Anna Aemelin is an
artist and somewhat of a recluse. She paints pictures of the forest
ground, in minute details then sends them to the publisher, who adds
the text. The books are published once every two years. Anna is rich.
She lives in what the villages calls 'rabbit house.' And she sketches
rabbits, scattered with flowers, on the otherwise realistic pictures.
But she does not do that by choice, but because the publisher
requests it. How else will he be able to sell the books as children's
books? She receives letters from these children, her avid readers,
and replies to them diligently and compassionately. Up until Katri,
Mats and their nameless dog come into her life.
Katri is not a
local, nor, of course, is her brother. But what's striking about
Katri are her yellow eyes, their yellow disconcerting in a village
where everyone has blue eyes, and where its citizens wonder “what
sin [they have] committed that things can't be normal.” But Katri
does numbers. She is brilliant with numbers. She calculates. She
analyzes. You go to her with your financial affairs and she advises
you on how to manage these finances. Her advice is always to the
point. Accurate and always proven fruitful. Taxes. Severance pays.
Retirement plans. Employment issues. Katri takes care of it all.
Flawlessly. “A remarkable woman,” according to Anna, because not
only does she have a head for maths, but she reads literature.
Katri's brother, on
the other hand, like Anna, only reads adventure books. And through
these adventure books he develops a taste for designing boats, as
most of the adventures he reads happen at sea. His designs are
brilliant and made with precision. In that, he seems to be the
connection between Katri and Anna. He sketches creatively, like Anna,
but is very methodical, like Katri.
Through calculated,
deliberate and cunning planning, Katri manages to secure herself a
place in Anna's house, along with her brother. It is around that time
that the village children start chanting 'witch, witch, witch'
whenever she passes. And in their life there, she also manages to
save money to get her brother's boat sketches turned into an actual
boat, her way of making her brother happy. But to do this, she
convinces Anna that she has been cheated by the shopkeeper, the
publisher, even the children whose letters she answers, and in this
Anna begins to change from the trusting gentle artist to one who
mistrusts everything, much like Katri does, and eventually struggles
in her inability to paint or write her letters to the children. But
in this money saved for Anna through managing her finances, Katri
also secures a small fund herself, towards Mat's boat. Because she
believes that “without money, a person's thinking does narrow. It
shrivels.”
In her introduction,
Ali Smith writes that it is a book “concerned with locality, money,
winter, wildness, social unacceptability and power,” but also about
“whether there's such a thing as objectivity.” Katri's methodical
objectivity becomes the backbone of the novel. But Katri is also the
true deceiver in the book, even though her deception rests on utter
truths and completely well-calculated arithmetics. Katri's
calculations are based on her own assumption, often proven accurate,
that “every household was naturally hostile towards its
neighbours.” And trusting nothing but her own accurate
calculations, Katri manages to get Anna to trust her. In a cunning
exchange about how to treat her dog. Katri tells Anna that obedience
means “believing in a person and following orders that are
consistent.” She insists: “It's a relief, it means freedom from
responsibility. It's a simplification. You know what you have to do.
It's safe and reassuring to believe in just one thing.” And
although Anna blatantly rejects Katri's doctrine, we see gradually
her observing it in her own life affairs.
But the true
deceiver is also Anna, who paints the forest floor in exact measures,
then adds unrealistic rabbits and flowers to please her readers. The
novel poses the question of this line between what is true and what
is right, a line that begins to blur when Katri and Anna's characters
begin to evolve. What Anna sees in the beginning as social niceties
and acts of kindness, Katri sees as deception. What Katri sees as
truth and absolute decisions, Katri sees as cruelty. And in the
merging of these two absolute worlds, the novel weaves itself in
beautiful and simple language that is set against the dark
unrelenting Scandinavian winter.
This is a beautiful
book, very endearing in its presentation of plot and characters, very
straightforward in the line it draws between truth and justice, but
one that leaves the reader no solutions. Anna's world eventually
falls back into its pattern, but we know Anna is not the same person.
Katri also eventually displays characteristics that are not typically
hers. The characters change to a noticeable degree. But we are not
sure what the book is saying about these changes. I don't like books
that preach. Do you? And this one doesn't. It just tells a very
beautiful story set in a very cold and treacherous weather.