{"id":10304,"date":"2019-03-20T16:47:18","date_gmt":"2019-03-20T22:47:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10304"},"modified":"2019-03-23T20:54:50","modified_gmt":"2019-03-24T02:54:50","slug":"baltic-gothic-a-quick-review-of-november","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10304","title":{"rendered":"Baltic Gothic: A Quick Review of &#8220;November&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/j6nXObRVhRc\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In rural 19th-century <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Estonia\">Estonia<\/a>, as depicted in the film <em>November<\/em>, people did not merely put out food offerings for the Dead on All Souls Day \u2014 they fed them. And talked to them. And if the Dead wished to enjoy a sauna, a fire had already been lit. And then things get weird.<\/p>\n<p><em>November <\/em>is a beautifully photographed black-and-while film (with a little infrared too?). Sometimes it is such a series of images that I felt as though I was watching someone&#8217;s curated Instagram feed or Tumblr blog, until the snowman started talking or the Devil twisted someone&#8217;s neck and took his soul.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe instead of &#8220;Baltic Gothic,&#8221; we should call it &#8220;Estonian Hoodoo.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Things you will find in <em>November<\/em>: shapeshifting; wolves; dirty doings at the crossroads; servants who steal from German aristocrats justifying their thefts in the name of Estonian nationalism; people stealing from each other; sleepwalking; the Plague personified as a beautiful woman, a goat, or a pig; lots of folk magic (with some spectacular failures); dreams; visions; love; and death.<\/p>\n<p>The society depicted is nominally Christian but the other elements justify the label Pagan-ish. In fact, it made me think of a novel that I had read, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0802124127\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0802124127&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=soutrocknatub-20&amp;linkId=b88591025216192df38ef461500ff33b\"><em>The Man Who Spoke Snakish<\/em><\/a>, which is set in medieval Estonia at the time of Christian crusades against the Baltic Pagans.<\/p>\n<p>Color me surprised. <em>November <\/em>is based on a novel by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0802124127\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0802124127&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=soutrocknatub-20&amp;linkId=b88591025216192df38ef461500ff33b\">Andrus Kivir\u00e4hk<\/a>, who wrote <em>The Man Who Spoke Snakish <\/em>as well. This novel was <i>Rehepapp ehk November<\/i> (<i>Old Barny aka November<\/i>), and I am not sure if it has been published yet in an English translation.<\/p>\n<p>If you liked <em>The Man Who Spoke Snakish <\/em>or the 2015 movie <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt4263482\/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1\"><em>The Witch<\/em><\/a>, you would like this one. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt6164502\/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1\">Read more reviews at IMDB.com.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In rural 19th-century Estonia, as depicted in the film November, people did not merely put out food offerings for the Dead on All Souls Day \u2014 they fed them. And talked to them. And if the Dead wished to enjoy a sauna, a fire had already been lit. And then things get weird. November is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[96,283,37,66,55,36,296],"class_list":["post-10304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-death","tag-estonia","tag-folklore","tag-halloween","tag-hoodoo","tag-movies","tag-pagan-ish"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-2Gc","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6406,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6406","url_meta":{"origin":10304,"position":0},"title":"Who Ruined Hoodoo?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 29, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Katrina Hazzard-Donald, Mojo Workin': The Old African American Hoodoo System (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2013) 248 pp., photos, index, $85 (cloth), $28 (paper), ebook available. \u00a0 Hazzard-Donald teaches anthropology and sociology at Rutgers University-Camden. She is herself an initiate into the Orisha religion, but this is not a work\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Africa\"","block_context":{"text":"Africa","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=africa"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.press.uillinois.edu\/books\/images\/9780252078767.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2256,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2256","url_meta":{"origin":10304,"position":1},"title":"Hard Times? Not for Hoodoo","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 4, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"People enter hoodoo through the door of suffering, to borrow a phrase from the Umbandistas. The Wall Street Journal reports an uptick in the magic sector: \"Need a Job? Losing your House? Who Says Hoodoo Can't Help?\" In the early 20th century, white pharmacists in black neighborhoods began marketing hoodoo\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Hoodoo\"","block_context":{"text":"Hoodoo","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=hoodoo"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2853,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2853","url_meta":{"origin":10304,"position":2},"title":"Hoodoo You Read?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 3, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Hoodoo & Conjure Quarterly is a new journal on Southern magic and folklore, and you can buy it on Amazon.com (follow link above). Contents of the first issue: Denise Alvarado: \"The Origin of the Root,\" \"Dirt Dauber Nests,\" \"Conjure Artist profile: The Georgia Mojo Man,\" \"A Goetic Ritual: Magickal Doll\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/hoodoo-241x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12154,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12154","url_meta":{"origin":10304,"position":3},"title":"Joining Folklore: The Electronic Journal of Folklore","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 5, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Last month I accepted an invitation to join the editorial board of Folklore: The Electronic Journal of Folklore, which is published by the Estonian Literary Museum in the city of Tartu. They have not yet updated the website, but you know how that goes. Because Folklore is government-supported and Web-only,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/estonian-literary-museum-300x174.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1253,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1253","url_meta":{"origin":10304,"position":4},"title":"This Should Work for Freelancers, Too","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 14, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"From the Motor City Hoodoo line by Coventry Creations of Ferndale, Michigan.","rel":"","context":"In \"Hoodoo\"","block_context":{"text":"Hoodoo","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=hoodoo"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":602,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=602","url_meta":{"origin":10304,"position":5},"title":"The Shock of It All &#8211; 2","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 21, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Earlier post here I did finish Christine Wicker's Not in Kansas Anymore: A Curious Tale of How Magic is Transforming America. To be honest, the subtitle should read, \"How magic is transforming Christine Wicker.\" The book maps closely to Susan Roberts' 1974 book Witches U.S.A.. The author, a middle-aged female\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10304"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10316,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10304\/revisions\/10316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}