A Flavour of the Book: “He could hear the police chief outside shouting that now wasn’t the moment to get the madman’s mill turning. But someone had had time to reach the sluice gate over the shingle saw and, from the lapping sound, Huttunen guessed that they had closed it. The first cascade of water shot into the turbine house, soaking him from head to foot. He bent back the turbine blades with all his strength. Everything went black. Put up a hell of a fight, he told himself: life or death…”
The Authortrek View: This
is a fantastically engaging and surreal story from a great writer. Gunnar Huttunen is indeed a bit odd,
but he does the local village a great service by renovating the local mill. And
although the local inhabitants are more than a little perturbed by his howling
at night, it is not enough to deter Gunnar from pursuing a romance with the
horticulture advisor Sanelma Kayramo.
She, in turn, truly loves the miller, but even she is a little shy of
committing wholly to him due to his undeniable madness. It helps that Gunnar has another local
ally in the shape of the police constable Portimo, and the drunken postman
Piitisjarvi. However, the great
majority of the neighbourhood starts to persecute Gunnar, and want to have him incapacitated
in the local lunatic asylum. Gunnar
doesn’t do his case any good when he embarks on a trail of destruction to get
his revenge, even if it was the lord Jesus Christ who told him to do it… The Howling Miller is a very funny
and rebellious novel, and you can’t help but root for the charming Gunnar all
along the way. The Canongate
edition would appear to be the translation of a translation, but Arto
Paasilinna’s story is so fantastic that it has not got lost along the way. Special praise must also go to Cluny
Sheeler for the splendid cover design.
The Howling Miller is a great modern classic, with a
fantastically mystical resolution.
To find out more about the author, please visit our Arto Paasilinna page.
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