Tantraman: and other stories, by Vello Vikerkaar
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Meet the Powerpoint People, donkey jockeys, and government sponges. Find out how to survive an onslaught of American cruise tourists. Learn to speak British English. And of course gain access to the most carefully guarded secrets of tantric love. "Tantraman" is Vello Vikerkaar's survival guide to Eastern Europe in the 2000s, the long-awaited follow up to his 2009 worldwide best-seller, "Inherit the Family: Marrying into Eastern Europe." Excerpts: Estonians generally resist flattery, but one surefire method to please them is to talk about how difficult their language is. Its difficulty, in fact, is a point of national pride. In the early 1990s, I heard a guy remark at a conference that Estonia offered a more sanitized, civilized way to experience Eastern Europe. “Like a drive-through zoo,” he said, “where you see the tigers from behind the safety of your car’s windshield. But in Russia,” he noted, “you have to actually climb into the cage with the animals.” Imagine everybody who has ever wronged you being in one place at one time, trapped somewhere they cannot escape. For anyone who has ever built a house in Estonia, that place is the 9:30 p.m. Friday ferry from Helsinki to Tallinn. It is packed stem to stern with gastarbeiter returning from a week of blessing Finland with their craftsmanship and work ethic. I wondered if the developer’s brief to the architect had been: "Apartment must impress Mexican drug lords." It was one of those houses in Viimsi that resembles Darth Vader’s head. Some are white, some black, but all are dark and imposing. You approach cautiously as if a laser cannon might fire at any moment. For me, a yogi will always be a bear. Or a malapropist baseball player. But to Liina, and to much of the rest of the world, a yogi is a yoga practitioner. And some of them are operating an ashram in my house. I grew up hating the Japanese. Not for their slanty eyes, or because of World War II, but because of the way they played golf. “Perhaps a tad bit of Lapsang Souchong?” offered the businessman, “before I tell you about my philosophy of life?” His sentence contained two clear reasons to run the other direction and normally I would have, but I was being paid to interview him. But for money or not, if I was to endure what was surely to be a cliché-ridden, borrowed outlook on life, I was going to need something stronger than tea. “Got any whiskey?” I asked. “So what is it you do?” I asked one of the men sitting across from me at the dinner party. But it was clearly the wrong question. “I’m an intellectual,” he said, exhaling dramatically to indicate that I was a complete idiot for not knowing who he was. “Oh, I’m sorry,” I was tempted to say. “I thought you were just an asshole.” There are periods in a summer’s day when entire Old Town cafes are taken over by Americans. As if Baghdad isn’t enough, they have to have Tallinn, too. I was there one rainy day when a group of seven American cruiseboat tourists held us all briefly hostage. It might have ended peacefully…
Tantraman: and other stories, by Vello Vikerkaar- Amazon Sales Rank: #2861524 in Books
- Published on: 2015-05-22
- Original language: English
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x .59" w x 6.00" l,
- Binding: Paperback
- 234 pages
About the Author Vello Vikerkaar was born in 1965 in Scarberia, Toronto. After a stint in the Canadian Army (missions: Drinking Molsons, being polite abroad), he moved to Estonia in 1992.
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Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. Perfect for institutions By Tom Lynx I originally purchased this book for my course on Estonian-Canadian literature. I found the stories funny, insightful, and mercifully short. As my short teaching career has shown, college students do not do well with long reading assignments. But Vello's are short enough to read on the crapper or in between bong hits. This book could have benefited from a clearer map of Estonia (the one provided is fine but Estonia is written in very small script and is drawn to scale in the world map, and is, hence, almost impossible to locate.) Once located, my students greatly enjoyed finding out about Vello's family and his run-ins with the law. They could certainly identify with the latter! All in all, the Estonian-Canadian literature class at the maximum security San Quentin penitentiary benefited greatly from the inclusion of this book. I know that when my students are released back into the world, barring the unusually high recidivism rate, TANTRAMAN will always bring back positive memories of their days of solitary confinement.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. A very good read for anyone interested in Estonia (and humor) By Roberto I always thought that people living in a foreign country are capable to capture the essence of a country better than natives. Vello, a member of the Estonian diaspora in Canada, proves this point once again: having willingly transplanted himself in Estonia, he can't help noticing the daily idiosyncrasies, foibles and faults of its people. And, yet, hes clearly in love with the country and his biting satire always stops short of being patronizing or cruel.The stories (from the 2009-2012 period) capture an Estonia still changing from an ex-soviet outpost but already well on its way to a modern western country. In a very few cases unfortunately the stories now dated and/or require a level of local minor-celebrity knowledge that most non-Estonian readers lack.In his stories, Vello provides his personal take on child rearing, camping in Estonia, Estonian doctors, bathroom mishaps (and how not to recover elegantly from them), fishing (and getting arrested) in Russia, building a house in Estonia, dealing with coat check ladies (a skill I had to come to grips with in my 2 years living in Estonia, and never mastered), writing songs for Eurovision, buying used clothes, expat apartments in Tallinn, trolling politicians, and, last but not least, tantric sex. Advice clearly helpful to anyone interested in Estonia, either as a travel destination or a life choice.The rare misses - his faith in the twice-since-bankrupt Estonian air (and now finally dead for good and replaced by NAG), or calling a BMW car a Beamer instead of a Bimmer (but, then again, Vello admits not to be a gearhead, so this might be a clever way to make his point. With Vello, you never know when he's being serious, when ironic) - are easily overlooked and outside of Vello's core expertise, and in no way detract from the value of the book.As an added bonus to true Estoniaphiles, the book is available in both English and Estonian, and can be a handy tool to learn Estonian by reading the two versions side-by-side.Lastly, I'd like to dispel the rumor of Vello's demise (and I'm sure Jacques-Alan will be greatly relieved). His articles have started reappearing on upnorth.eu. Ironically enough, Vello is once again writing about Estonian Air/NAG, proving he's a true, stubborn Estonian. I'm looking forward to his car reviews soon.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Worth a potentially life-threatening medical condition By Michael Collier I greatly enjoyed the latest volume by Vikerkaar, more commonly known in Estonia simply as 'the Master'. As my paychecks are somewhat erratic I was forced to read the majority of this collection in small, surreptitious snatches while "browsing" a Tartu bookstore. Luckily, most of the essay-cum-prose-poems-cum-billets-doux are short enough that a highly-trained speed reader can get one down the hatch well within the average tolerance span of all but the most dogged bookstore house detective.Despite developing varicose veins as a result of this unorthodox reading manner - which is probably similar to what they used to do in ancient Athens or something - I enjoyed The Master's transparently auto-didactic musings immensely.To top it all off, when hospitalized for treatment of aforementioned veins in order to prevent a more serious thrombosis, and mildly hallucinating as a result of the anti-coagulents now coursing through my arteries, a close relation paid me a bedside visit and brought me something "to stop you going mental again". Yes, it was none other than Tantra Man, which of course I had already read. How I wish Vello could have seen my face!
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