Review of the book "The Howling Miller" by Arto Paasilinna

If you ask enough people about which Scandinavian writers they know, you can bet that more than half of the answers will match. Denmark - Hans Christian Andersen, Norway - Heinrich Ibsen, Sweden - Astrid Linden, Finland - Tove Jansen... Someone will remember the "Norwegian Murakami" - Erlend Lu... That's probably the end of it. Unfortunately. After all, these countries have quite rich literature and talented writers. We'll start with the literature of the state, which gave modern youth HIM, Nightwish, Rasmus and a bunch of other extraordinary performers.

The topic that Arto Paasilinna touches upon in his book is as old as humanity itself - it is the conflict of personality and society. But planted on the specific soil of the Finnish north, this theme will sparkle with new colors and peculiar patterns.

One day, an outsider with a mysterious past named Gunnar Guttunen comes to a remote northern region of Finland and buys an old broken-down mill that has not worked since the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939. The new owner is an intelligent and hardworking man, he quickly repairs battered machinery and starts the mill, which does a great service to local peasants who previously had to carry grain to neighboring areas for grinding. In addition, the alien has an amazing skill - he is able to portray the behavior of animals and birds very truthfully, and the local children are very happy about this. Guttunen gradually gets used to his new place, plans to install a wood processing machine and, on the advice of Selma, the head of the local vegetable growers club, whom he falls in love with, begins to grow vegetables.

This is probably how Gunnar Guttunen would have lived a happy and rich life at the mill, if not for his tendency to depression, during which he howls at night like a wolf, generating a chain reaction of howling dogs in the village, which does not allow locals to close their eyes. The peasants begin to bypass Guttunen's mill, and then demand that the miller be sent to an insane asylum. The local gendarme, who treats Gunnar with sympathy and understanding, tries to avoid harsh actions, but warns that he must curb his habit, because soon people will run out of patience.

In desperation, Melnik goes to the doctor, and aesculapius prescribes pills for depression, but unfortunately Gunnar is in such a hurry to overcome his condition that he takes a large dose of medication for the first time and, in a fit of uncontrollable merriment, puts the whole village on its head: "he rode a bicycle into almost every house, greeted, said, sang, howled, knocked on the door, and dug under the walls"

Of course, after that incident, Melnik very soon found himself in a madhouse, from which, however, he manages to escape - with the help of one of the crooks, who was hiding in a mental hospital from prosecution. Unable to live at the mill, Gutunen takes the necessary things and settles in the forest, eating berries, roots, game and fish. His only friends are his beloved Selma and the drunken postman Piittisjarvi, who hides a moonshine distiller in the forest. Bouts of depression, however, do not leave Gunnar (which is not surprising under such circumstances), and the forest outside the village is filled with howling wolves again, and consequently with hunters of the howling miller. Guttunen no longer wants to live such a life and decides to sell the mill with the help of his cunning acquaintance from the madhouse, and goes to other lands, but it turns out that all the miller's property has been seized, and he no longer has the right to dispose of it. Driven to desperation, Gunnar Guttunen is forced to respond to society with the same coin that he receives from people himself - violence. Along with cut telephone wires, burned buildings, and stolen money from the bank, Guttunen's wolfish howl becomes the cry of despair of a cornered man. In the end, the authorities manage to catch the miller by trickery, but not to keep him - the book has an ending that is not very realistic, but rather expected under such circumstances, which by no means removes all questions...

Although it may not be obvious from a brief retelling of the plot, "The Howling Miller" is not a tragic book at all, and it's serious, but it's funny enough. It is from this novel that one can safely draw conclusions about Finnish humor, which, contrary to all stereotypes, is very impressive - undoubtedly, the translator also deserves great credit for this. It should be especially noted that the author uses humor not at all to simply please the reader, to distract him from the importance of the issues raised, but in order to show in a deeply satirical form the senselessness and inexpediency of society's struggle with people who differ from accepted "norms." The author portrays all the characters, without exception, as people with their own kind traits and flaws, but it is those who fiercely fight the miller who, it turns out, keep more of their own skeletons in the closet.

The village doctor declares Guttunen crazy because of his habit of copying the behavior of animals describing their own hunting trips, and gives the miller himself a hundred points head start - he gets down on all fours on the floor, pretending to be dogs, growls with rage, tears the bear's skin with his teeth so that his mouth fills with fur. The wife of a rich peasant, who takes part in the persecution of Guttunen, pretends to be paralyzed, but still gets out of bed regularly and runs well when interest takes over. The chairman of the county police is unable to restore basic order in the territory entrusted to him himself and calls a military detachment with dogs to search for a man whose whole fault lies in the fact that he howls like a wolf... The paradox of the situation looms quite clearly: the eccentric miller really has no place in the village.

Throughout the pages of Arto's novel, Paasilinna does not completely reveal the origin of Gunnar Guttunen, and then the question "who is to blame" does not even touch. Moreover, there is a rather vague conclusion, in which it is only clear that neither side received a final victory. But the whole book, from the first to the last line, calls for tolerance and mutual respect if people are understanding and patient with each other's little oddities. As one of the greats said, if you see a man who is out of step with others, do not rush to condemn him - perhaps he hears the music of a completely different march... Watch USA online porn https://mat6tube.com teens, milfs, matures!