A review by carolhoggart
The Burnt-Out Town of Miracles by Roy Jacobsen
4.0
What a strange book.
There is no doubt that this tale, set during the Winter War of 1939 in which Russia invaded Finland, will haunt me for years to come. If that is the test of great fiction, then The Burnt-Out Town of Miracles certainly passes. It is narrated from the point of view of an 'idiot', although the precise nature of this idiocy is is never revealed. Timo is a physically healthy specimen, if not mentally - as might be deduced from his refusal to evacuate his home town in the face of Russian invasion. In the process of cutting logs for the Russians he befriends and finally saves a group of hopeless cases - Russian recruits unfit for any duty beyond chopping trees. It is through these unlikely friends that Timo comes to understand himself and the war. The book is full of idiosyncratic insight and vivid characterisation - of the Finnish forest and climate as well as those caught up in the war. Yet ultimately, I found the story unsatisfying. It was not the lack of a happy ending, which would have been unconvincing, but the absence of conclusion in Timo's character itself.
There is no doubt that this tale, set during the Winter War of 1939 in which Russia invaded Finland, will haunt me for years to come. If that is the test of great fiction, then The Burnt-Out Town of Miracles certainly passes. It is narrated from the point of view of an 'idiot', although the precise nature of this idiocy is is never revealed. Timo is a physically healthy specimen, if not mentally - as might be deduced from his refusal to evacuate his home town in the face of Russian invasion. In the process of cutting logs for the Russians he befriends and finally saves a group of hopeless cases - Russian recruits unfit for any duty beyond chopping trees. It is through these unlikely friends that Timo comes to understand himself and the war. The book is full of idiosyncratic insight and vivid characterisation - of the Finnish forest and climate as well as those caught up in the war. Yet ultimately, I found the story unsatisfying. It was not the lack of a happy ending, which would have been unconvincing, but the absence of conclusion in Timo's character itself.