Stalker Years
By Olli Jalonen
In his latest novel the great master of language and two-time Finlandia winner Olli Jalonen slips into the skin of a spy. The Life of Others meets John Le Carré and Graham Greene.
In 1974, a student from the University of Tampere is assigned to report on the lives and political attitudes of his former schoolmates. He is told that his work contributes to a thorough cohort study which allows to shape a miniature model of the political attitudes of individuals which could then be transferred to reflect the country’s general political disposition. It feels good to be part of something big. But it’s hard to approach someone and pretend you don’t know what you know. Work takes time, which real friends soon won’t have anymore.What at first seemed like an honorable mission begins to turn into a tight straitjacket.
With its strong atmosphere Stalker Years is an autopsy of the spiritual climate of recent history and a deep cut into the psychology of Finnishness and the so-called dark decade of the 1970s. It’s a portrait of a whistleblower and a snitch.
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Reviews
“(...) a great novel about the stuffy atmosphere of Finnishness. The narration feels almost real. Jalonen is a great writer and paints the milieu and the picture of the times wonderfully.”
“(...) Olli Jalonen has written himself into such a position that his new book is a landmark event every time it comes out. (...) Jalonen's Stalker Years is one of the most interesting books of the fall.”
“Olli Jalonen's Stalker Years plays with the idea that an organization similar to the Stasi would have operated in Finland, digging up citizens' information.”
“Jalonen, who has published thirty works of prose, writes as if irony had never been invented. The narrator's voice of Stalker Years is exceptionally sincere. It does not strive for wit, but rather lets the story come, as it is and without embellishment.”
