Timo

I found this equally interesting as spending 2 weeks in Covid quarantine hotel. 2 stars for nicely flowing storytelling, zero stars for the rest.

Mikä Suomessa mättää? Miksi talous ei kohene, miksi julkinen sektori on niin iso ja paisuu paisumistaan? Mitä on köyhyys ja kuka on etuoikeutettu? Onko Suomessa yhtään kunnollista poliittista puoluetta? Mikä on valtion tehtävä? Näihin kysymyksiin kirjassa pohditaan vastauksia ja vaihtoehtoja.

Psychedelic rock trio Kingston Wall were pretty much my favourite band in the early 19990s. Unfortunately I never got to see them live as they mostly played in bars and I was too young to get in. Their drummer Sami Kuoppamäki is a world class talent who really inspired me as a drummer when I started playing and still doesn't fail to make me astonished about his skills. Drummer Kuoppamäki, bass player Jukka Jylli and the guitarist-singer Petri Walli were all very talented musicians who created some great music that still lives on.

The main character in the band was Petri Walli, the force and the mastermind behind everything. This book is not just about Kingston Wall but Petri Walli and his journey in life and the astral planes of the spiritual worlds where Indian hash smells sweet and psytrance plays on the Himalayan mountains. He died too young, just like many rock stars unfortunately do, and the chapter telling about his last year until his suicide gets quite hard to read without getting emotional.

Although the book gives an impression of a determined and even stubborn personality who worked hard to reach his goals, in the end I get the feeling that he got very much lost and suffered of severe depression. Had ne not followed the false prophets on an LSD trip in Goa, he might still be with us today. Or maybe not, who knows. I guess he also wanted to live and die as a rock star.

I think the storytelling and the dialogue are a little bit clumsy and the main character kinda feels too weak and fragile to be in the centre of everything. I think the author improved his writing a lot later on because the Hirvikallio series is much better.

I had trouble finishing this one. I think it got better towards the end but a football themed witch hunt just isn't my cup of tea.

As an EU citizen in the UK myself I have experienced the same frustration and anxiety as many people who wrote their stories for this book. I've had a little bit easier journey, didn't have any trouble applying for the settled status and I don't have elderly parents living here or a partner whose relatives voted for Brexit. It's so sad to read how badly a referendum driven by nationalism and racism has torn families apart and made the lives of the most vulnerable people even worse than it already was. And all of the stories were written pre-pandemic when people still had their jobs and social life. Brexit is a gift that just keeps taking away everything that ever was great in Britain.

While I liked the story, I think this book was simply too long and I was very close to lose my interest somewhere between the halfway and the last quarter. Hence only 3 stars.

I had not read this old classic before, but I think my expectations were a bit too high.