Name: The Year of the Hare
ISBN: 9780720612776

Arto Paasilinna

Herbert Lomas

A journalist and a photographer set out on an assignment, but as they drive along they hit a hare. The hare then adopts the journalist, and together the two scamper through farcical adventures and political scandal.

The Year of the Hare

Stephanie Honour

I made the mistake of reading the prologue, which glorified the book more than it deserved. It was a cute story, but I expected more. By the end I was happy to be finished.

Sandaru Ravihari

** spoiler alert **
           This book was totally different from what I imagined. Our protagonist Vatanen almost hits a hare with the car. Leaving his wife, his job as a journalist, his uneventful life behind, he grabs the hare and disappears from South Finland. At first, I thought it would be a nice story of a man spending some quality time with an animal in the wild. Do not get me wrong it still is a story about a man spending some quality time with his hare but not particularly in the wild. He would travel around North Findland, Lapland, and even to Soviet Russia on a bear hunt. He meets a priest who tries to kill the hare and a man who tries to steal the hare. Also, a Swedish lady decides she cannot leave the hare since it saved her life during a bear attack. Also, Vatanen befriends a person who tells him about some political, scandalous evidence against the president of the republic, which he later uses when he is arrested. Later, he gets drunk for months and gets engaged to a beautiful lawyer. Not only humans, but he also meets a pesky raven who steals food from him, a bear who almost devoured him, a pregnant cow. However, there were certain moments in the story, that I disliked. I looked at him from the perspective of him being an animal lover, with his work around the pregnant cow and the hare. However, he also kills and hunts the pesky raven and the bear. Also, I felt so frustrated that he did not do his best to keep the hare protected. With the pastor, he almost shot the hare and the Swedish lady who almost snatched the hare. Vatanen was too dense and calm at certain incidents.

This is also my first time reading Paasilinna. I might not understand the necessity of the social and political details in a story related to a hare. However, you realize one thing: The story was never about a hare. It was about a man who escaped his uneventful life to have some fun.