Troll: A Love Story

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3821173.html

This is a really intense and complex (and short) novel, which it would be slightly unfair to call urban fantasy even though it's about a troll taking up residence in a contemporary Helsinki apartment block. Mikael, who finds and cares for the troll, is a gay photographer who lives upstairs from a Filipina mail-order bride. The troll's pheromones cause massive sexual confusion for everyone, sparsely recounted in that very Finnish way. The narrative is bolstered by a history of humanity's coexistence with trolls over the centuries and millennia. Helsinki is a sober nineteenth century city which has undergone some occasionally brutal twentieth century development; but it's not difficult to feel show more older forces tugging at you when you are there, and Johanna Sinisalo has captured that, as well as exploring some important human issues. show less

Accepting the premise that trolls really do exist, although they are rarely sighted, and little is known for sure about them, Johanna Sinisalo has created a beautiful love story, as the title suggests. The story is set in Finland one winter through to the spring.
Mikael, a successful freelance photographer affectionately and descriptively known as Angel, for he is very handsome with his head of fair hair, rescues an abandoned and frightened young troll from the attack of a group of loutish drunken teenagers. With no other options, for as we all know an abandoned troll cannot be re-united with its parents; Angel takes the young troll home to care for it. He then embarks on a course of investigation and discovery as he secretly tries to show more raise the troll, which he names Pessi. At the same time Angel tries to juggle his relationships with his gay lovers: Dr Spiderman, a vet; Martes who is also his business partner and Ecke who absolutely adores the gorgeous Angel. While Dr Spiderman provides some advice, Angel’s only other support comes from Palomita, the Filipino bride of the abusive brute who lives in the apartment below him.
The story is told progressively by the various participants, but predominately Angel, and the narration is regularly interspersed with facts, information, and myths and tales, poetry and literature about trolls, sourced from various publications and the internet.
It is truly a lovely story, the relationship that develops between Angel and Pessi is most heart warming as the young troll becomes submissive towards and fiercely and jealously protective of his newfound master. More mysteriously there is something else to the connection between Pessi and Angel, as it appears the young troll exerts a powerful influence that perhaps only a man who loves other men is susceptible to, it certainly has a physical affect on Angel.
Events necessarily come to a climax as Pessi’s existence inevitable becomes know to the authorities, but that is not to say that it is any way predicable, far from it. The conclusion of the tale is both moving and satisfying.

NOTE REGARDING CONCLUSION added in repsonse to a question (do not read if you do not want to know the ending)

I too wondered about Angel’s outcome, especially as he was escorted at gun point to the trolls' lair; but then if the large male troll intended to dispose of him, why take him back to their cave? Then there is that almost tender moment when one of the welcoming trolls extracts the lighter from Angel’s pocket, if its intent were malicious surely such a powerful creature would simply rip the lighter out of Angel’s trousers.
When the large mature troll found Angel and Pressi, Pessi was clearly delighted to meet his own kind, going “berserk with joy” and leaping up at the male troll. But Pessi is devoted to Angel; he has proved that by being so fiercely protective of him, he obviously does not see this large male troll as a threat. Pessi surely would not allow anything untoward to happen to Angel; the move he makes at the very last as he goes to Angel’s side and takes his hand as they enter the cave seems to confirm this.
There is also the idea revealed in the beliefs and myths surrounding trolls that they can live in harmony with and even marry humans; and have been known to take in young humans (pp29-30, 99 in my copy).
In my mind I am quite confident that the trolls take in and care for Angel, and this seems morally correct (from the trolls’ point of view), for Angel is a wanted man, wanted for a crime Pessi committed; the trolls have a duty to protect Angel. (And what alternative does Angel have, if he returns to his world it is undoubtedly to face trial for murder?)
Of course one wonders why the need for the gun, but would Angel have gone with the mature male troll without the ‘incentive’, would he perhaps have just left Pessi knowing he was back with his kind?
I wonder at Angel’s life with the troll’s, but it must have its advantages; he probably lives in a state of near permanent sexual arousal (and satisfaction) resulting for the pheromones exuded by the trolls! show less

Angel, a photographer, finds a gang of yobs beating someone up near his home. He chases them away, and then finds that what they were beating up was, in fact, a young troll. He takes the beast home to nurse it back to health, but becomes mesmerised by its wild grace.

The story is told in short bursts from several different points of view, interleaved with folkloric and zoologic texts on trolls which Angel researches. The reader is dropped into the story quickly, and it's absorbing. The interleaved texts hint at parallels - themes for example of fear and prejudice (Angel is gay), and human beastliness.

At this point, the book was reminding me of Elizabeth Knox's excellent The Vintner's Luck, in which a young man falls in love with a (male) show more angel. However, although Angel becomes increasingly obsessed by the troll, every time he feels aroused he rushes off to find someone human to have sex with. Tension builds between Angel and three friends - the person he's having sex with, who knows that Angel is thinking of someone else; a old flame, who dumped Angel but is miffed that Angel has stopped moping around him; and a vet who grows increasingly suspicious by Angel's questions about 'large predators'.

All this is great reading, but unfortunately, having set the situation up, I felt that Sinisalo wasted it. You can't say that the story fizzled out, because dramatic things happen - but it still felt like an anticlimax to me.

There was also a subplot about a mail-order bride in the flat below which I couldn't see the point of at all.

Sample: His golden head bends closer to me, so I catch the scent of his aftershave. It's a new one on me, woodlandish and metallic, strangely arousing. show less

DNF @ 40%

This book ... is really disturbing. And I'm really glad a friend warned me to stop it before I read on more and got to the bestiality and racism. The comments on my library copy say stuff like "Book is excellent. Weird--but good!", "Read at your own confusion". And like ... sure, but there's a point where a book crosses these lines and just goes into straight-up racism and Let's not write a book about a gay dude falling in love with pretty-much-a-bear-cub please. Let's not compare gay love to bestiality again? And black men to "apes"/trolls?

Is that really too much to ask?

Book content warnings:
bestiality
racism / anti-black racism
fetishization
consent issues regarding sex
(probably more, but I didn't finish it)

In this book, trolls show more in Finland aren't mythological creatures. They're more like bears. Real creatures but just very elusive and endangered. When Mikael finds one by his apartment, being beat up by ""juvenile delinquents"" (lmao who talks like this?? he's only 30?), he thinks it's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. And of course (for some reason) that makes him want to posses it.

I don't know if the writing is better in its native language (Finnish), but the translation is croppy and awkward. I'm told the writing is pretty poetic, but in English it's ... not. The book is multiple-PoV, but it'll break after even one sentence! Even right in the middle of action scenes, so it gets a bit strange. But I mean ... that's the book's intent: to be strange. So whatever, I guess.

The main character is probably one of the most unlikable characters I've ever met, and that's also one of the reasons I had to put the book down. He--and all the other people here--are extremely selfish and shallow. I don't root for anyone.

So yeah, awful book, awful characters, awful storytelling. Where the book tries to be deep and strange, it just seems flat-out stupid. show less

A brilliantly original book set in a Finland where trolls are confirmed to exist, much as wolverines or bears. When the main character finds a juvenile troll he decides on impulse to look after it, and much of the rest of the book concerns their relationship and how it affects Angel's other relationships. Angel has to find out about trolls through books and the internet, and excerpts (real and fictional) are interspersed regularly with the narrative for the reader to gradually build up their acquaintence too.

Whilst the book may be seen as controversial for touching on bestiality, it is rich in other themes -- man and nature, imprisonment, sexual attraction, control, folklore, religion, etc. Ignore the quotes on the cover that may make show more you assume this is mere genre fiction -- at least SF, fantasy and gay fiction -- it may be so, but it also a finely crafted, thought provoking, and original novel. show less

If you think there's nothing new under the sun when it comes to story-telling, give this book a try - it won't be what you expect, whatever you're expecting. (Especially if you're expecting Shrek.) A fast and entertaining read that isn't 'experimental fiction', but still does creative stuff with perspective and the idea of trolls. One little thing about the translation bothered me at first - the translator occasionally uses slang words that are really outdated - both for the date of the translation (2003) and the time period of the novel - early 2000's. Words like "pad" for apartment, or awkward descriptions of the act of internet searching, when the verb 'to google' was already in common use. But it is very infrequent, and I liked the show more spirit of the book so much that it started to seem cute after a while. But I still doubt it was intentional. show less

'I've tried to capture part of the forest and now the forest has captured me', 20 Jan. 2013
By
sally tarbox

This review is from: Not Before Sundown (Paperback)
When gay Mikael rescues a young troll from a gang of drunken yobs, he at once states:
'It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
I know straight away that I want it.'
In Sinisalo's novel, trolls are a rare but scientifically accepted species, and the very short chapters, narrated by different people who feature in the story (but not Pessi, the 'tamed' troll) are interspersed with literary and non-fiction references to the creatures.
The situation of Pessi, kept penned up in a Helsinki flat by a stronger creature, is parallelled by Mikael's neighbour, a young Filipino mail-order show more bride, living a hellish existence with her brute of a husband. She too gets sucked in to the troll story...
A very unusual and intriguing read. show less