Review by Booklist Review
Raised by her parents as a right-wing Finnish nationalist, a young woman marries the Colonel, 30 years her senior, despite his previous wives' and lovers' unenviable fates. The couple is united in their fascist ideology, and their relationship turns toxic as they interact with the Nazi elite and stare unmoved into the face of human suffering. Liksom adroitly summons the bogs of Lapland, depicting nature with broad, painterly strokes and creating the only trace of poetry to be found in this harsh depiction of tyranny. This is a precisely drawn tale of brutality and ugliness, rendered in a surreal voice and from a perspective so deviant that there is not a single redemptive sentence. Translated from the Finnish, the prose is relentlessly vulgar, and Liksom's characterization is stunningly repulsive. Perhaps the narrator sums it up best: I put all the badness on paper. I vomited it up, and it felt like all my teeth went flying out with it. A cautionary tale for readers with a high tolerance for the grotesque.--Bethany Latham Copyright 2020 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Liksom's brief, haunting novel (after Compartment No. 6) finds an elderly Finnish woman in her final days, reflecting on a lifetime as both a victim and perpetrator of cruelty. The unnamed narrator was born into a rural and staunchly right-wing Finnish family between the world wars. After the loss of her father, she is drawn to a peer of his, the intimidating and powerful Colonel. Though he is 30 years older, their love affair and eventual marriage blossom in the days leading up to WWII--together, the narrator and the Colonel visit Germany and witness the horrors of the Third Reich, host Heinrich Himmler for dinner and a sauna, and eventually meet their beloved Hitler at a party. Outside of their political scheming, though, the couple also spend time in the deep, untouched natural world of their native Finland, exploring and cherishing that which is unspoiled by war. The narrator's reminiscences are frank and unadorned, but still moving; her descriptions of the torture she witnesses by the Nazis, and of that she endures by her husband, are made more chilling by their lack of sentimentality. Liksom's novel memorably combines transportive prose and her narrator's stark perspective. (Nov.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Liksom (Compartment No. 6), a Finnish writer, painter, and filmmaker, was born in a tiny village in Finnish Lapland. She draws on her experience growing up in this remote part of the world to write the story of a woman besotted with the Colonel, who is never named but comes across as a vital force bent on cruelty and destruction. At the start, the female protagonist, also never named, reflects on her long life, which begins before World War II. While she's enthralled by the Colonel's attentions, he soon comes to brutalize her; not till near the end of her story does she revolt against such treatment. We also witness the evolution of her political views, which are entirely pro-German even throughout the Hitler era, when she is "dazzled by the magic of fascism"; she remains pro-Nazi till the end of the war. VERDICT Some readers may find it hard to stomach the violence inflicted on our heroine and others by the Colonel. Many will also find her political views appalling. And a further caveat: this slim but engaging work, seamlessly translated, is quite sexually explicit in places. Recommended especially for readers curious about life in an era and culture other than their own.--Edward B. Cone, New York
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
An intimate investigation of authoritarianism from the Finnish author of Compartment No. 6 (2016).In the middle of a cold, dark Finnish night, an old woman commences to set down the story of her life. She begins with a portrait of herself as a young girl most at home in nature. These early vignettes have an almost magical quality, and readers who aren't well-versed in the history of Finland between the world wars might not fully grasp what's happening as a wild child turns into a fascist young woman. This transition is quite clear by the time the narrator says of herself and her sister, "We figured Nazism was where we belonged. There was only one leader for us, and it was Hitler." Nazism is, of course, a live topic in American civic life right now, but even as we examine the survival of this philosophy in contemporary culture, most of us remain largely unaware of the extent to which the Nazis found enthusiastic followers outside of Germany before and during World War II. The narrator finds herself near the center of party life when she marries the Colonel, an eager collaborator. The Colonel is many years her senior, and their relationship is a mix of ferocious sexuality, hideous abuse, and luxury during a period of terrible privation. This is not a confession, and there is something horribly fascinating in reading the words of someone who is eager to speak about her Nazi past without apology. But the narrator's lack of interest in introspection ultimately makes her recitations of events almost boring, especially for readers who don't have the historical knowledge to follow the shifts back and forth in time. This slim novel works best when it reads like a dark fairy tale or a fable about the day-to-day experience of evil.Unusual and uneven. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
