Urwind

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.