The Howling Miller
SynopsisPlot
Arriving in Northern Finland after the Second World War, Gunnar Huttunen buys a dilapidated mill on the Suukoski rapids of the Kemijoki River. An Ignatius Reilly of the Finnish 1940s, Gunnar is an eccentric outsider swimming against society’s current. Prone to rapid mood swings and a general lack of decorum, he is feared and reviled by village notables for his wayward manner—most noticeably his indulgent nighttime howling, which he gets up to when he “feels the need to do something special,” and to which he is joined in delirious chorus by the local dogs.
Story
About this book
Gunnar Huttunen arrives in a small village in northern Finland sometime after the Second World War and sets about restoring a run-down mill on the Suukoski rapids of the Kemijoki River. He is large, strange, and new to the area. The locals enjoy his talent for animal impressions at first, but their tolerance fades quickly once he begins howling into the night, joined by a chorus of village dogs. Gunnar howls when he feels the urge to do something out of the ordinary, and his neighbors find this impossible to accept.
Prone to sharp mood swings and a general disregard for social etiquette, Gunnar becomes a target for the village notables. Because he will not conform, the community concludes that he must be mentally unwell. He is driven from his mill and pursued by people who see his difference as a threat. Only two figures remain loyal to him: a woman he loves and the local drunk.
Arto Paasilinna sets the story along one of Finland's longest rivers, using the isolated northern landscape to frame a conflict between an eccentric individual and a closed rural society. The novel examines conformity, exclusion, and the narrow boundaries a small community draws around acceptable behavior.
