When Elina makes her annual summer pilgrimage to her remote family farm in Lapland, she has three days to catch the pike in a local pond, or she and the love of her life will both die. This year her task is made even more difficult by the intervention of a host of deadly supernatural creatures and a murder detective on her tail.
Can Elina catch the pike and put to rest the curse that has been hanging over her head ever since a youthful love affair turned sour? Can Sergeant Janatuinen make it back to civilisation in one piece? And just why is Lapland in summer so weird?
Summer Fishing in Lapland is an audacious, genre-defying blend of fantasy, folk tale and nature writing.
Juhani Karila (b. 1985) is an award-winning journalist and an author who was born and raised in Finnish Lapland. Summer Fishing in Lapland is his debut novel. It was published in 2019, winning widespread acclaim and numerous prizes in Finland, and is being translated into 13 languages around the world.
Lola Rogers is a full-time literary translator living in Seattle. Her published translations include works by Sofi Oksanen, Riikka Pulkkinen and Antti Tuomainen. Her translation of Oksanen’s novel Purge was chosen as a best book of 2010 by The Sunday Times and several other publications. She has also contributed translations of fiction, non-fiction and poetry to numerous journals and anthologies.
My thoughts: this is not an easy book to define, featuring as it does a whole host of otherworldly creatures, curses, a detective, witches, a pike that somehow seems to regenerate, and other weirdness near the Arctic Circle. Lapland is part of Finland and the home of the Sami people, although none of the characters in this book are Sami, who might be further away with the reindeer they herd, which considering the goings on, is probably for the best.
This small town is very strange and the locals are just part of it. They live quite happily alongside things like the raskals, bear or dog like monsters, although the one we meet is very friendly and called Musti. He adopts the cop, or she adopts him, I’m not sure.
Theres the knacky, that won’t let Elina have the pike from the pond, and Slabber Olli, a sort of ghost/monster made out of trees and earth. I don’t know a huge amount about Finnish folklore to know whether these are regular creatures in the Arctic or not. There’s also a guest appearance by a bad dream that Sandman fans might recognise, it certainly made me say “oh, wait!”
I really enjoyed this book, weirdness and all. I love a good mash up of “reality” and the older, somewhat forgotten stuff. Our ancestors believed in all sorts of creatures, good or otherwise, that lived alongside us, maybe they still do in some places.
It’s also a break up/love story as Elina is still trying to get over her ex, and getting the pike out of the pond is what she thinks she needs to do to break a curse on them both. But things aren’t quite as she presents them and if her witchy neighbour Asko could remember where he is for five minutes and help her, she might be ok.
Funny, strange and somewhat profound in places, this is an enjoyable and entertaining read.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 