Sunday book pick: ‘The Year of the Hare’, a 1975 Finnish novel, shows how to create your own miracle

The year has come to an end. How many times have you wished to run away from life? The city you live in? The people who inhabit your home? The job you are indifferent to? This is your fantasy – you cannot really run away, you cannot really be so reckless.

But Kaarlo Vatanen takes the chance when the universe offers it to him. An injured hare leads him into a forest and Vatanen decides this is the right time to say goodbye to his civilised city life. The Year of the Hare by Finnish writer Arto Paasilinna, translated by Herbert Lomas, presents this delightful possibility of running away and starting anew when you’re sure that you have slid even lower than rock bottom.

An unlikely friend

Trapped between a loveless marriage and a journalist’s job that feels like a chore, Vatanen has truly given up on life. Even the house where all the “items were at odds” and it is difficult to “inhabit the rooms without injury”, reminds him of his ill-tempered wife and their difficult relationship. The relationship is so bitter that his wife does not track him down or enquire about his whereabouts when Vatanen disappears in the forest without a trace. From this moment on, Vatanen and his leporid...

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