The Misadventures of the New Satan: No. 43 (Series B: English Translations of Works of Scandinavian Literature) - Softcover

This is a new and fully revised translation of the classic Estonian novel. Satan has a problem: God has come to the conclusion that it is unfair to send souls to hell if they are fundamentally incapable of living a decent life on earth. If this is the case, then hell will be shut down, and the human race written off as an unfortunate mistake. Satan is given the chance to prove that human beings are capable of salvation - thus ensuring the survival of hell - if he agrees to live as a human being and demonstrate that it is possible to live a righteous life. St Peter suggests that life as a farmer might offer Satan the best chance of success, because of the catalogue of privations he will be forced to endure. And so Satan ends up back on earth, living as Jurka, a great bear of a man, the put-upon tenant of a run-down Estonian farm. His patience and good nature are sorely tested by the machinations of his scheming, unscrupulous landlord and the social and religious hypocrisy he encounters. "The Misadventures of the New Satan" is the last novel by Estonia's greatest twentieth-century writer, Anton Tammsaare (1876-1940), and it constitutes a fitting summation of the themes that occupied him throughout his writing: the search for truth and social justice, and the struggle against corruption and greed. Tammsaare combines a satire on the inequalities of rural life and absurdly rigid social attitudes with biblical themes, mythology, and bawdy folklore. The novel has proved to be an enduring classic of European literature.

Anton Hansen Tammsaare (1878-1940) is widely regarded as Estonia's greatest writer. The son of a farmer, Tammsaare's education at the University of Tartu was cut short when he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, which led to a stay in the Caucasus. Following Estonian independence in 1918 he moved to Tallinn, where he lived for the rest of his life. His early literary works reflected a poetic rural realism, although he also wrote several urban novels and collections of short stories: the contrast between urban bourgeoisie and hard-working peasantry would prove to be one of the enduring themes of his writing. His epic five-volume sequence of novels, Tode ja oigus (Truth and Justice; 1926-1933), tracing the development of Estonia from tsarist province to independent state is considered the great masterpiece of twentieth-century Estonian literature. According to Tammsaare himself, the first volume depicts man's struggle with the earth, the second with God, the third with society, the fourth with himself - while the fifth ends with resignation. The early volumes are partly autobiographical, and the work is deeply rooted in Estonian history, but it deals with many of the same literary and philosophical issues that concerned his contemporaries Thomas Mann and John Galsworthy. Although a realist at heart, Tammsaare used allegorical fantasy in his stories, most notably in this final novel, Porgupohja uus vanapagan (1939; The Misadventures of the New Satan). Here he combines a satire on the inequalities of rural life and the absurdities of rigid social attitudes with biblical themes, mythology, and bawdy folklore. The resulting novel has proved to be an enduring classic of European literature.