A melancholic yet eerily captivating story about a young man who has been so severely injured he loses his memory and speech ability, set in WW2 Europe. He is taught the Finnish language from scratch by the Finnish doctor, who supposes his patient is a Finn from the 'Sampo Karljanen' tag stitched on the clothing he was wearing when discovered lying beaten to near death on a German quayside, of a nearby ship he was taken upon, then as soon as he garners a minimum ability to reproduce the unconventional phonetics of the Finnish lamguage is sent to Finland, out of the hope that among the icy, unforgiving Nordic landscapes he will discover some trace that will unfurl his memory and help him rediscover his identity.

Exquisitely written, I enjoyed the fact that I was able to relate to the protagonist's feelings of existential crisis and being not just a foreigner in his adopted country but, worse yet, a stranger among all people, incapable to chivvy himself into establishing a profound connection emotionally or intellectually with them because of incertainity about his identity, a great deal. The story ultimately magnifies the importance of language and the memories, history of times erstwhile it keeps alive within its particular anomalities to the future of a nation, as well as the effect memories and language have on individuals. The storyline made me recall plots involving characters pursuing happiness while holding the foolish presumption that happiness isn't a temporary state of mind, that it is something that should be felt at all times, for its similarity to this one in the sense that the protagonist was also pursuing something intangible, within the ruminations of ancient land and the souls of the surrounding people,- his memory and subsequently his identity, esentially his heart, as an individual who seeks to create substantial meaning in his world. It made me wonder about the inextricable connections between memory, language and happiness, three rudimentary aspects of human life.

Additionally, I highly appreciated the references to and supplementary insight provided regarding the Kalevala epic throughout the text, which added a sense of the mystic to the work and gave it a multifaceted finishing. In short, this is a book which has carved a niche to occupy in my heart.

This novel is a rather unconventional take of the original story of Judas' betrayal, centred around the question:  what if Judas was a good individual, fulfilling God's will as necessary, whereas Christ's apostles were the real traitors, proving too pusillanimous to defend their rhetor?  

The result is a mentally stimulating, highly engaging work of literature retelling the story of Judas from an unconventional perspective in third person narration. An idea presented in the text which impacted me most profoundly was that if Judas was a good individual, the best individual, in fact, who are we then? If so, who is good, who can righteously defend good by the end of the day? Where does our salvation lie then? The harsh answers prompted by these questions may be perturbing to a person who does not truly know the underpinnings of human nature, however will strike someone with a more sober, sombre outlook as being replete with keen insight and perspective into human misery and suffering. 

In any case, this book by Andreyev has compelled me to get my hands on more of his works. His way of writing truly is unique, but may not be palatable for all. 

The central question on which this book is based on, as I understood, was where exactly does the modern-day American's belief that everything related to urban centres has negative connotations and living a simple lifestyle in a rustic setting is ideal originate, and what it says about the American nation/culture as a whole. Marx (Leo, no relation of Karl's as far as I gather) sets about to answer this question by examining the imaginations of America's foremost classical authors (e.g Cooper, Thoreau, Melville, Faulkner, Frost and Hemingway) and thus delve in the depths of what Marx calls 'sentimental pastoralism'.

          The 'machine' that acted as the focal point of this book was inevitably none other than the train- a symbol of industrial progress in most European states during the late 19th century/ early 20th century and no different in the U.S. The book can be generalised by stating that it is an analysis of how the railroad affected American culture, through the voice of the American canon- whether the railroad interferes with someone's meditation in the countryside or it is the corruption new appliances causes to traditional principles of pastoralism: many examples are provided to demonstrate the rise of sentimental pastoralism in the U.S. According to the author, the American Dream (theoretically) cannot be achieved with the attitudes and environment cultivated by this special kind of pastoralism.

       On a personal level, I think what interested me the most in this book was the author's explanation of art as an entity with an ever-evolving definition . Art as it was defined by the European immigrants was completely different from what a modern person would consider to be art.  These pre-modern pastoralists believed there was a very distinct mediating ground between "art" and "nature" (an idea that would be difficult to fathom for the averagemodern person). From this Marx proceeds to postulate that 

 there are two different types of pastoralism, one simple and one complex. The argument is which one of these is better: occupying the middle ground between art and nature, or going for something simpler? In a way, I thought that by the way America has gone it has essentially chosen a simpler kind of relationship with nature, something that no one can agree that is something wholly good.