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The Autumn Ball, a prize-winning novel by the Estonian writer Mati Unt, is an unusual one – it lacks a traditional plot, a hero and a conflict. Nevertheless, the account it offers of an autumn’s events in the lives of six colourful characters – a mediocre poet, a conceited architect, a misanthropic barber, a pseudointellectional debauchee, an attractive divorcee and her inquisitive son – all at odds with their urban environment, is an exciting and binding one and has been given a favourable reception everywhere it has appeared in translation (Moscow, Helsinki, Stockholm, Budapest, Sofia).
Although the scene has been laid in an environment defined to the last documentary detail, the author manages to tell a story which would ring equally true in similar surroundings anywhere. Of no less attraction is the passionless irony, grotesqueness and deliberate naivite that Unt applies to describe his characters and their actions.
Source: Goodreads