I bought 'Little Siberia' (2018) with great enthusiasm after having enjoyed Antti Tuomainen's previous dark comedy, 'Palm Beach Finland' (2017).

To my surprise, I'm setting it aside at the 29% mark because the book is going to places that I don't want to visit and I'm increasingly feeling like a passenger who has gotten on the wrong train.

I was expecting dark, quirky, distinctly Finnish humour. That may be exactly what I got but if it is, then the 'Finnish humour' has flown over my head.

'Little Siberia' strikes me as more angry than funny. It's definitely quirky but in a way that feels pathological rather than amusing. The main character is a Pastor but he's very far from a serene man of God bringing peace and hope to his community. He's a man consumed by jealousy and doubt who is giving way to rage and violence. Given what has been done to him, I can see what pushed him into these reactions but that doesn't mean I have any sympathy with him.

The story is told mostly from within the Pastor's head, showing me how he flips from rationalising and justifying his reactions, to being consumed by them, to knowing that what he is doing is wrong but that he's going to do it anyway.

The storyi is well told. It's dark and quirky and distinctively Finnish but I have the sense that I failing to connect with an important part of the book, that there's a nuance that I'm missing, so I'm watching a 3D movie without the glasses that would let me see what the director intended.

I'm sure the problem is my expectations rather than the attributes of the book but I'm setting it aside anyway.

I'm not done with Antti Tuomainen. I'm planning on reading 'The Rabbit Factor' (2020), the first book in his trilogy, next year.

Okay, but nowhere near as good as "The Man Who Died."

> Afghanistan took a lot out of me. But it also taught me to remain focussed in exceptional circumstances. As the giant pulls a knife out of his boot, all my training and everything I have learned crystallizes before me. I know exactly what to do. I run for it. ( )

Having enjoyed The Man Who Died by Antti Tuomainen, I wanted more. This was not quite as funny, but reflects his zany sense of humor. A small meteorite crashes through a race car driver's personal vehicle while he is racing home on icy roads drinking vodka. It is moved to a town museum pending transfer to a more permanent home, when opportunists decide that they can cash in by stealing it. Rare minerals and a per gram valuation for collectors makes the meteorite worth a million or more Euros. A local pastor becomes its guardian, whose life is unbalanced by his wife's announcement she is pregnant even though a war injury has left him sterile -- a fact he has withheld from her out of cowardice since she desperately wants children. Great cover. ( )

Der Einschlag eines Meteoriten auf dem Beifahrersitz eines betrunkenen Ex-Rennfahrers, in der Nähe der russischen Grenze im Nordosten Finnlands, triggert so ziemlich alle Begierden, Wünsche, Ängste, die in diesem Dorf seine Bewohnerinnen und Bewohner heimsuchen. Der Pfarrer des Dorfes und Hauptperson des Romans, gerät unfreiwillig in den Fokus all dieser explosiven Emotionen.

Antti Tuomainen hat mich in seinen ersten beiden Büchern vor allem durch seinen hintergründigen, ziemlich finnischen Humor und die schrulligen Typen überzeugt. Deshalb bin ich überrascht, wie sehr dieser Geschichte diese komische Seite zu fehlen scheint. Nur sehr selten zeigt sich der Schelm, ansonsten aber ist die Geschichte ernst, wie eine lebensnahe Beschreibung aus der ostfinnischen Realität, und spannend ist sie auch. ( )

https://tamaranth.blogspot.com/2020/08/2020104-little-siberia-antti-tuomainen.ht... ( )