Too depressing. ( )

Hilarious.
5 whole stars for this one.
I loved it. ( )

Despite the fact that this is quite a sad book (a stranger, who acts strangely is cut off from the village, locked up in a psychiatric hospital and, after his escape hunted for the rest of the book (his life?)).
He also finds a few people that card about him, that are willing to help him.

The book/language itself is quite funny, but with that even more clearly depicts that human beings are most likely to reject a (new) person that doesn't match their behavior, fits in, follows the common rules. ( )

A great modern(ish) fable! I wanted to howl a few times with the miller!

From the very beginning, though not related at all plot-wise, I felt like this was Dogville: close-minded villagers alienate, use, and provoke the somewhat ill-adjusted newcomer. They drive him away, far far away, and eventually... Well, don't want to give away the ending, but the poor chap has very little going for him. Interestingly, he is very hardworking, honest, and rather enthusiastic about his mill. He is also a very good carpenter, it seems. He is smart, able, and willing. None of these qualities seem to help him shine in the small village. Perhaps its his strange habit of howling now and then, or the biting imitations he make of some of the village's residents. But the tale takes some strange turns, with interesting friendships forged under weird circumstances, but I would not call any of it fantastical. The miller had a good amount of bad luck, and a good amount of good luck, and in the end, it is hard to know how it will turn out. The characters and the things they do seemed familiar and what I expect from the Finns I know, and I did not find the language at all awkward. This is not to mean that it is a literal translation of the original Finnish (and should it be?), but that as it stands in English, it is a good read all the same.

Recommended for those who like howling animals, nature walks, hunting, and vegetables. ( )

Originally published in Finnish in 1981

You've got to know how to howl to give yourself an escape route

My favourite bookshop (Mr. B’s emporium of reading delights in Bath) has just published a special version of one of their favourite books in association with Canongate, so I just had to buy it…

Mr. B’s book jacket blurb – “At Mr. B's we love [the howling miller]. We love Gunnar, one of modern literature's most endearing anti-heroes. We love his pursuit of Sanelma, the adorable, ample bottomed horticulture advisor. We love his animal impressions. We love his short fuse and its comical, if alienating, effects. We love Paasilinna's prose - as crisp and clear as the water thundering through Gunnar's millrace.”

Most of all we love the response of our customers when we recommend it to them.

Paasilinna has created a fable-like tale of Gunnar Huttunen who arrives shortly after WW2 in a sleepy Finnish town to take over the running of a mill. Initially loved for his animal impressions he then has several periods of depression, during which he takes to the woods and howls and this alienates him from his neighbours who are kept awake by the howling and the town’s dogs reactions. He befriends and falls in love with the local horticultural advisor who encourages him to create a vegetable garden and this is a key relationship throughout the book. When the local shopkeeper refuses to sell him stump bombs he puts the shop’s scales down a well and he accidently knocks a neighbours corpulent wife down the stairs and she claims to be paralysed. These antics are too much for the townsfolk and they really set against him as the tale turns into one of intolerance for being different. The main thrust of the novel is an exploration of individual freedom set against a memorable descriptive background of the stark Finnish landscape with a cast of eccentric characters.

Overall – Excellent evocatively Finnish tale ( )

Tre stelle emmezza.

Un libro bellino.

La storia mi è piaciuta ma in certi punti mi ha annoiato.

Diciamo che lo si legge una volta e basta, nessuna voglia di future riletture u_u ( )

Le rire fut le chant de bienvenue qui annonça l'installation de l'étrange Gunnar Huttunen dans un petit village du nord de la Finlande. Le rire des membres de la coopérative meunière et des paysans qui virent débarquer ce grand gaillard venu du Sud, élancé comme un roseau et fort comme un sapin, qui dépensa son argent en rachetant le vieux moulin délabré sur la rive du Kemijoki. Quelle idée saugrenue que de vider sa bourse de la sorte ? Mais le rire de ces gens comme il faut se voit bientôt supplanté par l'étonnement devant l'efficacité dont fait preuve Huttunen pour remettre en état le moulin... et devant l'étrangeté de son comportement. Tantôt clown et imitateur de génie, tantôt accablé de désespoir, lunatique et dépressif, hurlant à la lune pour calmer son angoisse, homme libre avant tout, Huttunen se fait des ennemis. À tel point qu'au village, on a vite fait de considérer que le meunier est un fou dangereux à enfermer de toute urgence entre les quatre murs blancs d'un asile... Arto Paasilinna nous livre les aventures d'un anticonformiste notoire en nourrissant son texte d'une ironie jouissive et hilare. La bataille béatifique d'un homme seul contre tous, dont la seule erreur sur cette terre est sa revendication tonitruante pour un droit à la différence. --Hector Chavez

This is an almost perfect little book, and I'm not sure I can make it sound as good as it is. Gunnar Huttunen returns to northern Finland after World War II. He buys and refurbishes an abandoned mill, and begins to court a beautiful young woman. Gunnar, however, is "different." He likes to howl, and when the urge to howl comes over him, he can't prevent himself from breaking loose. The townspeople reluctantly put up with Gunnar, until he goes on a rampage brought on by drugs administered to him by the town doctor. The doctor certifies Gunnar as insane, and he is quickly packed off to the insane asylum. When Gunnar realizes the finality of this order, and that in all likelihood he will never be released, he cleverly escapes. For the rest of the book, Gunnar and the townspeople engage in a game of cat and mouse, with Gunnar mostly having the upper hand.

The book reads like a fable or fairy tale. While the tone of the book is light and humorous, there is also a sense of impending tragedy through-out. Because of the ambiguous ending, I don't think the book can actually be classified as tragic, but the demonization of Gunnar merely because he is eccentric and different makes this a book that gives us much to ponder. Highly recommended. ( )

The Howling Miller is a modern fairy tale, a fable set in the cold and icy forests of Finland. Gunnar Huttunen turns up in a very small village, a tight,conservative community. At first everybody loves him and his animal impressions, the fact that he is restoring the old mill, but things soon turn sour when his wild howling keeps people awake at night.Concluding he must be mad the villagers then try to get him to the mad house and here his fight against restraint begins with only the local drunk and his love interest to help him. This story is brilliant, dark, humorous, clever, sad, beautifully written, drawing you into this black and white world with the only colour provided by Gunnar and his friends. Wonderful reading matter! And a very twisted ending! ( )

Modern literature has its fair share of novels about outsiders and this is another. Paasilinna is a Finn however and his take on the nature of otherness is, if not unique, unusual. Not for him (I assume Arto is a male name) the existential angst of the Russians and the French. Nor the grimy realism of kitchen-sink 60's Britain.

Paasilinna instead gives us a side-splittingly funny story of the other more in the tenor of Magnus Mills or Kafka (no, really Kafka is hugely funny, go back and read him again if you doubt me). His eponymous hero - a miller who howls - is a rational and intelligent man surrounded by a massive number of irrational and stupid people who happen to determine his fate by dint of their numbers.

The village that he moves to somewhat mysteriously needs a miller and he is without question a very good miller. He is also a gifted mimic who keeps the local children amused as he works restoring the rotting mill but trouble looms when the locals find his howling a problem. Paasilinna sketches a developing scenario that plays out the analyses of Thomas Szasz and Michel Foucault regarding madness in modern times and, in an inexorably depressing couple of chapters we see the howling miller committed to an asylum and deprived of both his liberty and his possessions.

All is not lost though. for there are other outsiders - other others if you will - and in their faltering, poignant, heart lifting, efforts they transform our hero's life and future. Confounding expectations, this wonderful tale moves toward an almost magical realist finale that leaves one breathless. The other others are almost as well realised as the miller himself and their respective aberrancies add a light and shade to the "other" side of this story so clearly lacking in the mainstream.

This is a very good novel. It is well written - very well written - it is elegantly crafted, and the translation is so clean and precise as to be worth a mention all of its own. A minor classic I think.

I really liked this book. It is full of tragedy and full of humour at the same time. Also, there is so much logic in the way the miller thinks. I liked the scene at the bank best. I must admit that I did not fully understand the ending of the story. ( )

http://tamaranth.blogspot.com/2008/01/7-howling-miller-arto-paasilinna.html ( )