January 2, 2009

THE BURNT-OUT TOWN OF MIRACLES is the story of desperate men led by a simpleton. It is 1939 and a Finnish town has been invaded by Russian troops. Timo is introduced as the village idiot, but slowly we realise that he is intelligent and often inspired.

The miracles he describes are events determined by luck and by his own common sense. When he realises that the teacher he is trying to care for has poor eyesight, Timo remembers that an occupant of the house before evacuation used to wear glasses and guesses that they might be in one of her drawers. This is not an act of kindness nor is it a miracle. It is the act of a man who has a new, paternalistic role that he treats as a puzzle to be solved.

Timo's reputation saves him. He is briefly considered a traitor for chopping wood for the Russians but, of course, an idiot would chop wood for anyone. However, Timo was revered by those he helped and it irks him that his role in the war is, in later years, misunderstood. A curious aspect of war is that it can bring fulfilment so that in peacetime, some, such as Timo, feel restless and unappreciated.

December 13, 2008

Alyson Rudd: What was the inspiration for the novel?
Roy Jacobsen: I usually don't like the concept of inspiration - it takes away the glory of hard work. But this time both the character Timo and his story actually came to me in a split second. I was studying Finnish war history and visited this famous spot, walked around in the woods surrounding Soumussalmi, trying to imagine the ordeals that the Russian and Finnish soldiers went through in this terrible winter some 60 years ago. I didn't even have a plan to write anything, I was on holiday - but the next day I sat down and started to write and didn't do much else for the next couple of months; the whole drama came to me like a movie. This is a very rare experience for me, normally my novels come to me in bits and pieces and have to be mended this or that way, back and forth, but this one came in one piece.

Why did you decide to write in the voice of the man regarded as the village idiot?
Because I don't think of him as a village idiot; he is an outsider, a man with a character that doesn't fit in, a stranger in his own world. I have always had a soft spot for outsiders - and writing about them is an act of solidarity (and sentimentality perhaps, since I identify with them) and it gives me the literary opportunity to put so-called normal thoughts, habits and actions in a different, surprising perspective, to look at society from outside.

What is wrong with Timo? He seems autistic rather than stupid.
I don't think of him as autistic either - that's quite a heavy diagnosis, don't you think? He is more of a genuine reactionary person, a man who doesn't want to move or change, be part of history, like everyone else, obey orders, even if they are issued by the ministry of defence - he is a man who strangely enough has learnt - unconsciously - to play the role of a village idiot because on one hand it spares him a lot of boring trouble (having to: keep up appearances, marry, raise children, tend to regular work) and on the other gives him the opportunity to live his own life, chopping wood, hunting, fishing, farming.

How would you sum up Timo's character? Is he brave or simply obsessive?
He is brave, but it doesn't give him any satisfaction. When he meets the Russian loggers he, for the first time in his life, stays face to face with someone who needs him, who looks up to him, even admires him. He becomes someone's hero and all of a sudden his world becomes bigger; this is frustrating and productive. And in spite of understanding that it is weakness that makes him strong, he can't give up the hope of one day also being his own hero.

There is a nightmarish quality to even the minor domestic events; was this deliberate?
Yes, very deliberate - so I am happy you noticed. It's supposed to be the colour of Timo's character and experience.

You call this a fable; can you explain what you mean?
It has always been part of my writing to try to give realism an extra layer, a magic twist - and I am always struggling not to overdo it. The story should mean something more than itself; it should be both plain and complex, genuine and common, ie, something that every reader can relate to. Timo isn't like anyone else, nor is his story, but I still think that you can follow him, understand him, even come to like him. When the book was published in Russia, one of the reviewers said that it had a biblical dimension; that made me very proud.

The key questions

Do you like Timo?

In what ways is the story biblical?

There is a strong sense of defeatism - does this make the novel depressing?

Is the switch away from writing in the first person successful and necessary?

November 15, 2008

The cover draws you in, especially as we head towards Christmas, but this is not a tale of snowball fights and mulled wine. The Burnt-Out Town of Miracles is about war and suffering, loyalty and eccentricity.

The novel is set in 1939 in a Finnish town. The Russians are advancing and the inhabitants are evacuating their homes and busines-ses. But Timo, the woodcutter and self-confessed village idiot, has no intention of leaving. He wants to stay in the house of Antti, the grocer, where he often sleeps.

Antti warns him that he will be shot by the Russians but Timo's argument is that nobody ever shoots the idiot. Most of the story is told in Timo's voice. At times he seems every inch the idiot, sometimes more cold and calculating than the finest general. The Russians are too superstitious to kill the town simpleton, whose local knowledge is useful to them. This makes him, in some respects, a traitor, but his actions are quietly heroic and his so-called stupidity becomes the finest common sense.

The novel is an antidote to tales of war-time camaraderie. The protagonists are mistrustful, fearful and freezing. They usually misunderstand one another and if they do communicate it is only to question what will kill them faster - the cold or hunger. The town is haunted by what is not known and the idiot knows more than anyone. But the industrious, fearless Timo and his warped sense of values gives the Russian loggers he befriends hope that they might survive.

The Burnt-Out Town of Miracles by Roy Jacobsen. Translated by Don Bartlett and Don Shaw
John Murray, £7.99; 208pp Buy the book

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