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The Year of the Hare: A Novel

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The Year of the Hare: A Novel

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Overview

An internationally bestselling comic novel in which a man—with the help of a bunny—suddenly realizes what’s important in life

“Escapism at its best . . . Just pure fun.” —NPR.org

“Which of us has not had that wonderfully seditious idea: to play hooky for a while from life as we know it?” With these words from his foreword, Pico Iyer puts his finger on the exhilaratingly anarchic appeal of The Year of the Hare, a novel in the bestselling tradition of Watership Down, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, and Life of Pi.

While out on assignment, a journalist hits a hare with his car. This small incident becomes life-changing: he decides to quit his job, leave his wife, sell his possessions, and spend a year wandering the wilds of Finland—with the bunny as his boon companion.

What ensues is a series of comic misadventures, as everywhere they go—whether chased up a tree by dogs, or to a formal state dinner, or in pursuit of a bear across the Finnish border with Russia—they leave mayhem (and laughter!) in their wake.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780143117926
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	12/28/2010
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	247,616
Product dimensions:	5.24(w) x 7.58(h) x 0.54(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Arto Paasilinna (1942–2018) was born in Lapland, Finland. By turns woodcutter, agricultural laborer, journalist, and poet, he was also an award-winning author of more than thirty novels, all of which have been translated into numerous languages.

Pico Iyer (foreword) wrote an essay that became one of The New York Times’ most e-mailed articles, about leaving a life as a successful journalist for a simpler life. He is the author of two novels and numerous nonfiction books about the cultures of the world, including The Art of Stillness, The Open Road, Autumn Light, and A Beginner’s Guide to Japan. He has never been to Finland except through the pages of this book.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"This is escapism at its best. . . . Really, it's just pure fun, like an adult fairy tale-a fantasy of what might happen if one day you just said, 'Oh, the hell with it.' "
-Lynn Neary, NPR.org

"[A] wonderful book . . . If you are too timid to actually cut all the ties to your 'civilized' life, but still have a yearning to get away from clocks and calendars, Arto Paasilinna's The Year of the Hare provides the perfect escape literature. . . . The humor in this book just sneaks up on you. . . . [It] will have you laughing and gasping by turns. . . . The writing is as spare and clean as the lines of Scandinavian design. . . . Of the many lines in this book that I cherished, the last is one of the most delicious: 'Vatanen is a man to be reckoned with.' So is this book."
-Lonely Planet

"A fable of the joys of freedom . . . The hare proves to be a delightful, undemanding, and loyal companion, who can laugh, listen, and feel embarrassment."
-The Boston Globe

"Paasilinna's style is all Finn-a sly sense of humor, a simplicity, a moral compass that points firmly north and out of doors, away from cities. . . . Readers root for Vatanen as he leaps off the mad merry-go-round."
-Los Angeles Times

"Compelling . . . You might just find yourself wishing for a hare to enter your life in the near future."
-Seattle Post-Intelligencer

"Beguiling, gently ironic . . . [an] ode to spontaneity and serendipity."
-National Geographic Traveler

"[A] joy . . . The glory of the outdoors is celebrated here, through each season, and we can nearly smell the early clover and meadow vetchling of the hare's diet. . . . Vatanen is who we want to be [and] who we yearn to be brave enough to become, as soon as we stop waiting for the timing to be right."
-BookPage

"Hilarious . . . With its fiercely independent protagonist and its depiction of Finland's wild northland, this comic novel will offer readers a rare opportunity to experience Finland and read one of that country's most popular authors."
-Library Journal

"The Year of the Hare offers enjoyable yarns: fun adventures, agreeably related. . . . It's so good-natured and has so much varied action-and that animal-appeal-that it makes for a consistently enjoyable read."
-The Complete Review

"Exhilarating . . . The sheer literary delight of Arto Paasilinna's comic novels is one of the best-kept secrets in Finland. . . . You'll want to laugh out loud at all the good parts, and savor every lean, simple, honest sentence."
-Shelf Awareness

"The Year of the Hare is only the most Finnish, and perhaps most antically Zen-ish, of a shelf-load of books that tell us to find and live by our own ideas of contentment."
-The Wall Street Journal

"An exemplary comic novel, full of amiable if binding warnings about the septic follies of civilization-to be read with rising anxiety and delight."
-Thomas McGuane

"Step out of the domestic gulag and into The Year of the Hare, a novel that depicts the confident freedom of the journeyman. I loved it."
-Matthew Crawford, author of Shop Class as Soulcraft

"I love The Year of the Hare. . . . Which of us wouldn't secretly want to live in a novel as fresh and as full of events as this one?"
-Pico Iyer, from the Foreword

"Paasilinna has been amusing Finns for thirty years and readers in twenty-five languages."
-The New York Times

Matthew Crawford

“Step out of the domestic gulag and into The Year of the Hare, a novel that depicts the confident freedom of the journeyman. I loved it.” --(Matthew Crawford, author of Shop Class as Soulcraft)

From the B&N Reads Blog

Page 1 of

Editorial Reviews

First published in 1975 at the height of the back-to-nature movement, Paasilinna's charming, low-key allegory pursues a journalist abandoning his Helsinki life for the companionship of a pet hare. Approaching middle age--"the hopes of youth had not been realized, far from it"--Kaarlo Vatanen takes off after a hare he and his friend have accidentally hit while driving. He tends to the hare's leg, befriends the critter, deserts his friend, gradually sheds his former life, and eventually refits a cozy cabin in the wilds of Lapland. Paasilinna fashions in each step of Kaarlo's transformation a test of society's institutions, and finds each, not surprisingly, wanting, from law enforcement and the construction industry to the army. The hare, meanwhile, is innocently plucky, leaving his droppings on the altar of a church and in the soup of a Swedish lady. It's cute enough, if baldly obvious in the way that parables often are. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

A change-your-life novel.” —New York, The Approval Matrix: Highbrow/Brilliant

“[A] wonderful book . . . If you are too timid to actually cut all the ties to your ‘civilized’ life, but still have a yearning to get away from clocks and calendars, Arto Paasilinna’s The Year of the Hare provides the perfect escape literature. . . . The humor in this book just sneaks up on you. . . . [It] will have you laughing and gasping by turns. . . . The writing is as spare and clean as the lines of Scandinavian design. . . . Of the many lines in this book that I cherished, the last is one of the most delicious: ‘Vatanen is a man to be reckoned with.’ So is this book.” —Lonely Planet

“A fable of the joys of freedom . . . The hare proves to be a delightful, undemanding, and loyal companion, who can laugh, listen, and feel embarrassment.” —The Boston Globe

“Paasilinna’s style is all Finn—a sly sense of humor, a simplicity, a moral compass that points firmly north and out of doors, away from cities. . . . Readers root for Vatanen as he leaps off the mad merry-go-round.” —Los Angeles Times

“Compelling . . . You might just find yourself wishing for a hare to enter your life in the near future.” —Seattle Post-Intelligencer

“Beguiling, gently ironic . . . [an] ode to spontaneity and serendipity.” —National Geographic Traveler

“[A] joy . . . The glory of the outdoors is celebrated here, through each season, and we can nearly smell the early clover and meadow vetchling of the hare’s diet. . . . Vatanen is who we want to be [and] who we yearn to be brave enough to become, as soon as we stop waiting for the timing to be right.” —BookPage

“Hilarious . . . With its fiercely independent protagonist and its depiction of Finland’s wild northland, this comic novel will offer readers a rare opportunity to experience Finland and read one of that country’s most popular authors.” —Library Journal

“The Year of the Hare offers enjoyable yarns: fun adventures, agreeably related. . . . It’s so good-natured and has so much varied action—and that animal-appeal—that it makes for a consistently enjoyable read.” —The Complete Review

“Exhilarating . . . The sheer literary delight of Arto Paasilinna’s comic novels is one of the best-kept secrets in Finland. . . . You’ll want to laugh out loud at all the good parts, and savor every lean, simple, honest sentence.” —Shelf Awareness

“The Year of the Hare is only the most Finnish, and perhaps most antically Zen-ish, of a shelf-load of books that tell us to find and live by our own ideas of contentment.” —The Wall Street Journal

“An exemplary comic novel, full of amiable if binding warnings about the septic follies of civilization—to be read with rising anxiety and delight.” —Thomas McGuane, author of The Longest Silence

“Step out of the domestic gulag and into The Year of the Hare, a novel that depicts the confident freedom of the journeyman. I loved it.” —Matthew Crawford, author of Shop Class as Soulcraft

“I love The Year of the Hare. . . . Which of us wouldn’t secretly want to live in a novel as fresh and as full of events as this one?” —Pico Iyer, from the Foreword

“Paasilinna has been amusing Finns for thirty years and readers in twenty-five languages.” —The New York Times

From the Publisher

“Paasilinna has been amusing Finns for thirty years and readers in twenty-five languages.”

The New York Times

“I love The Year of the Hare. . . . Which of us wouldn't secretly want to live in a novel as fresh and as full of events as this one?” --(Pico Iyer)

Foreword

An international best seller in 1995, this follows a journalist who runs away from his wife and his life after injuring a hare with his car. He nurses the animal back to health, and together they travel across Finland getting into one ridiculous situation after another. Meanwhile, his wife and employers try to track him down. You should read this thoroughly charming and outrageous comic romp before shelving it. (Ed. note: Though previously released in English, this Penguin edition marks the book's U.S. debut, so see the full LJ review in our November 15 issue.) — Mike Rogers, "Classic Returns," Booksmack! 1/6/11

Library Journal - BookSmack!

While he is out on assignment, Vatanen, an unhappy Helsinki journalist, accidently hits a hare with his car. A sudden urge prompts him to leave the car and follow the animal into the woods where he bandages its injured leg. Then Vatanen keeps going. With the hare as his buddy, the former journalist ditches his wife, sells his boat, and begins anew in northern Finland, making a living doing odd jobs and finding trouble wherever he goes. In a series of hilarious adventures Vatanen and the hare outwit a thieving crow, bloodthirsty hounds, drunken revelers, an angry bear, a religious zealot, and many pompous politicians who wander into the north. VERDICT Although the first English translation appeared in 1995, this is the first of Paasilinna's works to be released in the United States. With its fiercely independent protagonist and its depiction of Finland's wild northland, this comic novel will offer readers a rare opportunity to experience Finland and read one of that country's most popular authors.—Andrea Kempf, Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, KS

Library Journal

This picaresque novel could simply depict a middle-age crisis, but it reaches beyond fantasy or fiction, becoming mythic in its universal themes. The story is inventive, satirical, and quite humorous.”

Booklist

Paasilinna has been amusing Finns for thirty years and readers in twenty-five languages.”

New York Times

I love The Year of the Hare…Which of us wouldn’t secretly want to live in a novel as fresh and as full of events as this one?”

Pico Iyer

Escapism at its best…Just pure fun—a fantasy of what might happen if one day you just said, ‘Oh, the hell with it.’”

NPR.org Lynn Neary

Paasilinna’s story is somehow plausible…and it feels as though we, too, could so easily desert our responsibilities to others to follow what fulfills us. The glory of the outdoors is celebrated here, through each season, and we can nearly smell the early clover and meadow vetchling of the hare’s diet. Vatanen is who we want to be…No, scratch that—Vatanen is who we yearn to be brave enough to become, as soon as we stop waiting for the timing to be right.”

BookPage

A fable of the joys of freedom…The hare proves to be a delightful, undemanding, and loyal companion, who can laugh, listen, and feel embarrassment.”

Boston Globe

Compelling…You might just find yourself wishing for a hare to enter your life in the near future.”

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Beguiling, gently ironic…[an] ode to spontaneity and serendipity.”

National Geographic Traveler

Step out of the domestic gulag and into The Year of the Hare, a novel that depicts the confident freedom of the journeyman. I loved it.”

bestselling author of Shop Class as Soulcraft Matthew Crawford

Amazing…It can be read over a long winter afternoon and will leave you feeling a little warmer inside.”

San Francisco Book Review

Paasilinna’s style is all Finn—a sly sense of humor, a simplicity, a moral compass that points firmly north and out of doors, away from cities…Readers root for Vatanen as he leaps off the mad merry-go-round.”

|Los Angeles Times

When Mr. Paasilinna’s novel appears in this country for the first time next month, it might just prove the perfect way into the actual Year of the Hare, which begins, according to many an Eastern calendar, in January.”

Wall Street Journal