Estonia-Paradise without palm trees

Estonia: Paradise Without Palm Trees" is an anthology of essays by João Lopes Marques, a Portuguese journalist, screenwriter and novelist who has lived in Estonia since 2006. ERR News reviewed the English version of the book, which came out in 2012.

"Paradise," palm trees or no palm trees, is not how an Estonian describes his country on a dark winter night - wait, day - with subzero temperatures in the double digits.

Life would be infinitely simpler down south, it would seem. No need to pay for heating, or to curse that patch of ice. No need to put on clothes on top of clothes on top of clothes. No need to listen to one's girlfriend complain about it. The situation would be desperately exacerbated for a poor, old person who is more or less forced to spend the days indoors.

OK, so Marques’s book is not a weather guide. It’s more like an Idiot’s Guide to Estonia, complete with a handy glossary and amusing lists, which the author has a fondness for. That, merged with an homage to his adoptive country (and its women).

The southwestern European gently picks apart Estonianness on scales both micro and macro - its soul, mindset and societal gears, the truths and untruths of stereotypes and cliches.

The anthology is very much one immigrant’s discovery. Some of the issues he touches on are old news, which is not entirely his fault; they have just been paraded too much, for some tastes, accompanying any mention of Estonia. And sometimes I want Marques to be more critical.

Yet his fascination is genuine and observations perceptive, writing about tram drivers, "potato mania" or supermodels. In an entertaining stab at science fiction, one essay concocts an alterdimensional Estonia where there is a "Väga Suur Munamägi."