt it as a pet.  The incident happens at a time of personal crisis for Vatanen with his both his job and his marriage being at an end , and he is prompted to break free from the constraints of his life and disappear into the vastness of Finland.

I have read Finnish books before and found a certain atmosphere of wildness about them.  75% of the country is covered with forests and woodland, and the boundaries reach well into the Arctic Circle.  The winters are fierce and days in the remote communities are very short, giving Finnish literature an almost claustrophobic feel, alternating with a sense of vast forests and wilderness.  Tove Jansson‘s books are full of this sense of remoteness, of isolation, and when reading The Year of the Hare I picked up the sense of crowded rooms with people huddled around a wood-burning stove, soon to be evicted into a world of snowy marshes, the habitation of wild bears.

I think its important not to try to make a lot of sense of this book. Peculiar things happen and often small details just don’t sound right -

• a taxi driver who offers to store wild leaves and grasses in his home for the hare to eat later,
• Vatanen driving a solitary cow through a marsh,
• a Pastor who shoots himself in the foot just before a wedding but carries on with the ceremony dripping blood on the floor before going to the hospital,
• a woman at an official dinner who finds hare droppings in her soup and merely fishes them out with her spoon before continuing to eat.

Brown Hare

Its all a little bizarre.  But these are mere curiosities compared with the greater mystery of Vatanen whose adventures take him into fighting forest fires, getting involved with military manoeuvres, venturing up into Russia in chase of a bear and getting arrested as a spy, going on binge-drinking spree and getting engaged to a remakably laid-back young woman.  And all of this accompanied by the little hare of course, who attracts interest wherever he goes.

I spent a lot of time wondering about this hare.  Is it really possible to adopt a hare?  I think of them as very wild creatures with peculiar habits, full of speed and energy.  Thes hare in Paasilinna’s book seems to behave more like a rabbit: “Vatanen was sitting on a bench in Central Park.  The hare was nosing about in the grass for something to eat”.   But I did a little research and found that the poet William Cowper kept tame hares. It was reported that “they would lie like dogs in front of the fire and race to greet the baker in order to lick the flour off his apron”.  So perhaps the possibility of a tame hare is not so bizarre after all.

The story ends as strangely as it begins, and confirms the fantastic nature of the story.  In and ending reminiscent of The Ascension of Christ, we say goodbye to Vatanen, and the author reveals something of his thoughts on his fictional creation:

As I see it, Vatanen’s personal history and manner of conduct reveal him to be a true revolutionary, a true subversive, and therein lies the secret of his greatness.  Watching Vatanen tenderly stroking the hare’s fur in his dismal cell, is if he were its dam, I was aware what human solidarity may entail.

I wasn’t sure whether I was going to enjoy this book.  I read it a few weeks ago and have just skimmed through it again, taking notes so I could write this review.  I think I preferred it the second time around, and am left thinking that perhaps it is rather special, and I can see why Unesco chose it for their representative works collection.   While its not really up my street I’m pleased I read it, and will keep it on my shelves rather than recycling it.

Newspaper reviews:

David Binder in The New York Times

Book blogger reviews etc

dovegreyreader
The Literary Traveller

The image of the Brown Hare comes from Wikimedia Commons and is reproduce under a GNU licence

Marie and Johanna divide their time between a large apartment in Helsinki and a tiny island of the coast of southern Finland, across the channel from Estonia.  Both women have a strong commitment to their work, and while living as partners, they also create plenty of personal space for their artistic preparation and reflection.

As in Tove’s books, The Summer Book and A Winter Book, on the face of it, nothing much happens.   However it is in the minutiae of their daily life together that forms the real core of the book and if there is a message at all, it is about making the most of each moment of the day, and appreciating everything that is around you – this almost Buddhist message comes across strongly in these simple stories.

The two women generally get along and share much of their lives together, but they also argue, they get jealous, and they often irritate each other.  On the other hand, they both understand the rhythms of each other’s lives, and they both understand the creative process and its tensions.

Each chapter is a little vignette of an episode in their shared lives.  In the chapter “Videomania” we read of Johnanna’s passion for films on video, and the way she decorates the slip-case with text and pictures, with a little flag on the edge showing the country in which the film was made.  After watching each film, the two women discuss its meaning in detail, “really good films don’t diminish anything, they don’t close things off. On the contrary they open up new insights, they make new thoughts thinkable”.

In another chapter, The Fog, the two friends are out in a little boat when a fog comes down.  While waiting for it to clear, “a vertical tunnel opened directly above them, leading up to an annoyingly blue summer sky”.  The two women find their conversation turns to their mothers, and an old resentment is brought to the surface.  When eventually the fog clears, they find themselves far from their normal route home and “they came back to the island from a totally new direction, and it didn’t look the same”.  You have to read Tove Jannson carefully so that the little nuances of meaning in her simple stories don’t escape you.

Towards the end of the book, a 92 year old marionette master comes from Poland who has been helping with the realisation of some of Marie’s illustrated stories (presumably the Moomins?).  He tells her that “the simple line is utterly ignorant of the sculptural” and then unpacks a set of hands he has been making, “shy hands, greedy hands, reluctant, pleading, forgiving, wrathful, tender hands”.  Marie says, “Yes, I understand”, and Wladyslaw says, “Just one thing.  Now, my friend, you must give me your complete attention.  It  is simply this: do not tire, never lost interest, never grow indifferent – lose your invaluable curiosity and you let yourself die.  Its as simple as that”.

The translation from Swedish is  (by Thomas Teal) reads naturally and flows well.  The forward by Ali Smith offers useful scene-setting, and I think I agree with her that  this is “a novel with a profound sense of discretion at its core” – a lot isn’t said, and a lot of conversation between these women doesn’t need to be said out loud. They understand each other and realise that sometimes when up against a brick wall, you don’t have to keep battering your head against it, but can simply walk around the side of it.

I can’t say this is a great work of literature, but I do know that sometimes it is good to read the words of people like Tove Jannson who lived the life they were meant to live with  uncompromising artistic integrity.

By the way, I’m sort of pleased that these women smoke cigarettes.  On Wednesday I listened to BBC Radio 4′s Front Row, and heard Mark Lawson speaking to the playwright Simon Gray as he publishes the third of his Smoking Diaries, The Last Cigarette (which I shall shortly be reviewing).  Gray explained his refusal to quit smoking and I think I understand this small act of subversion which strikes against all good advice in a way we almost find shocking in these days of a vigorous health lobby.  Smoking is a “disgusting habit” of course, but its almost impossible to think of so many great writers of the past without also picturing them with a cigarette between their lips.