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The Year of the Hare: A Novel [Paperback]

Arto Paasilinna (Author), Pico Iyer (Foreword)
2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
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Book Description

Release Date: Dec 28 2010
Suddenly realizing what's important in life (with the help of a bunny), a man quits his job and heads to the countryside in this internationally bestselling comic novel.

"Which of us has not had that wonderfully seditious idea: to play hooky for a while from life as we know it?" With these words from his foreword, Pico Iyer puts his finger on the exhilaratingly anarchic appeal of The Year of the Hare.

While out on assignment, a journalist hits a hare with his car. This small incident becomes life-changing: he decides to quit his job, leave his wife, sell his possessions, and spend a year wandering the wilds of Finland-with the bunny as his boon companion.

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Product Description

From Publishers Weekly

In this back-to-nature picaresque from Finland, a "dissatisfied, cynical" journalist adopts an injured leveret as his companion on a series of mildly quixotic, satirically rendered wanderings. Leaving behind a spiritless job and a loveless marriage in Helsinki, middle-aged Kaarlo Vatanen lights out for the territories, the hare de-civilizing him as much as he tames it. While the hare wavers between companion, pet and symbol, the pair's innocent retreat is complicated at every turn by either man or nature. Foresters, bureaucrats and endangered-species laws are as likely to threaten them as bears, ravens and forest fires as they travel to the Arctic Circle and across the Russian border. Paasilinna's low-key narrative is translated plainly, but it never makes the most of its protagonists' experiences, despite such tempting scenarios as a bear hunt hosted for diplomats by the Finnish military or a defrocked divinity student looking for animal sacrifices for Finno-Ugric rituals. Instead, these adventures of a man and his hare unfold as superficially, though with as much ease, as a daydream.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

A Finnish journalist and a photographer out on assignment one June evening suddenly hit a young hare on a country road. The photographer, ultimately unsympathetic, abandons his journalist companion Vatanen, who sets off to find the wounded hare. Vatanen develops a close bond with the hare and in their adventures together, they witness people's avarice, inhumaneness, hypocrisy, cruelty, participation in bureaucracy, and mere existence, rather than living, in the world. This last realization in particular is life altering for Vatanen: he quits his job, discards his hopeless marriage, sacrifices financial security, and sells his most prized possession (a boat). All this Vatanen replaces with a life of odd jobs and on-the-road experiences. This picaresque novel could simply depict a middle-age crisis, but it reaches beyond fantasy or fiction, becoming mythic in its universal themes. The story is inventive, satirical, and quite humorous. It is also refreshingly sentimental in the sense that Paasilinna reaffirms our connection with the animal world and our inherent need for happiness and freedom to maintain quality of life. Janet St. John --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most helpful customer reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars not my cup of tea Jun 3 2011
By Dana TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
'The Year of the Hare' is a Finnish book that has been translated into English. In it, Vatanen picks up an injured hare and walks away from his life to just hang out for a year. Interesting premise but I think it loses something in the translation.

The most endearing character in the book is, without doubt, the hare who heals from his injuries and becomes unfailingly loyal to Vatanen. The book would have benefited from being told from the hare's perspective. As it is, Vatanen comes off as boring and one dimensional. He is easily distracted and seems to view the events around him with an almost clinical detachment. Despite the hare's undying devotion, when the hare is in danger of being killed by an enraged vicar, Vatanen hides and waits to see what will happen. This, along with other events in the story, served to distance me emotionally from Vatanen.

Some of the characters Vatanen meets in his travels had great potential to influence the story and other characters in either a stabilizing or totally insane way. Had either of these happened, the story could have been uproariously funny and/or inspiring and thought provoking. As it was, each character Vatanen met seemed to pass through his life without making any impact on the story or on the growth of the other characters.

Knowing that national identity and experiences change how we view situations, I believe that this book is "more" when read in it's original language by people who share the ethnicity of both the author and characters. Some books translate well and others don't. This one didn't.
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4.0 out of 5 stars Witty and sarcastic! Sep 23 2003
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
If you like Vonnegut, read this book. Paasilinna's humor and sarcasm are very similar to Vonnegut's. However, it is unique in that it has a distinctly Finnish touch to it. Although I have not read it in it's original Finnish text, I believe the translator, Herbert Lomas, must have done a wonderful job. I was laughing out loud in during many parts of this book.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com: 3.9 out of 5 stars  32 reviews
36 of 38 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Delightful!! Sep 2 2001
By Simone Oltolina - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
"The year of the hare", by finnish writer Arto Paasilinna, is a finger-licking good book, period! It's about a journalist who unintentionally runs over a young hare while being on an assignment. He gets out of the car to help the wounded animal, venturing into the surrounding forest and... well, doesn't come back. While attending the animal something happens in his mind and he suddenly realizes that he can't cope anymore with his life, his wife, the rhythms of modern society, his boss and everything. He therefore forswears everything in favour of a new life, with the hare as his sole companion through the small adventures he's about to experience. From a certain point of view he becomes a revolutionary because he proves that one can live happily outside society, in fact happier than ever before...
I don't necessairly share his point of view but the tale is so imbued with happy feelings and lightness that one can's help but feel touched! As for the writing, Arto Paasilinna's is extremely minimalistic, without many frills and that adds to the impression that what you're reading is in fact a modern fable :-)
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars A fairy tale of sorts. April 18 2011
By William Oterson - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
After having read a "delightful" review, in a notable newspaper, a friend read Arto Paasilinna's "The Year of the Hare" and recommended it to me. I suppose because my friends life is more structured than my own and I'm viewed as "odd". Whatever, I felt compelled to read the book and, frankly, I came away surprised that, on the back cover, the story is said to have similar appeal as "Watership Down" and "Jonathan Livingston Seagull". I fail to see that at all. I've read and enjoyed, immensely, both books and "Duncton Woods" as well. All three provide "similar appeal" to one another, however, not to this story. "The Year of the Hare" as written could define minimalism, it reminded me of reading a journal, or diary, of someone who came to the conclusion that his way of life wasn't working and strayed into one very odd adventure after another, all ending somewhat positively. It's, thankfully, a quick read of 194 pages and everything that happens to the protagonist, during his travels, seem an attempt by the author to exemplify and glorify the vagaries of fate. The readers patience, though, is rewarded by a nice ending.
14 of 16 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars "Of or relating to a genre of usually satiric prose fiction" Jun 1 2005
By frumiousb - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
The cover of the book says that The Year of the Hare is "a picaresque novel with an ecological theme". I had a general idea what picaresque means, but to be on the safe side, I decided to look the word up.

According to the Google definition service, "Picaresque" means 1) "Of or involving clever rogues or adventurers". or 2)"Of or relating to a genre of usually satiric prose fiction originating in Spain and depicting in realistic, often humorous detail the adventures of a roguish hero of low social degree living by his or her wits in a corrupt society."

I think that the definition indeed sums the book up nicely, although I think that you could argue that Vatanen is not really of low social degree-- although he does become that for the sake of his hare.

In places, the Year of the Hare can become a little bit difficult to read. The Finnish politics went straight over my head as did (I suspect) much of the subtlety relating to Finnish life. Particularly at the beginning it is difficult to see where the book is going.

It is a measure of how-written the book is that despite the missing pieces I really enjoyed the read. Some absurdities are not at all cultural-specific and Paasilinna hits them quite nicely with his man and the hare.

Fans of the aforementioned Picaresque novels should like this little adventure. It has flavors of early Vonnegut and a little bit of Ionesco. Recommended for anyone with a taste for the gently absurd.
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