Book Review | Stine Pilgaard’s entertaining novel offers a taste for life in a Danish village

Culture|Book review

Novel

Stine Pilgaard: Meters per second (Meter in seconds). Finnish Anna Skogster. WSOY. 262 s.

Harmless, funny, hygge. With these adjectives I would describe a Dane Stine Pilgaardin (b. 1984) novel Meters per second.

It is located in a small Danish town in West Jutland. The protagonist’s family has settled there after the man got a job as a folk high school teacher. I, on the other hand, employs himself as the keeper of a question column in a local newspaper, in his own words, as a kind of oracle.

This concept creates humor that supports the novel. The fictional questions of the readers are adorable in their most common sense – and the oracles of the oracle and the answers often drawn from the matter are shocking.

Let’s get there to experience the daily life of a community of folk high school students, teachers, and their families.

One of the protagonist’s friends is Sebastian, a man from a folk high school craft teacher who dreams of an ascetic life. Another friend is the busy and stressed owner of a local hotel.

Living in a small place requires special social skills, the ability to form and maintain human relationships. However, integration into a new place is easier when the community comes as if given.

I times shuttles at community events, takes care of her little son, reflects on being a mother, runs her unreasonably long driving school, answers questions in the column.

The reality of the city also feels familiar to Finns, although the author’s references to Danish celebrities and TV programs or differences between places and regions are not, of course, fully revealed. As a reader, for example, I place a TV celebrity on the scene of a similar type of Finnish entertainer.

The lyrics written in the form of a song in the midst of the text are certainly intentional culinary, but in Finnish some of their fun may not be achieved. However, recreation is unavoidable.