(Originally published on my blog: mybiochemicalsky.wordpress)What a marvelous book Lena Krohn’s tiny Tainaron is! I admit that I chose it for my train read precisely because of its size. It’s merely 130 pages long, many of them filled with illustrations and the blank spaces that follow the end of chapters, in this case letters. Tainaron consists of thirty letters sent by a woman to her unnamed once-lover, over the huge mass of Oceanus, from the eponymous insect-inhabited city where she has e [...]

Tainaron is an imaginary city populated by insects, and this novella takes the form of a series of letters written by an unknown (human) visitor to the city. We do not know who the recipient is, but we do know that the writer never receives a reply. The letters do not tell a story so much as give snippets of life in the city and details of how the different insects go about their lives. It sounds odd, and it is odd, but it is also quite beautiful. There are some wonderful details about the insec [...]

A brilliant work of pure imagination. This is a brief novel composed of a series of letters written from a city populated by insects. Its writer and reader are never identified, nor is the exact nature of their relationship established other than they were close.There's a gentle melancholy throughout the book that only hints at unrevealed emotions. Death, loneliness, longing, joy, wisdom, duty, love - all are presented by our narrator with no predetermined conclusions and with no crude metaphors [...]

Tainaron is a collection of letters sent from a city comprised entirely of insects. The lush descriptions of the city and its inhabitants are as intoxicating to the reader as scented petals and the promise of sweet nectar are to a honey bee. Though the premise is intriguing, there's no discernible plot, and the reader is never formally introduced to whoever -- or whatever -- is writing the letters, nor is the recipient of the letters ever identified."I heard thuds as nutlets fell from their open [...]

I love Leena Krohn's writing. It's rich and filled with wonderful details, but there is a ton of room for the reader to take what they will (or need) from it. I'm sure there are many ways to interpret Tainaron. I took the whole thing as a metaphor for loss. When you lose a lover, either by being dumped or by the other person dying, you spend a long season in a faraway city populated by insects wondering what your lost love is doing/feeling. There's some profound truth in that.

Unos tienen pájaros en la cabeza, otros insectos, otros nada. Leena Krohn (Helsinki, 1947), tiene insectos y se monta una novela epistolar y fantástica -porque emplea personajes fantásticos, a saber: insectos, para mediante metáforas y paralelismos entre la vida humana y la animal, referirnos por boca de una mujer, las cartas que ésta le envía a su amado, que no le hace ni caso, al menos epistolarmente, porque no contesta a ninguna de sus cartas. En esas cartas le explica la amada desconso [...]

I picked up Tainaron as part of a "weird fiction" ebook sale, not having heard of it before. By Finnish author Leena Krohn, it is written as a series of letters from an unnamed person staying in the city of Tainaron. Tainaron is a city populated by insects, and it is implied that the writer is human. The letters are to a lover or friend back in the writer's home city, and a lot is left unexplained. It's a fascinating novel, and hard to understand exactly what is going on, as a lot of things are [...]

Lumoava, mieleenpainuva kirja! Tämä täytyy saada omaan kirjahyllyyn, jotta voin lukea sitä vielä monta kertaa uudestaan.

Действително трябва да отбележа, че много от обитателите на Тенарон си имат коя от коя по-чудати привички, поне гледано с очите на пришълка от толкова далеч. Тук съвсем наблизо, на същата пресечка, живее и един господин, висок и хърбав, който има навика да виси от балкона си н� [...]

Сборник писма до някой любим човек / себе си / несъществуващ, но сънуван. Пастелно вливане на архетипни образи в социалната схема на един далечен светоград на насекоми, който все някъде/някога съществува, защото физика. Поетичен разказ за съзнателно напускане на комфортнат� [...]

The book consists of vignettists in the form of letters from a woman living in a land of insects to her companion back home. The writing is bountiful and beautiful, and it is quite easy to see the author is a poet.I can not bring myself to call this work a novel. it is akin to going to the movies and watching the previews for an extended period of time. Although the themes and concepts are brilliant and well written we are just given a taste and peek at what exists in this strange and bizarre an [...]

A slow, gentle, thoughtful, mesmerizing book. A voyager to the strange land of Tainaron grapples with, and tries to understand, Tainaron's inhabitants, who are insects, and how their lives illuminate or disturb her own life. Tainaron is like a human city and thoroughly unlike one and she struggles to find connection there as well as with a lover who does not answer her letters. The chapters are very short and dreamy, but this is a book to read slowly and thoughtfully. To rush through Tainaron wo [...]

Sellest kirjast saati, kus on juttu Rohelisest Mehest-kaarikujuhist, kes on yks mu suurimaid lemmikuid, hakkas tunduma, et raamatu meeleolu on sama, mis mul oli Kreekas koolitöid tehes ja läbi Ioannina koolis käies (just see osa mu Kreeka-elust, ylejäänust eraldi), rahulik tähelepanelikkus. Iga lehekyljega läksid seosed ilmsemaks ja mul oli kõigele Kreeka vaste käepärast võtta (emotsionaalne vaste, mil ei pruugi tegelikkusega suurt pistmist olla), aga kyllap on asi võõras linnas ela [...]

I wonder if it's the translation - it's one of those cases where I feel as if I am reading one. Something is not quiet right about the language), but really, not only. Perhaps what I am missing is the big implication, the political, the world-changing or the world-accusing. The book full of little ideas but they don't come together to form a whole. (It's also not about it not having a plot - I once had a long and loud argument in favor of books without plot. But they have to have a point.)

Una vez pasada la confusión inicial con la cantidad de vocabulario sobre plantas e insectos, es poesía. En forma de cartas sin respuesta, pero poesía. Inquietante y bonito, cada vez más, hasta llegar a la última carta."() aquí todo tiene su tiempo y su momento prescrito, desconocido para los demás."

Don't be fooled by the 3-star rating - I actually loved this short book! I just use my ratings for a different purpose - I see them as rewards. And the things I typically reward are structure, consistency and character development/depth. And that book has none of those. Yet it's still pretty great!You can read many different opinions on what this book is about. Everyone has their own interpretation, some even believe that it's better to not have an interpretation. And many people see this as a n [...]

A Finnish epistolary fantasy, written from the view of a tourist getting existential and lyrical in a city teeming with people/insects, that is, insects as people, people as insects, e.g. her guide is an over-sized, impeccable Longhorn beetle. Some great moments in her exploration, like her conversation with the City Surveyor, an insect measuring the whole metropolis--street widths, building heights-- using his own body as the measuring unit, so he has to climb up cathedrals, flipping on end to [...]

This felt like an incomplete work. Rather, it showed a cross-section of a woman's life in a new city where the other residents have qualities of insects, and her observations and adventures of city life were often strange and intriguing, but the glimpses of her own life as self-unaware xenophobe seemed underdeveloped and lacking context. Although there may be a certain amount of realism in that, she never develops beyond insensitive tourist and as a result, her guide never develops beyond inscru [...]

Thirty letters sent to an old lover by a rather foolish woman who has come to live in a city of insects for reasons she has forgotten. As with most epistolary works, it takes a while to build. Several letters in the middle to end begin to suggest larger themes. However, full enlightenment never really seems to dawn on the protagonist (although there are hints here and there that she is either changing or losing her mind), so the end, which is undoubtedly the right one, seems unsupported by what [...]

My second Krohn novel, and I feel almost exactly the same as I do about Datura, which I read last week.Interesting world, interesting ideas, solid prose, a very pleasant read, but just not really my kind of thing.I'd recommend it but only give yourself maybe ten pages. If you don't like it by then, you likely never will.So it's not that I dislike it, just that it's not my thing. It's pretty solid, in its way.

I don't think I was a good enough, or close enough reader to catch everything this book was doing. It was beautiful, and frustrating, because it was working with metaphor so well. It is 30 letters written from a person living in the distant city of Tainaron, which is made up of insects. The narrator discovers odd and familiar parts of a city of insects. It is about death, and change and a lot of things about life. Its kind of amazing.

(Read in her Collected Fictions) Tainaron reads like a botanical or entemological version of Calvino's Invisible Cities, or perhaps like if Dali wrote flash fictions with insectoids. The narrative thread is very loose here, like a book of poetry, but the characterization comes through and overall is an impressive feat of language, imagination, and feeling.

Kauniisti kirjoitettu! Mielikuvitusta kutkuttavia tuokiokuvia paikasta nimeltä Tainaron. Paikasta, joka itsessään muuttuu ja jonka asukkaat muuttuvat koko ajan. Kirjoja, joista voi varmasti löytää jokaisella lukukerralla jotain uutta. Toisin sanoen: toivottavasti tulee luettua joskus uudestaankin.

[Borrowed from my PL]A connected series of letters written by a woman who has moved to a city of insects. Odd concept. Beautiful language as the essence of change is described in many forms. I liked it, but I'm not sure why.

Shortly put: Ugh

I flatter myself to think I have a lot of good ideas for weird/fantasy stories, but on paper 90% of what I have is just a big list of different insect ecology ideas grafted onto genre fiction tropes. I expected The Weird to include some precursors to my ideas, but I figured that had peaked with Wollheim’s Mimic. Nope. Tainaron is a far more direct version of what I had in my head than I ever expected to find out there already. It’s a series of 30 vignettes, basically that list of ideas featu [...]

This unusual short novel is made up of a collection of letters written by an unnamed person to an unnamed former lover left behind in an unnamed former home. Our letter-writer (I can't remember if it was spelled out that she was a woman or if I projected that on to her) is now living in the city of Tainaron, a fantastical place inhabited by various large insects -- I pictured them in my mind as slightly anthropomorphized and mostly human-sized.There is no real plot, no story that unfolds over th [...]

This was rec’d to me by a fellow r/fantasy redditor for the New Weird Bingo Square. I’m not a huge fan of New Weird so I have been putting this read off for most of the year. I have to admit that this was a beautiful read and a great recommendation. The story is made up of written letters to an unknown lover, detailing her life and observations while abroad in the Insect City of Tainaron. There is no overreaching plot and it’s not long at all. I found the whole thing quite lovely. This pre [...]

This was such a strange and melancholy novella, but beautiful, too. If you like the idea of some short, weird, gentle sci-fi, I highly recommend this.

Ładnie napisane, szybko się czyta i nawet nie było takie mądre na siłę jak myślałam, że będzie