Urwind
Urwind
Author: Bo Carpelan
Desc: In Urwind on the face of it a simple tale of a Helsinki antiquarian bookseller whose wife has abandoned him there is a complex layering of experience past and present. The telling is more a matter of inner than outer events - intimate rapt. In the "ur-vind" or primordial attic are stored not only relics from the story-teller's past but also memories of the neighbours friends and relations who inhabited the apartment house in which he was brought up. The "ur-vind" is also the cosmic wind blowing from beyond the reassuring walls of houses and apartments. And it is the story-teller's name Daniel Urwind in whom is focused a wealth of literary and artistic allusions and antecedents that include the Merz-Bau of Kurt Schwitters the paintings of Cezanne and the fiction of Kafka.