The narrator in the novel sketches from his memory the vivid portrait of his uncle - called Nurmi by everyone because in his youth he competed against the famous long-distance runner, and was, of course, beaten. Actually, Uncle Nurmi is a retired professor of medicine, a passionate fisherman, and above all a likeably old-fashioned eccentric. On an adventurous journey to the trout streams of Finland he acquaints his nephew, who has just suffered the first pangs of love, with a melancholy philosophy of losing. Only at the end of the book does it turn out that in this way the doctor comes to terms not only with his defeat in sport, but also with a perilous love affair during the Nazi years.

Log in to favorite or list