Year of the Hare

Lovely little book

This is a shaggy hare story.

Vatanen is a Finnish journalist. He is fed up with his job, his wife, his life-style. He is approaching middle-age and he wonders what is the point? One evening while returning home with a colleague they hit a hare with their car. The hare runs off into the forest injured.

Vatanen gets out of the car, runs after it. He finds it and so his life changes. He decides he wants to look after the hare. So begins his adventures.

First he has to find a vet, then food, then divorce his wife and get some cash. He and the hare have wild times in their journey around Finland. He gets arrested for attempt burglary, he meets an ex policechief who believes the Finnish president is an imposter, he recovers Nazi armaments, he assaults a dead grandfather, the hare is kidnapped by a Finnish cult leader, then stolen by a foreign diplomat, they chase a bear and get arrested by the Russians for being a spy. He says the hare is an accomplice. The hare is arrested too.

The book is written in a deadpan simple style. But it also has a point. Modern life is corrupt, full of petty rules and regulations. Much better to be in company with a hare, living off the land, doing simple and rewarding tasks.

I liked it.