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A review by charlieb
Secret Passages in a Hillside Town by Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen
3.0
This book got stranger and stranger as it progressed. Interesting read though
The is a very strange book and a difficult one to review. The narrative is almost split into thirds. The first seems fairly normal and enjoyable exploration of life in a Finnish city. It is very much grounded in the place and time. Olli loses umbrellas, joins a film club and discovers that his old flame, Greta is the writer of a book that has become a Finnish sensation.
A Guide to the Cinematic Life is a book which encourages those that read it to live in a more cinematic way. There is talk about M-particles which are prevalent in magical places, and it is mentioned throughout the book but never really explained.
Olli’s film club seem to specialise in watching black and white classic movies which is stylistically where the Guide to the Cinematic Life is directing people towards. Smoking is encouraged, stolen kisses and artful deaths are all within the remit.
The second third gets odder and more surreal where Olli “remembers” and relives his childhood with kids he used to play with during his summer holidays and most importantly the secret passages. The third part just goes over the edge into just plain weird.
At its heart, this is a love story between Olli and Greta who are forced together by forces outside their control. Olli is the only character in this book who seems like a real person, all the others seem to be two-dimensional stereotypes.
The pacing was slow, and the endless dream sequences started to become a bit boring. This book has taken me months to read, and I kept on hoping that it would get better, but if anything it got worse as it went on.
This book was really well received in Finnish so maybe some of the dark comedy that is supposed to be part of this book has been lost in translation as I really didn’t get the joke.
The is a very strange book and a difficult one to review. The narrative is almost split into thirds. The first seems fairly normal and enjoyable exploration of life in a Finnish city. It is very much grounded in the place and time. Olli loses umbrellas, joins a film club and discovers that his old flame, Greta is the writer of a book that has become a Finnish sensation.
A Guide to the Cinematic Life is a book which encourages those that read it to live in a more cinematic way. There is talk about M-particles which are prevalent in magical places, and it is mentioned throughout the book but never really explained.
Olli’s film club seem to specialise in watching black and white classic movies which is stylistically where the Guide to the Cinematic Life is directing people towards. Smoking is encouraged, stolen kisses and artful deaths are all within the remit.
The second third gets odder and more surreal where Olli “remembers” and relives his childhood with kids he used to play with during his summer holidays and most importantly the secret passages. The third part just goes over the edge into just plain weird.
At its heart, this is a love story between Olli and Greta who are forced together by forces outside their control. Olli is the only character in this book who seems like a real person, all the others seem to be two-dimensional stereotypes.
The pacing was slow, and the endless dream sequences started to become a bit boring. This book has taken me months to read, and I kept on hoping that it would get better, but if anything it got worse as it went on.
This book was really well received in Finnish so maybe some of the dark comedy that is supposed to be part of this book has been lost in translation as I really didn’t get the joke.