The first Estonian book I’ve read in a long time. I believe I’ve read this one before, but it must have been many years ago: some scenes were definitely familiar, but most of it felt new.

Jaan Kross is Estonia’s foremost contemporary writer, and probably the only one known outside Estonia. He writes historical fiction about different periods in Estonia’s history, ranging from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. He’s also pretty much the only Estonian writer I’ve read in the last 10 years or so.

Wikmani poisid (Wikman’s Boys) takes place at the Wikman Gymnasium (high school) in Tallinn in the late 1930s. The boys are studying, playing pranks on their teachers, and doing all the other things that almost-adult boys do, including some adolescent romance.

I found the book somewhat less interesting than the other novels by Kross that I’ve read. It felt somewhat more lightweight and had a less serious tone than the other ones. The antics of high school boys can be entertaining, but are ultimately not that interesting. And while the book shows glimpses of life in 1930s Estonia, those glimpses don’t reveal much, because we get to see very little of the boys’ life outside of school.

Only at the end does the story take a wider arc through life. The boys have a reunion five years after graduating. The year is 1942… and Estonia and the boys have lived through (or not) a lot of things.

The best part of the book was the very expressive language, especially the dialogue. Almost every one of the teachers has a very idiosyncratic voice – accented, or mannered, or pompous, or pious. So do many of the boys. Especially Penn’s comical blather (which includes impersonations of many of the teachers) is endlessly funny.

I need to read more Estonian literature. I found myself having to re-read some of the sentences in order to make sense of them. The everyday language of EPL is not quite enough to keep the language skills alive.