Estonia: A Ramble Through The Periphery HC

by Alexander Theroux

Any journey with Alexander Theroux is an education. Possessed of a razor-sharp and hyperliterate mind, he stands beside Thomas Pynchon as one of the sharpest cultural commentators of our time. So when he decided to accompany his wife —
the artist Sarah Son-Theroux — on her Fulbright Scholarship to Estonia, it occasioned this penetrating examination of a country that, for many, seems alien and distanced from the modern world.

For Theroux, the country and its people become a puzzle. His fascination with their language, manners, and legacy of occupation and subordination lead him to a revelatory examination of Estonia’s peculiar place in European history. All the while, his trademark acrobatic allusions, quotations, and digressions — which take us from Hamlet through Jean Cocteau to Married… with Children — render his travels as much internal and psychical as they are external and physical. Through these obsessive references to Western culture, we come to appreciate how insular the country has become, yet also marvel at its fierce individuality and preternatural beauty — such is the skill of Theroux’s gaze.

This travelogue of his nine months abroad also brims with anecdotes of Theroux’s encounters with Estonian people and — in some of its most bitterly comedic episodes — his fellow Americans whom he at times feels more alienated from than the frosty, humorless Europeans.

Estonia: A Ramble Through the Periphery is as biting and satirical as it is witty and urbane; as curious and lyrical as it is brash and irreverent. It marks a new highlight in an already stellar career and a book that continues Fantagraphics’
exceptional line of prose works.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, Memoir

288 pages, Hardcover

First published July 13, 2011

About the author

Alexander Theroux is a novelist, poet, and essayist. The most apt description of the novels of Theroux was given by Anthony Burgess in praise of Theroux's Darconville's Cat: Theroux is 'word drunk', filling his novels with a torrent of words archaic and neologic, always striving for originality, while drawing from the traditions of Rolfe, Rabelais, Sterne, and Nabokov.

Reviews

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

Theroux is Latin for “thorough” (not), and this book is nothing if not Therouxly exhausting. He suggests towards the end that Thomas Mann was wrong when he said: “Only the exhaustive is truly interesting.” Right on, brother! But Estonia: A Ramble is fascinating for its duration and irresistible for those enamoured with Theroux’s knack for a comprehensive insult, and his utterly sui generis way of looking at the world. The more Theroux I read, the less I see an opinionated shit-stirrer and misomisanthropist, but a sensitive and astonishing artist with an immense range of reference and erudition (not that I was in doubt before, but one’s faith wobbles). In this book, we learn about the complex and torturous language (no future tense or verb “to have”), the blood-soaked cuisine, and the rudeness of all natives, the dunderheadedness of Fulbright scholars, the “movie star” looks of Sarah Son-Theroux, and . . . pretty much everything else (about Estonia). As usual there are digressions, the most notable being several eviscerations of the Bush Administration (always welcome). Theroux is addicted to the pithy quote—every page boasts a snappy borrowing perfect for the moment—which should keep the trivia-guzzlers well-fed until the release of his next one (and let it be soon!) Alas this inexhaustive review must end with the simple command: read this, please. Or, if you haven’t already: Darconville’s Cat and Laura Warholic.

[Erykine · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book is interesting from the "how a foreigner might see Estonia" point of view, but it should not be trusted as a guidebook, as it is filled with mistakes. There are factual mistakes, names misspelled, the bits in Estonian language are often translated incorrectly. Also, whoever told him that "I love you" in Finnish is " Söisin mieluummin salmiakkia" (I`d rather eat salty liquorice), was making an odd joke of some sort. He really should have checked his facts or just asked a local person to help. Most Estonians are helpful and kind towards foreigners - especially if they show an interest in our language and culture and treat us with friendliness and respect.

I liked his style of writing, I liked his way of describing places (even if his view of the places is very different from mine) and I did agree with some of the points he made. I just wish he did not look down on people so easily and had tried to understand us, instead of saying that we are all cold, uptight and never smile. I`m sure he would have met more friendly people if he had been friendlier himself.

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

A novelist unread visits a country unvisited, writes a travel piece.

Washington Times review:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2...

Yes read it because it is Mr Theroux. If you want something else perhaps an encyclopedia article or a Fodors if you can find it.

[Caitlin · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is one of the worst books I have ever read. I struggled to get through it and have come to the conclusion that from now on I will be less antsy about quitting books. I bought this because I loved the title, it sounded like it would be an exciting book about a country that not as many Americans go to. I went to Estonia for a week in the beginning of September and was blessed with lovely weather and I found the people nice, if not overly warm. I found them very intelligent and open to discussion. This book does a real disservice to anyone who may be considering visiting Estonia for the first time.

I start with this, not to talk about my experience, but because this entire book is a bombastic, sarcastic and mean-spirited "hate" letter about Estonians. He seems to hold the dark, freezing winters against them and goes on and on about how they have no spirituality and need some, how they have no good sense of humor, how their language is primitive and wrong, how the food is provincial, etc. Certainly Theroux is entitled to his opinion, but calling it a "travel guide" is a stretch.

I have seen online that Theroux has a cult following and maybe some of his older works or his fiction are good, but this book is a travesty. It is full of mistakes. He claims that there were never any Olympic games in Estonia, while it is true that Estonia has never hosted the Olympics, the 1980 sailing competitions were held in Tallinn. He misconstrues the famous Tolstoy line about unhappy families as being from "War and Peace." You don't have to be a literature major to know that is from "Anna Karenina." Another reviewer said he got his translations of Finnish and Estonian wrong, I can't speak to that but it would not surprise me. He would quote and make reference to things without following through with explanations and connecting it to his thought. For example, he says that something reminds him of a part of "The Mill on the Floss" but doesn't say what it is, or explain the passage! The book is utterly filled with these absurdities.

Even more than the factual mistakes and the arbitrary references, what bugged me was the tangents. He kept going on about Jews and Israel and how Americans are bigots and how we abuse Arabs. I am not saying that Israel is perfect or the hunt for terrorists is perfect, but HE is the one who sounds bigoted! He calls black people "negroes." These opinons of his have no place in a book about ESTONIA.

I whole-heartedly cannot recommend this book. There was nothing aesthetic about his rantings, they just sounded like he is a bitter person, doing all of the things that people complain about Americans. Anything different or a little strange to him, was automatically "stupid." He even used the word "foreigners" at one point and all I could think was, "ahem, you are the foreigner, you are in their country!" He sounded like a crotchety old man who has never been out of the USA, although he mentions several other countries he has been to.

This book could have been different, it even could have been good. There were four or five paragraphs throughout the book that any of them could have been the premise of a decent, well thought out expose on Estonia.

For example "An Estonian as a pedlar of positivism is in all instances a walking oxymoron. His recollections are far too extensive, his memory too long, his wounds too recent to put a tingle of optimism in his besieged and beleagured heart. Memory and imagination, at least in the Viconian sense, are often very much the same. During an occupation, far more than a country is captured - a national soul is possessed. Brutalized. Mortified. Hurt. Made inflexible. Freedom itself, the very idea of it, becomes victim as well. More than the self is lost, a soul is harmed. There is the loss of the sense of adventure. Circumspection results. A collective unconscious is left with fears and a terrible rigidity it can never relinquish. Stasis murders. William Gass in the 'Doomed in Their Sinking' wisely observed, '[As] authorities 'over' us are removed, as we wobble out on our own, the question of whether to be or not be arises with real relevance for the first time, since the burden of being is felt most fully by self determining self.'"

This gem could have made for a compassionate, realistic look at an emerging nation. Instead he judged and tore them apart. Estonia has a lot of room for growth, economically, socially, etc. But they are a striving nation in my opinion, not a lazy backward country at all.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you've ever worked in a record shop or used bookstore or some other kind of retail business that attracts cranky, opinionated loudmouths that are insightful and fascinating despite themselves, you may recognize the authorial voice here. Theroux reminds me of the older punk rock guys I used to work with during my independent retail years -- exceptionally well-read, idiosyncratic, given to bizarre tangents, kind of a dick, but able to spin interesting, thoughtful and wide-ranging stories on subjects about which I knew nothing. Estonia is another subject about which I (and most readers) know nothing, which puts Theroux at a great advantage, in terms of having a blank slate on which to project any number of experiences, opinions, ideas and observations. A bunch of times reading this I came across passages that made me think, "That's probably not factually correct," or "What on earth is he going on about here?" or "This broad, sweeping conclusion about the civic character of Estonia seems very arbitrary" or "Jesus, what a crank, who hates the Marx Brothers?" But just like with those retail clerks of old and their endless catalog of complaints, observations, references, and digressions, I more or less enjoyed hearing most of it. (Although it does wear a little a thin by the end -- the second-to-last chapter is actually called "What I Hated About Estonia," and it's exactly what its title suggests, a catalog of all the things he hated about Estonia.)

[DoctorM · Rating 1 out of 5]

A waste of my time and money. I suppose I'd assumed that Alexander would be writing a travel memoir in the style of Paul Theroux, and I'm always interested in Estonia and the Baltics. But this isn't even worth finishing. Alexander visits Estonia and then just...rants. He begins by despising the Russians left behind in Estonia after independence in 1991 and the Soviet collapse--- dismissing them as "malevolent" and vile ---and then launching into page after page about how much he despises and hates Israel and Israelis...whom he equates somehow with Russians and Nazis, and whom he despises as people rather for Israeli policies. I want to visit Estonia, and I want to know more about its history, but this is...well...a total waste of paper.

[🐴 🍖]

this being an alex t. joint there's the usual complement of reactionary dipshittery (being told "happy holidays" at t.j. maxx is not a travesty, and wtf are you doing talking about the "songs of the american negro" in 2008 my guy?), but if you can persevere/ignore this is the kinda book that's perfect to keep by your bedside, moseying in no special hurry thru estonia's affection for diacritical marks on vowels, depeche mode, pork, etc etc. fans of darconville's cat should esp not miss the chapter titled "the whole squalid crew," a dissection of the other visiting american academics that's as mean & funny as anything from that novel

[Kalle Vilenius · Rating 3 out of 5]

Of the Theroux brothers, it’s Paul who is usually associated with travelogues. How does Alexander measure up when he dabbles into this genre? An American’s perspective of Estonia is fascinating to me. So many of the things Theroux finds odd about Estonia are things that I take as given in my own homeland and seeing him view them as odd or exotic just feels amusing, somehow. He wonders about doors opening outward, but I can’t think of a single door I’ve ever seen that opens inward, for example. As he himself says toward the end of the book:

It is not necessary to be in a country long to be able to see into it,
in fact it may be argued that fresh eyes can more readily find a
“figure in the carpet” than seasoned eyes. (p.326)

These fresh eyes are what the book offers to those who know Estonia on some level. For those who don’t, there is much here about Estonia’s history, about the forces that shaped in the interplay of the local population as it fell under the sway of various empires, from Germany to the Soviet Union, before finally gaining their independence. Understanding a country’s historical trajectory is crucial to understanding its current condition, and his historical research was thorough, and his observations based on it are astute.

Theroux is a man meant for warmer climes, and Estonian winter is harsh on him. Some of the photos he took are reproduced in the book, depicting both summer and winter, and a couple of shots of a wintery Tallinn look like home to me. He would go on walks, bearing witness to what he considered the chilly manners of the people (Estonians and Finns share the same need for personal space), wonder at nude statues (perfectly normal all over Europe, I should think, but unusual in the puritan USA), visit pubs and churches turned museums. He complained how the cold bit into his bare hands that he needed to turn the pages of his Estonian phrasebook as he sought to connect with the locals.

There is a great deal of sympathy given to the pagan past of Estonia that still manifests itself as a love of fairy tales and in superstitions and traditional celebrations. This love of fairy stories comes as no surprise from a man who wrote a whole collection’s worth of fables. He is curious about local food and since there is no accounting for taste, he loves some and hates some. He laments the secularity of the nation but praises its love of songs. He rambles, as the book’s subtitle promises, and rambles are leisurely and often pleasant.

After lamenting the lack of antiques available for his perusal and purchase, Theroux nonetheless includes a chapter on antiques… which turns out to be a ramble not around Estonia, but on the actions of Israel in Palestine, connected by the loose thread of free association between Soviet occupation in Estonia and Israeli occupation in Gaza. A passionate tangent, to be sure, a little out of the left field. This is true freedom, I suppose, when you have complete confidence in yourself, even to make digressions like this, into topics that you know will split your readers, as people are either powerfully for or against one or the other side, and a reader’s stance being different from the writer’s may impact their enjoyment of the book. This also applies to his views on American foreign policy (if anyone still even remembers George W. Bush’s adventures) and of course his religious views are on full display here, and though I find no common ground with him there, I also don’t see why he should be ashamed to fly his flag any more than he sees why there should be shame for Pride parades in Estonia.

There’s any number of things one can disagree with him on. For example, Theroux explores the Estonian habit of following rules to the letter by describing an incident where he and his wife had bought tickets for a bus ride, then missed the bus and tried to get the tickets exchanged for the same ride the next day. He grew frustrated and incensed when this was not accepted by the company. Maybe my Finnish sensibilities are too much like those of the Estonians to really understand how he can feel himself in the right and the company in the wrong: he paid for tickets, reserving two seats in the bus, meaning two others could not take up those spots. He then did not make use of these seats, being late, which was his prerogative, and in no way the bus company’s fault. His request then to have two more seats reserved for the price he had already paid for would mean that he demanded a total of four seats for the price of two. Is this reasonable? The company certainly didn’t think so. Is this sort of thing done in America? The conversational tone of the book almost makes me forget I’m reading something published in 2011 and not talking to someone right now, and my counterarguments are, of course, pointless. He engages the reader though, much like how Herman Melville engaged me when he had Ishmael argue for whales being fish against even the science of his day.

Other tangents show off Theroux at his best, such as his recounting of an unpleasant encounter at dinner with one “Maggid”. This sequence, while of course completely one-sided, paints a beautiful picture of an ugly man (in word and deed mostly, but Maggid is not spared physical insults either) and shows just how delightful a venomous pettiness can be in the hands of the right writer, which Theroux beyond all doubt is, he has an uncanny ability with this kind of material, and I never tire of it.

That’s not to say he can’t be sweet when he wants to be. He gives praise where it’s due, including to handsome youths and beautiful women in Estonia – chief among them being his wife Sarah, the whole reason he made the trip in the first place. Sarah, being a painter, had received a Fullbright scholarship (some of the other Fullbrights get deliciously lampooned) and wound up painting in Estonia – one of her paintings is the cover for the book, and others can be found in the section featuring photos of the trip, and one especially (Tallinn rooftop) impressed me with a sort of depth it showed by having the branches of trees fade into the greyness, she’d clearly earned her scholarship with merit – and the man couldn’t stand to be apart from her. Upon their study of the Estonian language, he even began addressing her with Estonian terms of endearment! Cute.

The Theroux couple indeed did make an honest effort to learn Estonian during their stay, and passionate about language as he is, Theroux dedicates many pages to discuss Estonian vocabulary and some grammar, usually invoking mirth at how silly it sounds (and it does!) but credit where it’s due, they tried to learn the language and use it in everyday situations, and I as I mentioned earlier, his dedication was such that he would go without gloves so he could turn the pages of his phrasebook during these situations.

(Unexpectedly, the book also teaches you how to speak fluent Paionian!)

Not all language lessons here should be taken seriously, however. Estonian is often joined by comparisons to its closest relative, Finnish, and the majority of the Finnish in this book is just plain wrong. Some of the mistakes are easy to understand for a foreigner – getting a and ä mixed up, or misreading “saatanan runkkari” as “Satan IS a wanker” rather than the correct “Satan’s wanker” – but others are more problematic, such as attributing to the Finnish language words that we’ve never used, or the absolutely baffling translation of “I love you as” “söisin mieluummin salmiakkia” (literally “I would rather eat salmiakki”), which I assumed to be a joke when I first read it, though I can’t tell if the butt of the joke here is the reader, or if someone pulled a fast one on Theroux himself. I know he knows what salmiakki is, because later in the book he talks about it, so how to explain this?

Other information relating to Finland is often factually erroneous (the highest crime rates in the world, really?), and it might be important to note that of the citations provided among the endnotes for the many facts presented in this book, none are used for the erroneous claims relating to Finland, making them seem random and baseless on top of being wrong, and thus my patriotic fervour prevents me from giving this book the four stars it would otherwise deserve, and I recognize this is a highly subjective thing to get upset about that most potential readers won’t even notice.

Is it a great travelogue? Not necessarily. It’s a ramble, that just happens to take place in Estonia, just as it promises to be, and rambles are leisurely and often pleasant.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don't get this book to learn about Estonia--although if you read it you will surely learn something about the tiny Baltic country. The sub-title has it exactly right: it's a "ramble through the periphery". Estonia is not a travel book or a history in any typical sense; it's a frequently funny, crank's catalog of Estonia as observed by a hyper-literate, cantankerous traveler. It's 300 pages of creatively-connected observations about television, movies, music, food, culture, manners, religion, weather, personalities, and (of course) language that's brought about by the author's trip to Estonia to accompany his wife on her Fulbright scholarship. This is in no way an "objective" book about Estonia. As Theroux sums it up himself:

"I daresay my Estonia is as much about me and my crotchets as it is about anything else . . ."

I daresay. I also wouldn't recommend this book as an introduction to Theroux; one of his novels would probably be the best place to start. Estonia is similar to his "colors" essays--rambling, list-heavy, digressions on a topic. In this case the topic is Estonia, instead of Red, Yellow, or Blue.

I would, however, recommend Estonia to any one who is already a fan of Theroux. If you share his passion for the rhetoric of outrage, you'll love his irritible digressions on politics, religion, fellow travelers, and nearly everything else he encounters. He's an oddly fun travel companion--especially when he's grousing.

[José Gutiérrez · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s a crying shame Alexander Theroux isn’t hailed as a national treasure. The author of the masterpieces Darconville’s Cat, Laura Warholic & Three Wogs will express unrepentant schadenfreude over the fact that all these books are way out-of-print. But to wit: The (Estonian)language is a vowel dump, an explosive alphagram-drill full of repeated letter combinations with multiple bingoes!/ He was a Virginian of middling height with eyeglasses whose odd, blunt-muzzled head was shaped exactly like a capybara’s/ On Alan Dershowitz: This hustlingly ambitious, jumped-up gnat-catcher and argumentative logic-chopper who races to enter every hole like a rat up a drainpipe/In the Bible there is no mention the sky is blue—yet we locate heaven there. This book is a cornucopia bursting with such gems. Did you know Jonathan Swift reread the Book of Job every year on his birthday or that a dying sperm whale will always turn toward the sun? To read any book by this unacknowledged master of American letters is an education that begins in awe and invariably ends in sheer wonderment.

[Ryan Gorman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This may be my favorite book ever written. Just a thorough detailing of the experience that is Estonia. He really soaked it up and nailed it perfectly.
my review could be 12pages. Read it for what he titles it "Periphery." This is not a state department briefing of the Baltic. It is the view from a salty man. I traveled through the country, briefly, and was very pleased with what he found unique everywhere.

[Triin]

Many factual mistakes and a very negative book.

[Josh Gering · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm glad this is over. The book send to primarily exist as a vehicle for the author's complaints and boasts. For large portions of it, he will go on and on explaining how ignorant and backward Estonians are. Throughout this mess, he will frequently change to telling you all how much better he is than the average American, and offer scathing judgments of fellow Americans studying there. Each judgment he offers will likely be coupled to a quote or reference to a philosopher or theologian just to ensure you that you are reading the wordsof someone much more intelligent than you. In the end, you finish the book having gained very little insight into Estonia.

[Víctor · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did find some interesting topics covered in this book, but the prepotence of the author and how he repeatedly disparaged Estonians made it a hard book to digest. That and the constant name dropping which help more with securing that aura of prepotence the author has than understanding better this country.

[Eleanor · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eh. I love Estonia, but this truly was a “ramble”. Quit part way through

[Nathan Albright · Rating 2 out of 5]

In reading this book, one finds out a lot about its author, Alexander Theroux. One finds that he struggled mightily with Estonian as a language—and no wonder, that he found many of the people to be cold and unfriendly, and he found reading material difficult to come by, that he disliked many American expatriates and was particularly hostile about the American war effort in the Middle East during the 2000’s when he wrote. One finds out that he is well-read and that he wished to subject Estonia to the leering gaze of a bloated, aging roué with a variety of comments that are at best awkward and uncomfortable. One finds that the author enjoys a great many films, enjoys listening to music and exploring the local culture and geography, and is a highly quotable individual [1]. All of this is well and good, even if it makes for tedious reading on a book more than 320 pages in length even before its lengthy endnotes.

What one does not find out very much in reading this book, though, is worthwhile information about Estonia [2]. This is a bit disappointing, since while the book is long on the dark nights of the Estonian soul as seen through the impatient and impetuous American writer, the book is rather short on the perspectives of actual Estonians. We have to take it on the word of the author that the chilly demeanor of Estonians shows a cold heart, and that there is a beautiful femme fatale aspect to the stiletto-wearing statuesque blond young women the author writes about in rapturous praise. One reads a lot of tedious information about various alcoholic beverages and revolting dishes made of blood pudding and pig’s heads and other such abominations. One reads a lot of snarky comments about former president Bush and his cabinet members, combined with a sense of disbelief in the nature of Estonia’s obscurity in the eyes of the greater world at large.

Ironically enough, the author seems to belief that he is serving to give entreaty to the reader to follow his lead in his disconnected series of essays marked only by a large text heading, with daunting titles like “The Whole Squalid Crew” and “Cold Pork” and “Some Reflections On Feet-Folk” and other puzzling and meandering reflections. One wonders how the author convinced a publisher that this rambling work was worth publishing. In truth, this is the sort of vanity project that generally deserves to be self-published and read by a few boozy but admiring friends. This is not to say that the book is entirely worthless; it presents a skewed view of Estonia, to be sure, but not a very penetrating one. In the end, those who read this book will understand a lot more about Alexander Theroux than they do about Estonia after reading this book. From an examination of its pages, Estonia looks to be by far the better bet to get to know than the writer who tries, and totally fails, to understand the nature of the place where he spent a few months drinking vodka, encouraging his wife’s artwork, and trying to avoid the expatriate crowd in Tallinn and Tartu. His time could have been more profitably spent watching pirated Netflix movies, in the end, than in writing this turgid piece of prose.

[1] See, for example:

“An Estonian as a pedlar of positivism is in all instances a walking oxymoron. His recollections are far too extensive, his memory too long, his wounds to recent to put a tinge of optimism in his besieged and beleaguered heart (14).”

“It was always Scylla and Charybdis for Estonians, danger from the left, danger from the right (35).”

“We had been drily told that the flat to be rented was attractive, an assurance I consigned, with experience, to “The check is in the mail” and “There will be peace in our time” and “My knowledge of nymphets is purely scholarly,” Lolita-author Vladimir Nabokov’s solemn affirmation to the public after writing that novel (152).”

“An aesthetic balance, an unemotional and graceful objectivity, is seen by the poet to be an aristocratic trait of the World War I ace he writes about: “Those that I fight I do not hate/Those I defend I do not love.” I wonder what psychologists would make of a nation of ice faces. No bella figura is required. Volkish suspicion will do, thank you (229).”

[2] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...

[Paul · Rating 1 out of 5]

This will be the first time on Goodreads that I've reviewed a book I didn't finish; however, I stumbled upon a linguistic mistake that is so absurd and fact-checkable, the other elements I found annoying but somehow somewhat digestible, suddenly became overwhelming, and it became impossible to keep reading. I suspect that other factual and linguistic errors abound.

Let me use the linguistic mistake as my starting point : In a glib, toothless analysis of Estonian language, he compares the phrase 'I love you' in Estonian with the same phrase in Finnish. I'm not knowledgeable of Estonian, but know enlightened a Finnish to know the sentence he claims means 'I love you' in Finnish actually means "I would rather (prefer to) eat salmiakki." The funny thing is, salmiakki is a black licorice-like salty candy that is polarizing, like black licorice is. I happen to adore salmiakki (needless info), but having lived in Finland, it struck me as a thing that people will sometime (maybe often) passionately rave about how disgusting they find it, which I could imagine this author doing, after potentially thoughtlessly belittling something else he finds unsatisfactory about Finland, to a Finn.

This is pure speculation, but I could imagine a Finn suffering this guy's company, likely his culturally insensitive, vapid diatribes of the sort filling this book (and were it a she, perhaps sleazy passes), and in response, them telling him 'I love you' is 'I'd rather eat salmiakki,' as a clever way to let him know how they feel about his overly self-assured musings. Whatever the back-story, he being over-confident, pompous and careless, went ahead and put it in his book without looking into it.

Which brings me to the main critique of this book, which I already feel a little bad for, but can't really avoid being honest about: this book exemplifies a thing I find detestable about the US, as a US citizen. It's basically what I'm guessing many people from other countries find so disagreeable about Americans, which is a penchant for depthless, culturally insensitive critiques of entire countries and populations of people, based upon partial information, general disinterest and a smugness rooted in a superiority complex founded upon living in a country with power, but little sophistication. It also reeks of what I perhaps can call pseudo-masculine, man-splainy, mouth-diarrhea.

At first I was impressed by what struck me as a playful writer, brimming with information and encyclopedic accuracy, but it quickly dawned on me that his writing is more akin to an awful dinner guest who will talk through and over everyone present at the table, vehemently, just to keep hearing his own voice, and if he has to make up facts and details to keep dominating the conversation, thats fine, so long as he gets to be the one speaking and being heard.

Basically, if you want to learn something about Estonia, this is not a source for it. This is a book to get a glimpse inside a certain brand of smug, overconfident US American pontificating, ham-handedly pushed through the prism of cultural disinterest and insensitivity.

Early in the book he mentions how he and his partner spent countless hours watching old films, listening to music and drinking in bed, movies and music which he lists in detail as if the reader will be bowled over by his exquisite tastes, which he self-deprecatingly gloats about. I'm guessing it could have been a better read if he'd gotten out and actually befriended Estonians and really listened to them. Perhaps he could have even gained their trust and friendship and been granted a real glimpse into the heart and character of Estonia and Estonians.

[Paul Miller]

Bizarro read. An author-husband accompanies his Fulbright scholar/artist spouse on her program in Estonia. IF you can overlook the fact that the author is an egotistical, self-important, America-loathing, self-proclaimed intellectual.... this is an entertaining, quirky view of an quirky, little country.

He hits on the overwhelming rudeness of the people (he claims they NEVER smile), the strangeness of the language, oddities of the culture and legacy of Soviet rule... he DOES present a unique vantage point.

I'm not recommending because of the niche nature of the topic (NOT because the author feels compelled to take little rants on how bad Israel is, how we invited 9/11, how stupid all Americans are..... the guy loves the NY Times, of course).

[Richard Horsman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Theroux's impressions of a few months spent in Estonia in 2009. Really sings when he's at his crankiest and crabbiest (a particular highlight is the chapter of unflattering portraits of his wife's fellow Fulbright recipients), but flags frequently in a way that his similarly styled essay collection The Primary Colors doesn't.

[False · Rating 3 out of 5]

Estonia is another Theroux book full of his lists: oddball names, music, movies, geography, history, food and a prideful husband's praise of his wife... "movie star beautiful," her art..."brilliant." Then what were they doing in Estonia...a country he freely admits even the most avid explorers avoid? Kicks? One wouldn't think so after working your way through his lengthy gripes.

[Barbara Rohde · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my experience of Estonia and Estonians at all! Some interesting asides but too much rambling for me.