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The Year of the Hare

3.57 of 5 stars 3.57 · rating details · 2,230 ratings · 302 reviews

A journalist and a photographer set out on an assignment on lovely sunny evening. As they drive through the country they hit a young hare. Vatanen, the journalist, leaves the car and goes in search of the injured creature. The grateful animal adopts Vatanen and together the two scamper through farcical adventures and political scandal.

Paperback, 135 pages

Published November 1st 2006 by Peter Owen Publishers (first published 1975)

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Mar 12, 2012 K.D. Oliveros rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to K.D. by: 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2008-2010)

Shelves: europe, 1001-non-core, funny

Has a time ever come into your life when you thought of just walking away and leave everything behind?

It had never crossed my mind until when I was reading this book. I think it could not totally be a bad idea.

No, I am neither thinking about killing myself nor leaving my wife and my daughter. I just cannot live without them. This is about that spur-of-the-moment decision that you had enough and you want to pursue another life. You pick you bag, check your wallet and just go the opposite direct...more Has a time ever come into your life when you thought of just walking away and leave everything behind?

It had never crossed my mind until when I was reading this book. I think it could not totally be a bad idea.

No, I am neither thinking about killing myself nor leaving my wife and my daughter. I just cannot live without them. This is about that spur-of-the-moment decision that you had enough and you want to pursue another life. You pick you bag, check your wallet and just go the opposite direction from where you were originally heading.

Kaarlo Vatanen, a journalist and a photographer, does exactly like that in this book. One night, he and his colleague are driving on a highway on their way home when their car hit a young hare. Vatanen comes down and looks for it. The poor hare is injured and Vatanen decides not to go back to the car and spend that night and the many days and nights thereafter, in the wilderness. He and the hare become partners afterwards traveling together and meeting all sorts of Finnish people along the way.

Arto Paasilinna (born 1942) is one of the most successful writers in Finland. This book, The Year of the Hare is his more popular work having been translated into 18 languages and was selected as UNESCO Collection of Representative works because it represents values of Finnish culture. I bought and read this because this was a 1001 book. There are many similarities between his own life and that of Kaarlo Vanaten’s. He said to have sold his boat too prior to his decision to concentrate and become full-time writer. In a way, this book is a roman a clef. He used to be a journalist and a photographer and then her realized that being a journalist sucked, so he resigned and concentrated on writing this book. Notice that his main protagonist's name, Kaarlo is very similar to his own name, Arto.

The storytelling is cool yet thought-provoking. Cool because the setting is mostly in the wilderness or countryside of picturesque Finland. I have never been there but it was not hard to imagine the place because Paasilinna did a good job of describing the milieu. Aside from the hare, there are also many other featured animals. My favorites are the pesky raven and the bear that is so clever they end up crossing the communist USSR (this is a 1975 book). Vanaten and the hare are apprehended by the USSR police and they get deported back to Finland. I will not tell you the end of the story but it is light through and through like a feather floating on the wind or like a book that you read on a weekend while sitting on an easy chair.

The book is thought-provoking because it is about what one really wants to do in one’s life when you get to its mid-point. Do you continue treading the same path or do you go the other way? It’s about believing in yourself that you can change even in the second half of your life. It’s about giving yourself a chance to do the things that you believe in or do the things that you have not tried. Kaarlo Vatanen teaches us to be brave and risk things that we are holding on for the things that we think are more important or things that we’ve been dreaming about all our lives. For example, when Kaarlo Vanaten starts living with the hare, and is free from daily grind (translation: rat race) he finds that ”his senses are newly sharp, his food has a taste it never had before and he is alive as he has never been in his regular life.” How I wish I could be like him.

Pick this book if you love animals and wilderness. Or if you are in the mid-point of your life and asking if you need to have a career shift or something. Of if you want to read something light, cool and humorous with good insight yet not heavy or overpoweringly dramatic. Or if you are just wondering how a popular Finnish novel reads like in its English translation.

My first time to read a Finnish novel and I am just blown away by it.
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Feb 19, 2008 Jim Coughenour rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: greatfiction, darkandfunny

Over Christmas I met a Swedish woman at a dinner party – we got talking about Scandinavian literature, a recently acquired passion of mine. She suggested Paasilinna's The Year of the Hare – which is apparently a classic in Finland, where it was first published in 1975.

What a marvelous book! It perfectly captures the spirit of the 70s, and the Finnish setting gives it a kind of magic. It starts off in with an accident – in fact, the whole book is nothing but a series of accidents, but not the clo...more

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Oct 14, 2011 Noce rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Paasilinna e il suo potere balsamico.

Arto mi fa un effetto agrodolce.
Il suo stile è più didascalico dei sottotitoli di un Tg, eppre le storie che racconta sono come le caramelle balsamiche. Le succhi distrattamente, ma alla fine ti pizzica il naso.

L'uomo che abbandona la frenetica vita cittadina, preferendole una salubre esistenza silvestre, non sarebbe di per sé neanche un tema particolarmente originale, se non fosse che la semplicità spartana con cui Paasilinna descrive il ritorno alla natura,...more

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Feb 06, 2012 Vale rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: scandinavian-literature

"L'anno della lepre" è una simpatica storia ambientata tra la Finlandia e l'URSS. Vatanen è un giornalista stufo della sua vita ripetitiva, profondamente triste, di quella tristezza muta che non trova le parole per esprimersi: nulla da condividere con il suo collega e compagno di viaggio e nulla da dire ad una moglie tirannica. A volte capita che questa tristezza che coviamo in noi, emerga e avvolga anche il mondo esterno, con una spuma che copre e attutisce il mondo, permettendoci di continuare...more

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Apr 29, 2013 Jim rated it 4 of 5 stars

Arto Paasilinna was working as a journalist, a job he found was growing "more superficial and meaningless" by the day and he was looking for a change. So, what did he do? He quit his job to write a novel. That novel, The Year of the Hare, became an overnight hit and has since been translated into twenty-five languages and has been made into a film, twice, a Finnish version in 1977 and an inferior 2006 French version.

The premise is simple enough: the book’s protagonist is travelling in a car that...more

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Oct 31, 2012 Anna rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: bookcrossing, 2012

Jäniksen vuosi (original - I was lucky to find a copy in the original), fortunately translated in other languages too; The Year of the Hare, L'Anno Della Lepre etc.

Klassista Paasilinnaa. Yksi isani kaikkien aikojen suosikkikirjoista.
Vaikka kirja on ensin julkaistu 1975, se on kirjoitettu erittain klassisesti, ja sen huumori ei ole paljoa vanhentunut. Taitaa olla minunkin (suomeksi kirjoitettujen) kirjojen suosikkilistan huipulla.
Huumori on loistavaa. Tama pitaa hankkia viela muilla kielilla ku...more Jäniksen vuosi (original - I was lucky to find a copy in the original), fortunately translated in other languages too; The Year of the Hare, L'Anno Della Lepre etc.

Klassista Paasilinnaa. Yksi isani kaikkien aikojen suosikkikirjoista.
Vaikka kirja on ensin julkaistu 1975, se on kirjoitettu erittain klassisesti, ja sen huumori ei ole paljoa vanhentunut. Taitaa olla minunkin (suomeksi kirjoitettujen) kirjojen suosikkilistan huipulla.
Huumori on loistavaa. Tama pitaa hankkia viela muilla kielilla kun kavelee joskus vastaan, niin voi lainata kavereillekin.

The Year of the Hare is a very classic piece of Paasilinna. It was first published in 1975, and while the Finland of 1975 is quite different from that one of today, the book is just so full of humor that I've still got to give it 5 stars. And it's oozing so much of Finnish psyche too.

Vatanen, the protagonist, is a 30+ married man from Helsinki - unhappily married to a woman who dresses horribly and doesn't love him - and one day in his job, as a journalist, he ends up finding a cute little hare, barely a month old. When the hare gets hurt by the car Vatanen (whose first name we'll never know), Vatanen wants to take care of him. And the same night he finds some peace he's been missing home and at work. He starts an adventure with the hare, traveling for the whole year with his hare companion...
The people they meet are somehow so Finnish, in a funny way. Also so Finnish from the 1970s and of the countryside of Finland. I read the book in original, so I'll yet to see how well the humor will translate in other languages. I'll definitely need this book at least in English too so that my friends can read it too. The humor is subtle; more subtle than in Aki Kaurismäki's movies. But it definitely has a strong sense of humor. It also has something about the classic Finnish psyche; many Finns love the countryside and don't like cities. While I don't see how Helsinki of 1970s could have been chaotic, the chaos, stress, and one's likes and dislikes are very dependent on their past and preferences.

This book has been made as a movie in 1977 - and, today I learned, also in 2006. In both movie versions Vatanen has also been given a first name.
Paasilinna was one of my dad's favorite authors, and this book was one of his favorites.
Recommended (with any Kaurismäki movies you can find) to anyone who's a) moving to Finland, b) loves Finland or their language or c) has a Finnish girlfriend/boyfriend/wife/husband/relatives.(less)

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James Thompson Paasilinna, internationally, is often considered Finland's greatest living author and The Year of the Hare his greatest work. French reviewers have of...more
Nov 04, 2012 12:12am

Anna I thought he died already a few years ago (or maybe I'm confusing his inability to write with being dead). I remember some vague stories about him......more
Nov 07, 2012 10:48am

James Thompson Anna wrote: "I thought he died already a few years ago (or maybe I'm confusing his inability to write with being dead). I remember some vague stories...more
Nov 07, 2012 12:09pm

Oct 08, 2012 Pam Parks rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-i-own

Last night I finished Arto Paasilinna's humorous book The Year of the Hare (1975). Normally I won't read books that have main characters that are animals because I worry throughout the entire book something awful will happen to the animal. Ever since I read John Steinbeck's The Red Pony and Anna Sewell's Black Beauty as a young teenager I don't trust literature about animals.

As I need to have an opinion of this book by the first week in October I didn't have much choice so I held my nose, closed...more Last night I finished Arto Paasilinna's humorous book The Year of the Hare (1975). Normally I won't read books that have main characters that are animals because I worry throughout the entire book something awful will happen to the animal. Ever since I read John Steinbeck's The Red Pony and Anna Sewell's Black Beauty as a young teenager I don't trust literature about animals.

As I need to have an opinion of this book by the first week in October I didn't have much choice so I held my nose, closed my eyes (so to speak) and dove in. The fact that it also applies to my Century of Books challenge helped to prod me along as well.

This Finnish author's protaganist is Kaarlo Vatanen, a burned out journalist who is travelling home with a colleague who accidentally hits a hare in the road. Vatanen follows the injured animal into the forest and sees it has a broken leg. He splints the leg and together the two of them disappear into the forest.

His colleague who gets tired of waiting for him drives off, only feeling a bit guilty awhile later. Kaarlo is tired of the world, his life, his job, his wife and the peacefulness of the forest and the attention of the hare seduces him into disappearing.

Thus he begins a series of adventures during the next year, caring for the hare who has very human qualities and is very easy to get extremely attached to.

He goes through a series of places to sleep, sometimes he comes close to losing the hare, he deals with Russian soldiers who take over his cabin he is living in, he falls in love and becomes engaged whilst quite drunk, he helps to fight fires in the forest and wins over policemen. At one time a ski instructor who readily sacrifices animals steals the hare and Vatanen needs to find his beloved hare quick smart.

I found the writing to be direct and the characters well developed and quite visual. I have to say I wanted to finish this book as quickly as possible because the characters meet a great deal of hilarity as well as peril and I just knew this book would end badly.

Was I correct?? Well I won't say. I can't say because I think this is a very enjoyable little fable and I don't want to spoil it for anyone.

I don't think there is any deep hidden meaning in this book outside of how many of us might feel from time to time when bored with our jobs or nothing interesting is happening in our life so why not take off through the beautiful forests with a hare in tow?

It isn't symbolic as Animal Farm is. It is quite a light book most of the time, the scenery is beautiful, there is suspense in it if you love animals the way I do. It can also easily be read in a single sitting.

I would suggest the Northern Hemisphere people curl up in front of a fire one afternoon and enjoy this tale and for those of you anticipating summer in Australia find a good hammock in the sun, pour a glass of white and enjoy this lovely tale.
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May 20, 2012 Laura rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 1001, 2012, kindle, library

I loved the idea of this book. A random accidental occurrance changes a man's whole outlook and approach to life. He completely abandons his current life: job and wife. He abandons civilization and all of its trappings and begins a new life, free of the encumberances of modern urban life.

However, although the story is alluring, it is also fantistic and unbelievable. For example, how does a man living as a journalist in Helsinki in 1975 know how to repair a lodge? Perhaps he has skills and knowl...more

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Feb 27, 2012 Jenn rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jun 03, 2011 Dana Burgess rated it 1 of 5 stars

'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...more

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Nina I think you've explained perfectly how I felt about this book. I definitely think something is lost in the translation.
May 29, 2012 09:08am

Anna I guess the book suffers a lot from what most other Finnish books suffer from when translated to other languages: you can translate the words but not...more
Oct 31, 2012 01:55pm

Dana Burgess Great comment, Anna. I totally agree - as I was reading it I kept wishing I knew more about Finnish culture and humour. It would have made reading the...more
Oct 31, 2012 03:02pm

May 11, 2011 Cindy rated it 3 of 5 stars

I bought this book thinking it would be an eye opening experience and an escape into a wild world where Kaarlo Vatanen escapes the modern world with his hare to discover magic and freedom in a way that I hadn't perceived before. I had high hopes and perhaps they were too high. I found that while clever and well written the book's magic was a little flat for me. I am not sure if it's the translation or if the book just prattles along on a luke warm journey through Finland without much oomph. It w...more

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Mar 30, 2011 Jane rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: borrowed

When I saw that this little book was a bestseller in the author’s Finnish homeland, that it had been translated into umpteen languages, and that it had even been selected for the UNESCO Collection of Works I thought that I might just be on to a winner.

It all starts so simply. It is late in the day and a journalist and his photographer are driving home across country, They pull up when they hit and injure a young hare. Vatanen, the journalist pursues the hare into the forest. And he doesn’t come...more

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Feb 04, 2011 Vera Marie rated it 5 of 5 stars

If you are too timid to actually cut all the ties to your "civilized" life, but still have a yearning to get away from clocks and calendars, >Arto Paasilinna'>s Year of the Hare provides the perfect escape literature. A journalist riding across Finland with a photographer, feels the car hit a hare (not a bunny rabbit--hares are larger, related to jack rabbits ). Vatanen, the journalist, gets out to check on the hare, who has retreated into the woods with his broken leg, and the two of them...more

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Oct 31, 2010 Jackie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 5-star, work-review-related-reading

This story was originally published in 1975 in Finland. And translated into 25 different languages. At last, it's about to be in our hands--and what an amazing delight this story is! Vatanen is a journalist, on the road with a photographer covering a story, when their car accidentally hits a hare. Vatanen makes the driver stop and searches forthe wounded animal. After quite a long while, he finds him and brings him back to the car as the creature has a broken leg and Vatanen wants to take it to...more

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Mar 25, 2011 Denise rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

When Vatanen, a journalist traveling on assignment, hits a hare on a deserted country road, it changes his life. He finds the littel hare injured and as he begins caring for it he decides to throw away his old life and reinvent himself. Soon Vatanen and the hare are strolling the countryside, battling bears, putting out wildfires, ending up in jail, and generally having an adventurous time of it.

This charming story reminded me of many American fables - Pecos Bill and Paul Bunyan among them. Ther...more

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Mar 19, 2011 Danny rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: library-book

Translated from the work of the Finnish author, I picked up this book as a short book intermission that looked fun. The basic idea is a reporter in Finland is in a car that hits a young hare, he gets out to help the hare and decides to leave his life behind and wander the countryside with his rabbity friend.

It was fun sometimes, in the way that any novel about someone leaving behind life and successfully vagabonding around with no responsibilities or cares will be fun. But it wasn't as comical o...more

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Mar 12, 2011 Vicki rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Vicki by: IndieBound Next list

Shelves: library-books, novels

This is “a novel with an ecological theme”, which makes it sound more intriguing than it actually is. The ecological theme is this: nature / solitude good; people / cities [/ women] bad. The main character, a middle aged gossip journalist, gets out of a car on the highway to find a hare that the driver struck, and then just walks into the forest with it and away from his life. Then he has random adventures and encounters, always with the hare by his side, and each time he gets caught up with a b...more

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Dec 04, 2012 Lysiane rated it 5 of 5 stars

If I stay up to clichés I would say that this book like almost all of Paasilinna's is so finnish but in a wonderful way that play with those clichés and take pleasure to give them a hard time. It's funny, it's sensitive, it's pure, it goes behind the harsh aspect every man can have to show his true face. This book is just beautiful, read it! Besides, the movie made from it is nice but I hate the fact that they put the story in Canada and so knowing that if you have a few common sense you're able...more

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May 08, 2012 Joje rated it 3 of 5 stars

Reading Saskia's copy in French: Le lievre de Vatanen. Funny the French title is not yet on GR's list since this copy is for use in lit classes with a classy commentary, i.e., stuff I might say if still teahing lit, though not in French.
A quick, interesting and so far good read.

Last word after finishing:
This is clearly a fable told in the same matter of fact manner, although there's nothing matter of fact about the tale. It gets unbelievable at times, but it hardly matters either, thanks to it...more

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Mar 20, 2012 Siria rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 20th-century, finnish-fiction

The standout moments of The Year of the Hare come when Paasilinna dwells on the absurd, the wry, the cynical, showing how small upsets in routine can upset even the most stolid and respectable-seeming person. Yet despite those moments, and despite the brisk pace of the prose, this slim novel didn't thrill me. Telling the tale of a middle-aged Finnish man who becomes fed up with his life after a chance encounter with a wild hare, throws in his job as a journalist in Helsinki and heads off into th...more

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May 16, 2010 Jessica rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to Jessica by: Siri

A charming if inconsequential book about a man who decides to walk out on his life and start over again. Told largely in vignettes, The Year of the Hare describes a year in the life of Vatanen, a journalist who has been unhappy in his job and relationship for a long time. When his car strikes a hare while out on assignment a few hours from home, Vatanen follows the injured hare into the woods, nurses it back to health, and makes it his constant companion as he wanders farther and farther from hi...more

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Sep 18, 2011 Antonomasia rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: nordic, 2011

I'd prefer to give this 4.5 stars as it seems to be let down a bit by the translation, with some odd and clumsy word choices. Nevertheless, the story still flows.
It was a little different from expectations, with more events and fewer descriptions of peaceful times spent in nature. Not many books could benefit from being longer or from more description, but this is probably one. Whilst Vatanen drops out of consumerist society, there is very little hippie or political style writing here: he has a...more

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Feb 17, 2011 Danielle rated it 3 of 5 stars

Originally written in Finnish in 1975 this book was recently re-released in English by Penguin. I read this review of it on NPR last week and realized that I had picked up a free copy of it ALA Midwinter. So once I finished my horrid book club book I decided this would be a nice, fun quick read. It certainly was quick. I read it in about an hour and half. I'm not sure I enjoyed it as much as the NPR reviewer, but mostly I think that is a preference for book styles. The book was fairly absurdist...more

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Nov 13, 2011 Naleen rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011

*** minor spoilers ahead ***

This was handed to me by a coworker at the company where I currently do "temp" work, busting my ass day after day, getting paid pennies to the dollar I obviously feel that I should be making, worrying about the day when I actually fall sick and don't get paid and still can't go to the doctor... sigh. I can go on and on. I can blame the crappy economy or my university education that apparently didn't prepare me for the real world, but this is a book review and not a l...more *** minor spoilers ahead ***

This was handed to me by a coworker at the company where I currently do "temp" work, busting my ass day after day, getting paid pennies to the dollar I obviously feel that I should be making, worrying about the day when I actually fall sick and don't get paid and still can't go to the doctor... sigh. I can go on and on. I can blame the crappy economy or my university education that apparently didn't prepare me for the real world, but this is a book review and not a lamentation on my life.
But these are precisely the reasons that this book appealed to me. Like the cover says, who doesn't dream of leaving the real world to be free to wander where ever your little heart desires? Of course, it helps to be in good health, preferably a male (really, you wouldn't want those silly women doing something like this, would you?), and have some money to at least get you started.

The story follows Vatanen, a man who suddenly deserts his job, his wife and civilized society to roam the wilderness with an injured hare. He quickly finds himself happier than he has ever been. We watch as he and the hare get into silly situations and then smooth talk, or poop their way out of them. The hare is highly anthropomorphized, up to the point where it gets embarrassed being in the same room as Vatanen having sex with a lady cow herder. I rolled my eyes at this a bit, but Vatanen's story reminds me of how my father tells stories. There's always a grain of truth underneath everything my dad says, but chiseling the truth out of all the exaggerations and hyperbole can be somewhat difficult. And you always feel kind of bad for doubting his words, because the story is so much more interesting the way that is, that it is hard to imagine a more plausible telling of how it actually was. But luckily, Vatanen is not my father, so I can just say it. I don't trust this weaselly, slightly sinister man as a narrator (albeit not a first person narrator, but the story is still told from his point of view) OR as a human being.

The first half of the book is very light-hearted and fun. Vatanen seems fairly innocuous- he's just a bored middle aged man (I actually imagined him as in his mid- thirties, so middle aged is probably not the right descriptor) longing for some adventure and meaning in his life. He starts taking care of a wild hare, which is very endearing and makes the reader sympathetic to his cause. But things start to get weird after the first hundred pages or so. You feel sympathy for him because he has been trapped in a loveless marriage of seeming convenience for years, and I was hoping that he might find someone more to his liking on this journey. He did. But he also revealed himself to be a shallow, sexist jerk at the same time. Vatanen wakes up after a drunken week long binge to find himself engaged. This startles him, as he comes to realize all this over pint of beer a few mornings later. Trying to figure out what he has gotten himself into, he devises a plan to see what his new fiance is all about. I have no doubt if he had a pencil in his hand he would have dropped it on the floor and asked her to bend over to retrieve it in order to make sure her ass was young and firm enough for his liking. Satisfied that she was hot enough for him, he decides to roll with this engagement, never learning anything else about her. This is after another one night stand with a random girl, and some observations about how silly women in the wilderness can be. Strike one, Vatanen.

Vatanen, the purported nature lover, also has a cruel streak that occasionally arises. A certain crow starts annoying him by stealing food from his camp. Instead of taking it in stride, or outsmarting it, or moving to a cabin, Vatanen devises an evil plan to get rid of the damn thing. After the deed is done, there's a moment of remorse and but then Vatanen and his hare both take great joy in "laughing" over the poor bird's death. Strike two, Vatanen. Strike one, hare. Don't be such dicks!

I am not really sure what strike three is... I just generally disliked the main character. Maybe it was his laziness when, instead of helping fight the forest fire, he gets shitfaced with a moonshiner. Or his general disgust with city life and people from the city. I hate stories that glorify country life while vilifying urban life without any real reason. All this love for the wilderness seems hypocritical in Vatanen's case anyway. He only truly loves it when it leaves him alone or flows around him without directly getting in his way. The second a wild animal becomes a nuisance, Vatanen feels it is ok to hunt it down and kill it. By the end of the book, I was really hoping the bear would just eat Vatanen and get it over with.

Despite all my negatives, the book did make me want to go travel and abandon all my responsibilities. It was a fun escape from my life for the few hours I spent reading it- for the most part.
* I also think that some stuff just got lost in translation. Maybe some parts that I found offensive were meant to be funny... maybe this just doesn't translate well...(less)

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Jan 05, 2011 Chuck Erion rated it 3 of 5 stars

The author is well-known in Europe and this 1975 book has been translated into thirty languages; odd that it took 35 years to get into English. From the review, I was expecting an Alice in Wonderland allegory. But Year of the Hare requires no suspension of disbelief.
Vatanen is a journalist is in a car with a colleague, heading home to Helsinki from an assignment. The driver, blinded by the setting sun, hits a hare and Vatanen demands that he stop the car and find the animal. He does find it, ma...more

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Jul 08, 2011 Penny rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook, books-read-in-2011, from-windsor-public-library

Again, it needs that 1/2 star - because it's about a 2.5 star read. I'm glad I "listened" to this one instead of reading it, because I'm certain I would never have finished it if I was reading in book format. It's a story of a man that is driving with a co-worker and they hit a hare. He goes off in to the woods to see if the hare is still living and has an epiphany. He leaves his wife, quits his job, sells his possessions and wanders around for one year with the hare as his companion. It's a qui...more

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Aug 12, 2012 Alice Meloy rated it 3 of 5 stars

2011 is the Year of the Hare in the Chinese zodiac.This is a quirky novel that I picked up because it has a nice foreword written by Pico Iyer. A Finnish journalist named Vatanen, out on assignment one day, ran into a rabbit on the road. The animal wasn't killed, and the journalist decided to go looking for it, taking so long that his travel companion, a photographer, abandoned him. The adventures that ensued are what Iyer describes as "Life is a matter of seeing what you can do to fix things an...more

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Aug 09, 2012 Kevin Young rated it 1 of 5 stars

Oh dear. I had high hopes for this so called quirky and amusing Finnish classic. I have to say I felt let down. The blurb on the back of my copy, calls the translation " clear and straightforward". I'd call the writing style overly simplistic. It reads like it was written by a 9 year old boy with a great imagination, but no idea how the adult world functions. There is no characterisation whatsoever. I've no idea what Vatanen looks like, how old he is or what he feels at any point in the story, o...more

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May 17, 2013 Fiona rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013, books-i-own, bought-new, original-language-finnish, setting-finland

Last year sometime I read and reviewed The Howling Miller. I enjoyed it so much I wanted to read something else by Paasilinna, a Finnish author. His books are more light hearted with a dark humour about them. Something I tend to lack in the books I read.

This is the only other book of his translated into English and so I didn’t really have too much of a choice. Ultimately, I enjoyed it but I did not find it as interesting or absorbing as The Howling Miller. I never felt as if I got to know the ma...more Last year sometime I read and reviewed The Howling Miller. I enjoyed it so much I wanted to read something else by Paasilinna, a Finnish author. His books are more light hearted with a dark humour about them. Something I tend to lack in the books I read.

This is the only other book of his translated into English and so I didn’t really have too much of a choice. Ultimately, I enjoyed it but I did not find it as interesting or absorbing as The Howling Miller. I never felt as if I got to know the main character at all. He felt a little faceless, just a man fed up of his present life.

It is the story of a man who rescues a hare after his friend accidentally runs it over. After he goes off into the woods to find it his so called friend drives off, leaving Vatanen alone in the forest, holding a baby hare. Deciding he is fed up of his life as a journalist, fed up of having to put up with his wife and having to put up with his friends, Vatanen simply decides not to go back. He does not re-join his accepted society but goes off in another direction to seek something new. All the while he carries around the hare, who soon grows up and becomes tame.

In a similar theme to The Howling Miller, this book covers the theme of people who do not quite fit in. People who go against how people are supposed to behave in society, by fulfilling their roles. In The Howling Miller, the Miller was a hermit who had a habit of imitating animals – howling like a wolf. Other people were allowed their eccentrics, as long as they conformed to society’s expected norms and values.

Vatanen simply did not conform to those values – who wonders around without aim with a hare when they had a ‘good’ job as a journalist, a house and wife in Helsinki – even if it made them unhappy? The fact that he carted a hare around with him proved to be often the point that many people could not accept. It wasn’t actually just that he’d wordlessly quit his job or disappeared with warning – it was that he had a hare. Just a small thing but so essentially important in highlighting the pettiness of some people.

It is mildly funny – less humour I think than The Howling Miller, only enough to illicit a few smiles. Over all it felt a little aimless with Vatanen just travelling from place to place having one random adventure after another. I had a feeling Paasilinna didn't really have a destination when he wrote this book. Like Vatanen, he just decided to go wherever the idea took him. Vatanen as a character subsequently felt flat and undeveloped. The story did not have quite as much of an affect on me as the other.

I wouldn't say it is a disappointment – not at all, I did enjoy it but there was not the same satisfaction. I liked it as I read it but it isn't a story that will stay with me. I would still very much like to read more of Paasilinna’s works and hope that they will be translated into English.(less)

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May 07, 2012 Kevin Trigg rated it 3 of 5 stars

This short FInnish tale follows Vatanen, a journalist who decides his meandering life comprising of a dull job, miserable and controlling wife and insufficient friend, isn't what he wants or needs. He arrives at this realisation upon running to the aid of a young hare that he and his friend have hit whilst driving. In outrage to his illogical worry towards a common countryside creature his friend decides to teach Vatanen a lesson by driving off leaving him stranded in the wilderness. The lesson...more

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About Arto Paasilinna

Arto Tapio Paasilinna is a Finnish writer, being a former journalist turned comic novelist. One of Finland's most successful novelists, he has won a broad readership outside of Finland in a way few other Finnish authors have before. Translated into 27 languages, over seven million copies of his books have been sold worldwide, and he has been claimed as "instrumental in generating the current level...more

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“Sometimes conceiving an affection for an animal is easier than for a human.” — 5 people liked it

“Sometimes life is truly woeful.” — 3 people liked it

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