Henrik Tikkannen, apparently a fairly well-known artist and writer in his home country, Finland, famous primarily for this book, A Winter's Day (English Translation of title), which was only the first volume in his memoir trilogy. Something of an anomaly, and a minority, Tikkanen's family were Swedish-speaking Finns, and a part of the aristocracy or ruling class. Born in 1924, Henrik's parents divorced when he was a boy and he was back and forth between relatives a lot, as both of his parents married a couple more times. This particular book was a real hoot, as Tikkanen pokes near merciless fun at his family and his class. He has a wickedly deadpan and acidic wit which comes through in nearly everything he talks about, and he goes back a couple generations to explore his grandparents and their parents too. Chapter six is simply hilarious, as he relates his adventures at a "Christian summer camp," where he "learned to masturbate." Chapter 16, in which he finally loses his virginity, following an equally hilarious first UNsuccessful attempt, was just falling-down funny. Much of the narrative concerns Henrik's father and the troublesome nature of his aloof relationship to not just Henrik, but his other three sons (Henrik's older half-brothers) too. The alcoholism, adultery, and serial marriages of both parents obviously took a toll on the offspring.

This was my first hint about the Swedish-speaking parts of Finland. Indeed, Tikkanen's native tongue is Swedish, although he grew up in Finland. Confused? Yeah, I was too. I also hadn't been aware that Finland seemed to be on Germany's side during WWII, and fought against the Russians. Maybe I'd confused it with Norway. Didn't Steinbeck write a book about the Norwegian resistance to the Nazis during the war. Was it called The Moon Is Down? Sorry. Pay no attention to my confusion. The truth is I much enjoyed this slim little book; it kept me laughing most of the time and scratching my head wondering about stuff the rest of the time. I'd recommend it. You can actually read the whole thing in just a few hours. I'll have to find out now if the other two volumes of the memoir have been translated into English. Although, in my experience, it's always the first parts of a memoir that are the best - childhood youth and young manhood. Henrik does tell of his WWII military service too, mostly of how terrified he was, and how ridiculous he found the whole concept of military drill. He admits even to wounding himself to get sent home, this after his unit had been thoroughly decimated and routed by the Russian forces and strafing airplanes. I should probably stop here. But yeah, this is a darn good and entertaining read. ( )