Routavuosi by Juha Seppälä is a strange novel. It tells several stories in one story. In one story, the protagonist is Eric, a angry loser, who spends his time idling around Helsinki and cleaning offices. He is also afraid that the police is after him, although he has not, yet, done anything criminal. In another story, the protagonist is Eugen Schauman, who is real historical character (he murdered Bobrikov, the governor or Finland under the Russian rule). Yet, somehow, Eric is Eugen and Eugen is Eric. They both meet certain officer, who helps plotting the assassination of Bobrikov. In other stories, Eric meets some SM couples, etc. In another, Eric keeps on internal monologue about the state of the European Union and vanishing independence of Finland — and the need to kill some politicians to stop it all. And then he kills someone and then not.
In all, the stories are very hard to follow. It is hard to tell whether Mr. Seppälä manages to pull his literary gymnastic off. The books is hard to read, very much so, but after few days the books feels important both as a political statement and as a literary experiment. Read the book, if you want to challenge yourself.
27.01.2007