When I was in Estonia last summer, I asked what the current “must read” book was. I was pointed towards Andres Kivirähk’s Rehepapp. Now I’ve finally gotten around to reading it, and I can understand why it has been talked about so much.
One of the notable points is that the book defies categorisation. Satirical fairy tale? Folk lore potpourri? In any case, it’s a day-by-day account of the doings in an Estonian village, a few hundred years ago, to a great extent built out of traditional Estonian fairy tale components.
Estonian fairy tales match Estonia’s lowly history. There are no knights or dragons or princesses. Instead there are plucky, cunning peasants who outwit those above them, especially the Devil, who in Estonian stories tends to be a rather stupid character. There are also quite a few animal stories, sort of like the Br’er Rabbit stories in the US, and again they’re often about smaller, weaker animals tricking bigger ones.
But in Rehepapp the attention is on the various demons and goblins of Estonian folk lore. They were perceived to be almost everywhere, and they varied in character from deadly to tameable. But like the Devil, even the deadly ones (like the plague, coming to kill the village) could be tricked if you knew how. And the man who knows how to do it is the rehepapp, the title character of the book, the wise man of the village.
Other creatures are easier to control. There are make-your-own goblins, built out of whatever leftover parts you have at home, who come alive when you buy a soul for them from the Devil (promising him your soul in return, but that’s a deal you can cheat on if, again, you know how). Once built, the goblin has to work for its owner and do anything it’s asked to do. In traditional tales they were often tasked with stealing, bringing its owner all kinds of riches.
And that’s what the people of this village spend most of their time doing. They build goblins who steal food and clothes for them. Some also go stealing directly. All of this is quite open and known; everybody knows that everybody else is also doing it and therefore it becomes accepted. They steal from each other, they steal in revenge when they believe someone has stolen from them, and they steal with particular glee from the lord of the manor. They spend more time stealing than working, so it’s a wonder that there’s anything left to steal after a while. And they steal without discernment, without understanding the value of what they steal: one man steals soap and eats himself sick; a girl steals the dress that the old lady in the manor has prepared for her funeral, and parades it around the village.
It’s a poor and miserable crowd, full of stupidity and greed and envy. And the really sad part is that everyone recognises this as a satirical picture of the Estonian people, past and present. Estonians have spent centuries as serfs, so centuries’ worth of jealousy and cynicism have accumulated in the soul of the nation. If someone has climbed higher than you, you don’t admire them – you try to pull them down. And Rehepapp is also a picture of the new Estonia of the 1990s, when wealth was worshipped, and more was always better, and everyone wanted to get rich without working.
It’s not a happy tale, but it is told with a lot of humour. A painful kind of humour, sort of like Vonnegut’s. And that’s what makes this book worth reading, above all. It is also well written, the language flows well and brings the people to life.
I guess most Estonians will have read the book already. If not, I’d recommend you to do it. I saw translations mentioned, too, but I’m not sure if I would recommend anyone to read one: it’s the kind of book where a translation can never be as good as the original, because the books assumes so much implicit knowledge. At best you get an exotic story.
Read more about it: an article in Estonian and an analysis in English.
