The Year of the Hare in Around the World

Sep 02, 2011 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it liked it

Shelves: around-the-world, read2012, location-finland

A quick read about a journalist who rescues a hare and spends a year wandering into whatever life has for him. I think it is supposed to be funny, except for me I don't think the humor really translates. I did like all the Finnish names and some of the characters, and it gave some insight into a government I don't know anything about.

"Even in an agreeable village, one can't hang around doing nothing forever."

"Loving animals can be a heavy load."

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Jan 10, 2016 Kate Z rated it liked it

I read this book after reading a blog/review by Ann Morgan: www.ayearofreadingtheworld.com. Morgan recognized that although she was very "well read", her reading consisted almost entirely of books by Western (largely American) authors about "western" subjects. I read her "best of" entry and decided to try some of her selections. Year of the Hare is one of those. YotH was first published in 1995 and is translated from the Finnish. It tells the story of a man, Vatanen, who hits a hare with a car t I read this book after reading a blog/review by Ann Morgan: www.ayearofreadingtheworld.com. Morgan recognized that although she was very "well read", her reading consisted almost entirely of books by Western (largely American) authors about "western" subjects. I read her "best of" entry and decided to try some of her selections. Year of the Hare is one of those. YotH was first published in 1995 and is translated from the Finnish. It tells the story of a man, Vatanen, who hits a hare with a car then sets off after it into the woods. He finds the hare, injured, and takes it in - and then leaves the rest of his life, including his wife and job, behind and sets out with the hare. The book is the story of those "adventures".

After reading Out Stealing Horses, The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden, The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared and, to some extent, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Trilogy Bundle: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, I am pleased to say that in this book, YotH, I recognized a distinctly Danish "voice" which is very different from the American or western voice. In 2015 I noted in several reviews that I felt like the book I had just read was a lot like every other "LitFic" book. That is to say, they had different settings and characters but the zeitgeist of the book was the same. I was feeling very much like every book I picked up was from that octagon-shaped table at the front of every Barnes and Noble. They just "felt" the same, although their plotlines and characters were different.

Year of the Hare did not fit into that category and that's exactly what drew me to this book in the first place. Translated books always seems to lose a little something in the writing - some crispness of wit that just doesn't move well across languages. This book is billed as "hilarious" and I never found it so. The (translated) writing was flat but I was so happy to read a book with such a different voice that I pushed through. This book also brought me back to a time in my life just after college where I read a lot - and more books from other places in the world (I lived in London in 1996) and it made me happy to revist that "zeitgeist" as well.

Glad I read this one.

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Feb 21, 2012 Beth rated it really liked it

Shelves: 1001-books, 6-books-6-countries-6-continents, around-the-world-group, audiobooks

What a delightful little book! A journalist's life is changed when the car he is riding in hits but does not kill a hare. He wanders into the forest to check on it, the driver of the car becomes inpatient and leaves, and so begins the journalist's decision to escape the life he doesn't much enjoy and begin a simpler one full of manual labor, reliance on the kindness (or not) of strangers, a deep connection to the beautiful land of Finland, and a deeper connection to a marvelous animal. He choose ...more

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