Datura: tai harha jonka jokainen näkee

by Leena Krohn

Datura tai harha jonka jokainen näkee.

Sisällys:
Ensimmäinen siemenkota
Harha jonka jokainen näkee, Hiljaisimmassakin hiljaisuudessa, Datura, Uusi anomalisti, Äänien herra, Voynichin kirja, Kivikuntaa, kasvikuntaa, eläinkuntaa?, Hiljainen asfaltti, Parapuoti, Luumuvanukkaan päivänä, Toinen samanniminen mies, Ilmasta, auringonvalosta, Kerettiläisiä, Vanha Usko, Oppitunti, Nicolan nuoruus.

Toinen siemenkota
Heilurimies ja ei-minä, Lätäkkö, Vierailu hiustaiteilijan luona, Don’t be cruel, Kasvot leipäjuustossa, Loogaroo, Klassinen, Väärässä jonossa, Kinky-ilta, Väärää rahaa, Sormi, Ikuisuuden liikkuva kuva, Kauas kiitävä vanha nainen, Hiiri, susi ja satakieli

Kolmas siemenkota
Madame Maya, Leivos, Äänien nielijä, Trepanoija, Kaksi kulkuetta, Toissyntyisiä, Kaupunginkanslian aave, Usko on sairas, Erään kasvin psykologiaa, Nainen joka oli neljä, Eriskummallinen kukkakauppa, Nopein tapa liikkua, Vierailu, »Niin kevein tiedoin, raskain erhetyksin», Sormi huulilla.

Todellisuus: harha jonka jokainen näkee. Hauras rakennelma, jonka voi romahduttaa kaksi huumaavan kasvin siementä…

Paranormaaleja ilmiöitä käsittelevän lehden toimitussihteeri kokeilee daturan siemeniä lääkkeeksi astmaansa, ja rohto tepsiikin. Sivuvaikutukset vain yllättävät.

Toimitussihteeri tapaa työssään erikoisia ihmisiä. Jotkut uskovat olevansa vampyyreja tai muuttuvansa toisinaan läpinäkyviksi, toiset harrastavat kallonporausta tai itsensä amputointia. Omalaatuisuudessaankin he ovat kuten me kaikki: etsivät merkkejä, hahmoja, kuvia, viestejä maailmankaikkeuden välinpitämättömyydestä.

Datura on vaarallinen rohto. Se rei'ittää todellisuuden ohuen kudoksen ja muuntaa käyttäjänsä aisteja, muistia ja maailmankuvaa.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Finnish Literature, Weird Fiction, Science Fiction, Magical Realism, Speculative Fiction

211 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Rowena · Rating 5 out of 5]

“In the dark recesses of my chest, alveoli perish one by one. How many are there? How many do I need to be able to live and breathe? How little I know of the ceaseless workings of my insides—a space where thrombocytes float to the beat of my still-hot heart.”- Leena Krohn, Datura (Or a Delusion We All See)

I picked up this book because of the Tori Amos song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX_dw...) and for not the first time I’m really pleased with one of my impulse reads. I can definitely say I was hooked from the first page.

This was an interesting about an asthmatic woman working for “The New Anomalist”, a magazine focusing on the esoteric and weird. Her job is to look for strange stories in her city, and it leads her to encounter the strangest people:

“Sometimes we got messages from “Otherkin,” people who didn’t think they were humans, but other forms of life.”

To add to the strangeness in her work life, she is given a datura plant for her birthday and starts experimenting with the seeds. Over the course of the story we have a case of an unreliable narrator who is possibly hallucinating, but we also an interesting look at reality.

“Datura” revolves around flowers and plants, and also the Voynich manuscript, a currently untranslated manuscript, which adds even more mystery to this book:

“The Voynich manuscript is an odd book, but then again, all books are odd…Many times I’ve found myself thinking of writing in general, books, their meaning, the way in which they exist. I ask myself what writing actually is. How the personal changes into the public, and why it must be so.”

There was so much beautiful language in this book, I can only imagine how beautiful it must read in Finnish:

“There are moments when everything is new, as if seen or heard for the first time, even language, words that I’ve read a thousand times. People, landscapes, items, even books. Now and then I stop at a familiar word as I read, and all of a sudden it amazes me, and I savour it like a new taste. For a fraction of a second I hesitate: what does the word refer to, does it really signify anything at all?”

Additionally, there was the interesting discussion of plants, in particular the ever-present datura:

“I hope you understand that plants, too, are conscious. The consciousness of plants resembles human dreaming. That, too, is consciousness.”

The previous line interested me because in the book Braiding Sweetgrass, the author explained how in Native American culture, it is widely known that plants do communicate and have consciousness. It seems to be a case of Western science (finally) catching up with indigenous knowledge.

“We don’t actually know what plants really are. We think they are passive, weak, harmless. What a delusion! The earth holds no greater power than the energy of the plant kingdom. Mankind’s clumsy dabbling on the earth cannot compare to such creativity.”

I would definitely recommend this book. Not only is it a quick read, it’s a very interesting one too.

[Amy (Other Amy) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is what I think I've learned: reality is nothing more than a working hypothesis. It is an agreement that we don't realize we've made. It's a delusion we all see. Yet it's a shared, necessary illusion, the end product of our intelligence, imagination, and senses, the basis of our health and ability to function, our truth.

Hold on to it. It's all--or nearly all--that you have. Try to set outside of it and your life will change irreversibly, assuming you survive at all.
...
The truth is always shared. A reality that belongs to only one person isn't real.

I think my poor reaction to this one is largely due to poor advertising. The author won the World Fantasy award for Tainaron: Mail from Another City, and people who write about oversized insects are automatically compared to Kafka, so her books are being sold as fantasy or New Weird or surreal. This book is not any of those things, which is what I actually wanted. Also, the story has next to nothing to do with the Voynich Manuscript, even though the publisher's blurb implies it plays an important part in the tale (which I also wanted).

What this book actually is is a very lovely drawing of a mind unraveling as the narrator succumbs to datura poisoning, and also a very nice ramble through epistemology, told through the narrator's notes from the time, which she gives to an unnamed 'you'. (Authors do this to pull the reader in, to make them a character in the story, but I rarely find it effective. I always spend all my time trying to figure out who the 'you' is supposed to be in relation to the narrator. In this case, 'a close friend' is all the more detail we get. And of course given the narrator's state, a close friend who may or may not be a figment of her imagination.)

Krohn is a wonderful writer. I very much enjoy her prose and her philosophical vignettes, and as with Tainaron, I found myself wondering if the original Finnish does not somehow convey more of an uncanny sense than English is conveying. Nonetheless, the story is straight up realism. Just a few pages in, the narrator begins consuming the seeds of the moonflower her sister gives her for her birthday to help combat her severe asthma. The story unfolds inevitably from there. (The chilling thing about the tale is really how easily I could see any number of people I know doing the exact same thing.)

I liked this one better than Tainaron (the narrator is not an insufferable woman-child, but rather an adult struggling with illness and reality). Still, I am waiting for the story from this author that really wows me. And I really wish this had been fantasy. And had involved the Voynich Manuscript.

Final verdict: Don't sprinkle seeds from strange plants on your sandwich, people. (At least check the internet first!)

[Marian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This Finnish novel, which I completed in December, is strange and haunting. A woman takes a job at a magazine called The New Anomalist, which specializes in articles about the supernatural and unexplained. Around the same time, she receives an unusual gift: a datura flower, still in the pot. The narrator begins eating datura seeds to ease her asthma, but what she doesn’t fully realize is the plant is also a very powerful hallucinogen.

That is the frame story. The book actually takes on some mammoth themes, such as the meaning of language, how time works, the basis of reality, and more. There are multiple layers of ambiguity—for example, the narrator meets a number of eccentric characters on the job, and the chapters are arranged and interlinked in such a way that you cannot be sure when certain events take place or whether they happened at all. It’s quite unsettling and cleverly written.

This is a book best appreciated by a person (or in my case, having a reading buddy) who has a background in philosophy. If you do, there’s rich food for thought, above and beyond the storyline. Suspense, mystery, and surrealism also make this a bit of a page-turner. I did have issues with some parts of the plot, including the ending, and would not necessarily recommend it to everyone, due to the disturbing subject matter. That said, it’s one of the best written contemporary novels I’ve read, and I would consider reading more by Krohn in the future.

[Shawn Mooney (Shawn Breathes Books) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Abandoned at the 50% mark. What the hell was this supposed to be about?

[Teodor · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delicate and strangely earnest exploration of the uncanny that fans of Murakami are likely to love. A synopsis runs the risk of making Krohn's slim novel look like a weird-for-weird's-sake heap, but it's anything but: the narrator is naive by her own admission, which gives a matter-of-fact clarity to the gallery of quacks and weirdos she's forced to give time of day to.

[Tom Ewing · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Read as part of the Book Riot Readharder challenge 2018. Category: A single-sitting book.)

An anonymous woman in an anonymous (though clearly Nordic) city receives a flower for her birthday. She begins dosing herself with its seeds, to help her asthma. At the same time, she takes a job working for The New Anomalist, a magazine devoted to the uncanny and paranormal, whose publisher is always looking for a fresh (and profitable) angle. Datura is told as a series of vignettes - disordered notes, according to the narrator - of encounters with the uncanny. Some are under the aegis of the magazine - but others, increasingly, seem to be spontaneous, and the notes grow less and less reliable...

Datura is the first work I've read by Finnish writer Leena Krohn. Her prose - at least in this elegant, inobtrusive translation - has the brevity and clarity I've begun to associate with Scandinavian writers, which helps the more haunting and uncanny elements of the story linger all the better, as you gradually absorb the unpleasant implications of drily recorded incidents. What most reviewers seem not to have mentioned is that Datura is also a very funny story about work and journalism - the misery of the narrator as she chases down delusional non-stories on the whim of her editor will resonate with anyone who's had pages to fill, or been involved in the filling of them.

The tonal mix - weirdness continually undercut by incidents which make the weird seem ridiculous - is the heart of Datura's ambiguity. As is made clear from the first chapter, the narrator is being slowly poisoned by her self-medication regime. As is not made clear, it's up to the reader to work out - or decide for themselves, or refuse to decide for that matter - which of the subsequent episodes she records is a dislocation from reality induced by the seeds; which are simply encounters with the credulous, desperate, and crankish; and which may sit somewhere in the middle. Of course it's possible to take the entire novel as a realistic portrait of mental degeneration. It's also entirely feasible not to. The people the narrator meets, in general, want there to be more to reality than it appears, whether their explorations are scientific, spiritual, or just somewhat unhappy. In her unknowing experiments, the narrator begins to confirm some of what her subjects believe. But as many a weird fiction protagonist before her has found, the truth of these discoveries is not worth the consequences of making them.

[Rachel (Kalanadi) · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Eetu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Karu kansi kätkee sisäänsä omalaatuisen kokonaisuuden, jonka muotoa HS:n kritiikki kutsuu mielestäni osuvasti "Siinä yhdistyy romaanin, novellikokoelman ja hieman jopa esseen piirteitä romaanimuotoa haastavalla tavalla." (HS. 15.12.2001).

Kirja on jo reilu 20 vuotta vanha. Toisaalta kirjan eksistentiaalinen pohdinta on edelleen ajankohtaista tai ainakin ajatonta. Toisaalta 20 vuotta sitten tuskin kukaan uskalsi tai halusi kuvitella totuudenjälkeistä nykyaikaa, jossa informaatiovaikuttaminen, salaliittoteoriat ja puhdas tiedevastaisuus mutkistavat eksistentiaalisten kriisien ratkomista.

Tämän takia koin kirjan sisällön ja sanoman auttamatta vanhentuneeksi. Toki kirjaa voi lukea lempeänä ja hellyyttävänä utopiana, jossa hulluus on henkilökohtaista ja lähinnä harmitonta.

Teos tarjoaa edelleen pohdintaa ja keskustelun- ja tulkinnanaiheita, joten se sopii mielestäni hyvin lukupiirikirjaksi. Lisäksi se on nopealukuinen.

Suosittelen kirjaa kaikille aloitteleville metafyysikoille, jotka haluavat pysytellä kiltissä outouden tutkimisessa.

[Sienna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't remember what I thought of Leena Krohn's Tainaron when I read the English translation eight or nine years ago, before writing reviews seemed worthwhile, so there's only an ambiguous three-star rating and the memory of insects to guide me. Would I like it more now? It seems possible, perhaps even likely. Because Datura, petal-thin but heady, enchanted me.

Originally published in 2001 but only recently available in English, this short novel explores anomalies, addiction, hallucinations. It's told in thematic but not wholly disparate vignettes from the perspective of an unnamed female narrator, the subeditor of a strange periodical called The New Anomalist. Insular but observant, she concentrates on meetings with contributors to the magazine — about whom more anon — and her doomed romance (of sorts) with the titular plant, a thoughtful but poisonous gift.

Her story is unexpectedly wide-ranging; get ready for tantalizing tidbits on everything from the Voynich manuscript to electronic voice phenomenon, from our adaptive propensity for seeing faces everywhere to trepanation mania. You'll meet Otherkin and impossibly quick elderly women, ghosts and the dearest dog imaginable. (You'll know her name is no accident.) Of course she calls the expert on time the Timely Man.

What's harder to convey with a review is how wise Datura is, how sad and true, how deeply funny. I mean:

"What are you looking at?" she asked.

"Just dust," I said.

"Do you know what dust is, where it actually comes from? From volcanoes, distant stars, the cloaks of ancient kings..."

"I'll just wipe it off," I said.

I can tell you that the Kindle version desperately needed another pass by a copy editor, but I'm not sure how to articulate the way reading this made me feel. After galloping through two glorious five-star books I've struggled to settle on another to follow them up, flitting from one not-quite-right to the next like an impatient butterfly. This one, though: just right. I think it's best to let Krohn (and her capable translator) do the convincing. Here are some of the gems from my highlighting rampage. But, really, just read Datura in full. You won't regret it —

To describe events is to distort them. Like pressing flowers, books preserve the appearance of events, but not their original dimensions.

*

The dead of winter is like a pocket you can hide in.

*

The Voynich manuscript is an odd book, but then again, all books are odd. Often when I leaf through this manuscript or even when I happen to just lay my eyes on it, I'm astonished. Many times I've found myself thinking of writing in general, books, their meaning, the way in which they exist. I ask myself what writing actually is. How the personal changes into the public, and why it must be so.

There are moments when everything is new, as if seen or heard for the first time, even language, words that I've read a thousand times. People, landscapes, items, even books. Now and then I stop at a familiar word as I read, and all of a sudden it amazes me, and I savor it like a new taste. For a fraction of a second I hesitate: what does the word refer to, does it really signify anything at all?

*

Some raindrops seem to hesitate and slow down; others are more hasty and immediately go their solitary way, but many come together to form broad streams. All raindrops seek their own path, as if each had its own will and personality and future, some other option than just falling from the eaves into a puddle.

*

The dialogue that plants have with the air and the sun is the foundation of our lives.

*

Dogs are interstitial beings, not yet human, but no longer wolves.

*

The universe of smells and memories, the sphere in which dogs live, extends beyond our reach. The things that grab our attention, our sense of time, the sensitivity of our senses, and our entire perception are different. And yet we can make contact with each other, and that, if anything, is a miracle in my opinion. The spiritual bond between dog and human is different, more durable and resilient, than the band we have with any other animal. It cannot be severed. It cannot be disowned.

*

Her inquisitive, intense gaze could easily be called human. But no, why would she be human? Only because she is so full of consciousness?

*

"This was a very small person," he said, contemplative. "A very small toy person," he corrected himself.

*

I saw those actions as a crime that we all tolerated and had gotten used to, or even worse: a crime we all wished for, without which we couldn't dream of living.

*

"Do you count grains of sand?" I ask. "Don't we all?" she asks in turn. "Recount our own deeds?"

*

I was sorry I hadn't brought the Voynich manuscript or my knitting with me.

*

How deeply people put out roots into the place that becomes time.

*

The world's beauty, so cruel and incredible, always has a purpose. It's never there for entertainment. It is a fighting beauty, always a necessity. How can it also be such a feast for our senses?

[Sarah Cavar · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yet another “I did Drugs (tm) and now have access to the Spiritual Wisdom” book. Sigh.

[Soili Talvi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kirjan nimettömäksi jäävä päähenkilö työskentelee toimitussihteerinä paranormaaliin keskittyvässä Uusi anomalisti -lehdessä ja hoitaa astmaansa daturalla eli hulluruoholla. Toimituksessa vierailee toinen toistaan merkillisempiä henkilöitä, jotka elävät hiukan eri todellisuuksissa kuin tavalliset ihmiset ja päähenkilön daturankäyttö vaikuttaa vähitellen myös hänen omaan kokemusmaailmaansa. Kerrassaan kiinnostava kirja!

[Jemima Pett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating, weird, and thought-provoking book.

One of the things about using a newspaper person, whether journalist or editor, in a SFF book, is the storyline opportunities abound. Just as with Claire O’Beara’s Dining Out series, Leena Krohn gets her protagonist into all sorts of situations. Instead of aliens, she has weirdos. Well, people with belief sets that depart considerably from the norm.

Throughout the book, the narrator dabbles in the outputs of the mysterious Datura plant someone has given her. I hate this plant. I hate the smell, the sight, and possibly the sound of it, if what one of the weirdos says is true. Our narrator is fascinated by it, and is sucked into various states which leaves you wondering which of her weirdos is real. Several events have all the characteristics of hallucinations. It makes you wonder how much research the author did, and in what depth!

If you’d like a quick dabble in as many astonishing theories as possible in a very readable book, you would do worse than use this as your source. You might need to double check some of them. This book is a terrific feat of imagination, and I loved it, despite the occasionally oddities of the translation, or possibly of the Finnish style.

Datura is a funny, weird book, full of wacky theories that just might have some basis in science, but a great story stringing it all together. I might read more from this author.

[sonicbooming · Rating 4 out of 5]

Datura by Leena Krohn is a wonderfully weird collection of inter-connected short stories. Our unnamed narrator works as an editor for a paranormal magazine ‘The New Anomalist’. Tasked by her overbearing and eccentric boss ‘the Marquis’, a man who is obsessed with money but dislikes the very business he owns and operates, our narrator struggles to edit together various stories, interviews, news flash-bulletins, advice columns, and photographic essays, etc. The failing magazine is a hodge-podge collection of fantasy, science fiction, and madness.

Each story is only a few pages, short bursts of frenetic writing. An interview with a vampire, a lay scientist who believes that the universe is slowly collapsing, a man who only eats food based on their magnetic properties, and many other wild tales.

The stories are just short enough that you could take a five minute break from work and read one or two (though if you’re like me, you’ll likely want to keep on reading). There’s a kind of feeling of light or fancy that is underneath much of these stories, like you’re drunk but without any of the horrible hangover after-affects.

Definitely put this book on your radar. If you’re needing a break from some heavy reading and want to change up the pace of your reading, maybe get away from 400 or 500 page novels, this is just the cure.

[Sammalpeura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ensimmäinen kirja, jonka luin Leena Krohnilta. Pidin hirvittävästi! Kieli on puhdasta ja nautinnollista. Daturan aihe on kiinnostava ja Uuden Anomalistin toimistossa vierailevat heput herkullisia. Suosittelen kaikille, jotka pitävät sellaisesta lukemisesta, joka herättelee ajattelemaan olematta raskas.

[Meredith · Rating 5 out of 5]

She is a new favorite author of mine. Trippy, with a completely unreliable narrator in circumstances that make her grip on reality even more tenuous. Fantastical and fantastic. I'm already reading another book of hers!

[Mira · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mielenkiintoinen Daturan tokkurainen matka. Viihdyttäviä ajatuksia pinnalla ja syvemmällä mutta jotenkin tästä jäi silti tunkkainen olo.

[idle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Něco málo od Leeny Krohn jsem už přečetla, takže struktura knihy mě nepřekvapila: sled krátkých epizod, které by se snad daly nazvat povídkami, ale nemají příliš výraznou pointu; nejsou to ani kapitoly románu, protože na sebe většinou příliš nenavazují, ale přitom se postupně skládají do určitého obrazu o jednom svérázném období z života bezejmenné hlavní hrdinky.

Vypravěčka pracuje jako redaktorka v časopise Nový anomalista, který se zabývá především různými pavědami: paranormálnem, ezoterikou, astrologií, nevysvětlenými záhadami a vším tím, co tradiční věda považuje za nehodno svého zkoumání. Většina epizod proto popisuje setkání s nějakým podivnem z této kategorie, s přispěvatelem či čtenářem časopisu, který věří něčemu zvláštnímu nebo o tom chce přesvědčit své okolí. I když se hrdinka na mnoho z nich tváří skepticky, sama občas zažije příhody, které nemají vysvětlení. Nebo že by za to mohl durman, kterým léčí své astma? Přece jen mezi jeho vedlejší účinky patří i různé poruchy smyslů…

Možná už jsem si na autorčin způsob vyprávění zvykla, nebo se mi tentokrát líp trefil do nálady. Zatímco jinde mi v jejích drobných, ale vždycky zvláštních příhodách chybělo něco výraznějšího – napětí, spád, pointa – a musela jsem si čtení dávkovat, tentokrát mě bavily takové, jaké jsou. Občas jimi probleskne pěkná myšlenka nebo trefné vyjádření – někdy je zamyšlení vážnější, někdy ani nejde o nic hlubokého, jen drobný postřeh, který mi připadl známý a možná mě mohl napadnout taky, ale nenapadl, nebo napadl, ale neuměla bych ho zachytit tak výstižně.

Tohle určitě nebude čtení, které by sedlo do noty každému, ale když to vyjde, může příjemně překvapit.

[Seth Zike · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would like to put this up front: ultimately, I recommend that if a description of this book intrigues you, give it a shot. I was let down, but I think the book is better than it's worst parts.

Also: this review has very mild spoilers, so avoid reading the rest if that affects you.

To me, *Datura* is a book of unfulfilled promise. In its first chapter, it seemed to reach into my thoughts and mimic a recurrence I had been fixated on, mirroring the penultimate chapter of the book.
There were a few more such moments, separated by many chapters of mundanity that could be summed up with "you won't believe what happened to me the other day". This I think is the focus of the book, the surreal banality of life. The final chapters helped me better appreciate this, but it does not elevate the experience of slogging through meandering vignettes.
The vignettes, too, are an unfulfilled promise, the first chapter warning you that the novel will be nonlinear, to paraphrase. This non-linearity, however, is hardly noticeable, except for the occasional mention of a singing fish, and the other odd scene.
It lacks the context to be meaningfully nonlinear, as the chapters could easily be completely unrelated from one another, and the reality altering effects of the Datura plant often feel like a sidenote, background noise to a story about a piece of bread cheese that vaguely looks like Jesus.

[Octavia Cade · Rating 3 out of 5]

I see a lot of people classing this as fantasy or magical realism, but it doesn't strike me as being that. Someone hallucinating because they're doping themselves with datura may be wandering through a surreal world - punctuated by some very strange and/or gullible contributors to a lowbrow magazine of weird phenomena who justifiably can't get published anywhere else - but the hallucinations are just that. I'd feel more sympathy if the narrator wasn't verging on terminal stupidity herself. She seems to realise that the contributors she's forced to wrangle are off their collective rockers, but her very sensible scepticism isn't anywhere in evidence when it comes to her own experiences, because she's still swallowing that tea like someone's told her it's the panacea for all evil.

There comes a point when you've just got to realise that your job's a piece of shit and your boss isn't much better, and you know what? Move on. Drug yourself silly if you must, but what's the point of taking mind-altering substances if they don't do any better for you than this?

[Sophia Dunn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this in English.

Initially sweet, the reading is unsatisfying and I felt faintly embarassed for the author, and slightly saddened; it was like reading the first novel of a 17 year old. The novel features a myriad of odd characters who present as intriguing. However, the minute you become intrigued, the writer abandons the character and moves on to the next, with the result that reading this book is like being in the audience of a freak show, or the literary equivalent of a trip to the zoo without the tea and cake at the end.

Even the two main characters, both initially interesting, fascinating even, are never developed in any way. There is no attempt at character development, depth or richness.

The writing is self indulgent, with little attempts at including completely irrelevant snippets of poetry, an effort that is actively cringeworthy.

The end result is banal at best.

[Norman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dreamlike and with a prose that flows smooth and beautiful until Krohn decides to make abstractions and soul searching of Borges' level but without the constant barrage of obscure and esoteric references. She weaves a fascinating landscape full of excentric characters which work as mouthpieces for her to wax poetic on trippy subjects like reality, time, meaning, coincidences, etc. The chapters are short and digestible but never fail to hit you with something very eerie or meaninful whenever they end and overall work to fit together in a cryptic but interesting way. Krohn works in that space between fabulists, magical realists and weird fiction writers and does it so well that she secures a place in conversation from me whenever names like Calvino, Pavic, Tokarczuk or Borges are mentioned.

[Amber Moon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Luin tämän kirjan ja pidin värikkäästä, rikkaasta kielestä ja selkeistä mielikuvista, jota se toi. Kirjan henkilöhahmot piirtyivät elävinä ja selkeinä mieleeni luoden yhtä mielenkiintoisen kudelman kuin itse olisin maistanut tuon pelottavan kasvin siemeniä. Suosittelen lämpimästi.

I read this book and loved it a lot. I enjoyed it's rich and colourful language, clear images it created. Characters in this book came to my mind as clear as the mirror and the story made me feel interested on this plant Datura, as if I would've tasted the seeds of this scary plant. I recommend this.

[Joni Mettälä · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ei ollut mun juttu. Luettiin lukupiirissä.

Luvut olivat melko lyhyitä otoksia päähenkilön työstä ja kokemuksista, eikä mieleeni rakentunut aina kunnollista muistijälkeä kappaleista ja niiden merkityksestä. Teksti oli sinänsä helppolukuista, mutta kirjan tyyli mieltäni puuduttava. Loppupuolella toivoin kirjan vain loppuvan.

[Kristýna Huclová · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moje hodnocení asi nebude úplně stoprocentní, protože jsem to četla už strašně dávno, každopádně jsem z toho musela být dost nadšená, když jsem se pak několik let pokoušela vypěstovat si doma durman..

[Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very strong start but then it faded into uneven prose and ideas, at least for me.

[Hailley Wilson · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. The writing is very beautiful, but I just couldn't get into it. I may give it another try at a different time.

[Claire (find me on Storygraph) · Rating 4 out of 5]

A strong 4.5 stars. A weird and wonderful journey of short inter-connected stories with a lot of thought-provoking philosophical thoughts sprinkled in. Would make a fascinating film or short series.

[Emmi K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leena Krohn on aivan omaa luokkaansa ja yksi ikisuosikeistani. Häiritsevä tunnelma on aivan vangitseva ja vie mennessään.

[Jacob Frank · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kind of underwhelming. It seemed like every chapter should have been a few pages longer; also, the proofreading left something to be desired.

[Lo W · Rating 1 out of 5]

Idk why the english version is not on goodreads this was for a psych book club it was not good but it counts so