Too depressing. ( )

Hilarious.
5 whole stars for this one.
I loved it. ( )

Despite the fact that this is quite a sad book (a stranger, who acts strangely is cut off from the village, locked up in a psychiatric hospital and, after his escape hunted for the rest of the book (his life?)).
He also finds a few people that card about him, that are willing to help him.

The book/language itself is quite funny, but with that even more clearly depicts that human beings are most likely to reject a (new) person that doesn't match their behavior, fits in, follows the common rules. ( )

A great modern(ish) fable! I wanted to howl a few times with the miller!

From the very beginning, though not related at all plot-wise, I felt like this was Dogville: close-minded villagers alienate, use, and provoke the somewhat ill-adjusted newcomer. They drive him away, far far away, and eventually... Well, don't want to give away the ending, but the poor chap has very little going for him. Interestingly, he is very hardworking, honest, and rather enthusiastic about his mill. He is also a very good carpenter, it seems. He is smart, able, and willing. None of these qualities seem to help him shine in the small village. Perhaps its his strange habit of howling now and then, or the biting imitations he make of some of the village's residents. But the tale takes some strange turns, with interesting friendships forged under weird circumstances, but I would not call any of it fantastical. The miller had a good amount of bad luck, and a good amount of good luck, and in the end, it is hard to know how it will turn out. The characters and the things they do seemed familiar and what I expect from the Finns I know, and I did not find the language at all awkward. This is not to mean that it is a literal translation of the original Finnish (and should it be?), but that as it stands in English, it is a good read all the same.

Recommended for those who like howling animals, nature walks, hunting, and vegetables. ( )

Originally published in Finnish in 1981

You've got to know how to howl to give yourself an escape route

My favourite bookshop (Mr. B’s emporium of reading delights in Bath) has just published a special version of one of their favourite books in association with Canongate, so I just had to buy it…

Mr. B’s book jacket blurb – “At Mr. B's we love [the howling miller]. We love Gunnar, one of modern literature's most endearing anti-heroes. We love his pursuit of Sanelma, the adorable, ample bottomed horticulture advisor. We love his animal impressions. We love his short fuse and its comical, if alienating, effects. We love Paasilinna's prose - as crisp and clear as the water thundering through Gunnar's millrace.”

Most of all we love the response of our customers when we recommend it to them.

Paasilinna has created a fable-like tale of Gunnar Huttunen who arrives shortly after WW2 in a sleepy Finnish town to take over the running of a mill. Initially loved for his animal impressions he then has several periods of depression, during which he takes to the woods and howls and this alienates him from his neighbours who are kept awake by the howling and the town’s dogs reactions. He befriends and falls in love with the local horticultural advisor who encourages him to create a vegetable garden and this is a key relationship throughout the book. When the local shopkeeper refuses to sell him stump bombs he puts the shop’s scales down a well and he accidently knocks a neighbours corpulent wife down the stairs and she claims to be paralysed. These antics are too much for the townsfolk and they really set against him as the tale turns into one of intolerance for being different. The main thrust of the novel is an exploration of individual freedom set against a memorable descriptive background of the stark Finnish landscape with a cast of eccentric characters.

Overall – Excellent evocatively Finnish tale ( )