One Thousand & One

<p class=ql-align-justify><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)></span><em style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>All thought is driven out of sight and before long unpleasant things start to happen right in front of us</em><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>...</span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)> </span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>Kari Hukkila's </span><em style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>One Thousand & One</em><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)> is a philosophical essayistic novel about catastrophes both natural and man-made about humans' ability to respond to catastrophes by thinking or at the very least simply managing to survive.</span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)> Hukkila's novel is a cornucopia of micro-histories digressions and a broad gallery of characters ranging from the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein to an Ethiopian refugee in Rome.</span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>  </span><em style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>One Thousand & One</em><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)> begins when a large birch tree falls on a cabin near the Russian border in eastern Finland leaving the narrator unable to concentrate on a writing project he has been at work on. He decides then to take up an invitation to Rome where his lifelong friend has lived since abandoning a life in philosophy. In Hukkila's novel Scheherazade's survival by continuing to tell stories is reimagined as survival by continuing to think a continued thought activity often taken to extremes the preservation of humanity in an inhumane world. In David Hackston's eloquent translation Hukkila's musical meandering thought-provoking prose is full of savage ironic and luminous humor remaining uncompromisingly alive until the final sentence.</span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>  </span><em style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>One Thousand & One</em><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)> is the first in a projected series of five novels. Upon its release in Finland in 2016 it was said to bear all the hallmarks of a classic.</span></p><p class=ql-align-justify> </p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)></span><em style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>Thought no longer had a place in the world and of course if you're an illegal it's all but impossible</em><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>.</span></p>