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A review by nhnabass
The Year of the Hare by Arto Paasilinna
4.0
The Year of the Hare reads like a fantastical fever dream in the best way possible. The story follows a journalist who, after accidentally hitting a wild hare with his car, has a sudden awakening of the mundanity of modern society and denies complying to its demands any longer by literally following the hare into the forest and leaving his life behind. We follow their adventures through this collection of eccentric vignettes and I found myself surprisingly enthralled through the humor of Paasilinna (that seemed wonderfully translated in English) and the sheer absurdity of the some of the situations the duo find themselves in. It was especially wonderful watching as the narrator slowly attributed more and more of a personality to the hare and examining its responses to the different situations they are put in.
The protagonist almost seems selfish at first in leaving everything behind but unplugs in such a way that feels almost unattainable to do nowadays and again in a way that I feel many of us yearn for. I really enjoyed feeling through this chaos alongside the journalist and watching him try to detach from society yet continuously finding himself reliant on the good will of others. It left me with that "life is short so enjoy it" feeling that is unnameable. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed.
The protagonist almost seems selfish at first in leaving everything behind but unplugs in such a way that feels almost unattainable to do nowadays and again in a way that I feel many of us yearn for. I really enjoyed feeling through this chaos alongside the journalist and watching him try to detach from society yet continuously finding himself reliant on the good will of others. It left me with that "life is short so enjoy it" feeling that is unnameable. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed.