Estonia: A Ramble Through The Periphery, by Alexander Theroux
In reading this book, one finds out a lot about its author, Alexander Theroux. One finds that he struggled mightily with Estonian as a language—and no wonder, that he found many of the people to be cold and unfriendly, and he found reading material difficult to come by, that he disliked many American expatriates and was particularly hostile about the American war effort in the Middle East during the 2000’s when he wrote. One finds out that he is well-read and that he wished to subject Estonia to the leering gaze of a bloated, aging roué with a variety of comments that are at best awkward and uncomfortable. One finds that the author enjoys a great many films, enjoys listening to music and exploring the local culture and geography, and is a highly quotable individual [1]. All of this is well and good, even if it makes for tedious reading on a book more than 320 pages in length even before its lengthy endnotes.
What one does not find out very much in reading this book, though, is worthwhile information about Estonia [2]. This is a bit disappointing, since while the book is long on the dark nights of the Estonian soul as seen through the impatient and impetuous American writer, the book is rather short on the perspectives of actual Estonians. We have to take it on the word of the author that the chilly demeanor of Estonians shows a cold heart, and that there is a beautiful femme fatale aspect to the stiletto-wearing statuesque blond young women the author writes about in rapturous praise. One reads a lot of tedious information about various alcoholic beverages and revolting dishes made of blood pudding and pig’s heads and other such abominations. One reads a lot of snarky comments about former president Bush and his cabinet members, combined with a sense of disbelief in the nature of Estonia’s obscurity in the eyes of the greater world at large.
Ironically enough, the author seems to belief that he is serving to give entreaty to the reader to follow his lead in his disconnected series of essays marked only by a large text heading, with daunting titles like “The Whole Squalid Crew” and “Cold Pork” and “Some Reflections On Feet-Folk” and other puzzling and meandering reflections. One wonders how the author convinced a publisher that this rambling work was worth publishing. In truth, this is the sort of vanity project that generally deserves to be self-published and read by a few boozy but admiring friends. This is not to say that the book is entirely worthless; it presents a skewed view of Estonia, to be sure, but not a very penetrating one. In the end, those who read this book will understand a lot more about Alexander Theroux than they do about Estonia after reading this book. From an examination of its pages, Estonia looks to be by far the better bet to get to know than the writer who tries, and totally fails, to understand the nature of the place where he spent a few months drinking vodka, encouraging his wife’s artwork, and trying to avoid the expatriate crowd in Tallinn and Tartu. His time could have been more profitably spent watching pirated Netflix movies, in the end, than in writing this turgid piece of prose.
[1] See, for example:
“An Estonian as a pedlar of positivism is in all instances a walking oxymoron. His recollections are far too extensive, his memory too long, his wounds to recent to put a tinge of optimism in his besieged and beleaguered heart (14).”
“It was always Scylla and Charybdis for Estonians, danger from the left, danger from the right (35).”
“We had been drily told that the flat to be rented was attractive, an assurance I consigned, with experience, to “The check is in the mail” and “There will be peace in our time” and “My knowledge of nymphets is purely scholarly,” Lolita-author Vladimir Nabokov’s solemn affirmation to the public after writing that novel (152).”
“An aesthetic balance, an unemotional and graceful objectivity, is seen by the poet to be an aristocratic trait of the World War I ace he writes about: “Those that I fight I do not hate/Those I defend I do not love.” I wonder what psychologists would make of a nation of ice faces. No bella figura is required. Volkish suspicion will do, thank you (229).”
[2] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2016/04/15/book-review-a-history-of-the-baltic-states/
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