For the first time in my life i got acquaintanced with scandinavian literature in spring. My friend passed me a gift in a nice wrapping paper. It occured to be "The year of a Hare" by Arto Paasilinna, finnish writer. Looking at the preview of a plot on the cover I smiled: seemed like a perfect book for children of age 8 to 11.
   Indeed, the whole idea about the journalist that finds a hare in a forest and travels with him reminded me of russian fairy tales where the character travels with an magic animal helping him on his way. But having read the first two pages i changed my opinion. The matter is that the whole novel with journalist Vatanen from Helsinki as a main character, created by Paasilinna in 1975, seems to be an amazing prototype for contemporary downshifting happenings.
    Vatanen is a man of middle age, fed up with the life he lives - he is tired of his wife, his noisy colleague, his useless work in a magasine where he cannot really present his ideas about serious matters. And one chance to find a hare with a damaged paw decides his future. He leaves everything and goes by his foot through one of the numerous Finnish forests, holding a baby hare. Later we will find him in next chapters rebuilding roofs, living on a hay pile and falling in love with a peasant. This kind of a story could be something exotic for an audience of 1970-s. But when we look at it closer, there is not much difference of Vatanen sudden life change from contemporary voluntary exile of some rich people to Goa or Tibetian monasteries to start the new life path full of spiritual acheivings, the life where money and career do not mean anything.
      I think that downshifters, these new hippies of 21 century as a social event show the clear crave of humanity nowadays for a new life vector in our crazy money race era. The Paasilinna book proves that the problem of downshifting appeared long before, and it is furthermore proved with the popularity this book has in Europe. And i am sure it is not just a coincidence that in one of the most famous book of norvegian author Erlend Loe, "Volvo trucks", one of the main characters leaves the family and wanders through norvegian forests with an elk.
What is it - decline of contemporary author imagination or a plot that shows a tendency? Future will bring us more. But i like Aarto Paasilina book that makes everybody think better of an era we are living in now and make everybody think better of his own life aspirations.