The Year of the Hare (novel)
{{Short description|1975 book by Arto Paasilinna}}
{{about|the novel|the two films|The Year of the Hare (1977 film)|and|The Year of the Hare (2006 film)}}
{{Infobox book
| name = The Year of the Hare
| title_orig = Jäniksen vuosi
| translator = Herbert Lomas
| image = The Year of the Hare (novel).jpg
| caption = Cover of the first Finnish edition
| author = Arto Paasilinna
| cover_artist =
| country = Finland
| language = Finnish
| publisher = Weilin+Göös
| pub_date = 1975
| english_pub_date = March 1995
| media_type = Print (Hardcover)
| pages = 182
| isbn = 951-35-1252-5
| oclc = 2195299
}}
The Year of the Hare ({{langx|fi|Jäniksen vuosi}}) is a 1975 picaresque novel by Finnish author Arto Paasilinna.
The novel has been translated into 29 languages including English, Bulgarian, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Estonian, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Rumanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovenian, Swedish, Turkish, and Ukrainian. It is Paasilinna's most widely read work,[https://web.archive.org/web/20071013220504/http://virtual.finland.fi/netcomm/news/showarticle.asp?intNWSAID=26187 Arto Paasilinna, ex Virtual Finland] archived at Wayback Machine and was included in 1994 in the UNESCO Collection of Representative Works which funded the 1995 English translation by Herbert Lomas. It was adapted twice into feature films: a 1977 Finnish film called The Year of the Hare, and a 2006 French film directed by Marc Rivière called Le Lièvre de Vatanen.
Plot
It tells the story of Kaarlo Vatanen, a frustrated journalist, who, after nearly killing a hare with his car, turns away from an unhappy and unwholesome life. On an impulse, Vatanen abruptly abandons his urban lifestyle, job, and wife, in exchange for the freedom of the road and the wilderness, living off his cash savings and casual employment, all the time accompanied by the hare which he has nursed back to health and kept as a pet. A year of unlikely encounters and adventures ensues, during the course of which Vatanen repeatedly runs afoul of the law and conventional mores but manages to stay afloat thanks to the help and understanding of other sympathetic free spirits.
Notes
{{reflist}}
References
- Arto Paasilinna, Herbert Lomas (tr.). The Year of the Hare. {{ISBN|0-7206-1017-6}} (1995, 1st ed.). {{ISBN|978-0-7206-1277-6}} (2006, 6th ed.)
External links
;Reviews
- [https://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/06/books/a-skewed-and-skewering-look-at-finland.html The Year of the Hare] at The New York Times
- [http://www.articlearchives.com/humanities-social-science/literature-literature/636327-1.html The Year of the Hare] at World Literature Today (via Article Archives, JavaScript required)
- [http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/suomi/paasila4.htm The Year of the Hare] at complete review
- [http://www.literarytraveler.com/books/the_year_of_the.aspx The Year of the Hare] at The Literary Traveller
{{UNESCO Collection}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Year of the Hare, The}}
Category:Finnish comedy novels
Category:Finnish satirical novels
Category:Finnish novels adapted into films
Category:Novels about rabbits and hares
Category:Novels set in Finland
Category:Novels by Arto Paasilinna
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