Mihkel Raud: Self-Deprecation for a Better Understanding of Relationships and North America
The first time I talked to Mihkel Raud was in 2014, at Kotkajärve Metsaülikool, where he was due to deliver a lecture. I had only recently become aware of who he was when I saw his and Lenna Kuurmaa's performance of Morrissey's “Everyday Is Like Sunday” on ETV; and so I struck up a conversation about Morrissey and songwriting over hapukapsas (sauerkraut) at lunch.
If we had to fit everything about Mihkel Raud on a short press release, we would mention his rock and roll career in Singer Vinger and Mr. Lawrence, the personal and sometimes coarse books he's written about his life and perspectives, and the visibility he has as a television personality in Estonia.
But as he told me himself, the Mihkel Raud that people in Estonia know from books, music, and television is not necessarily the same Mihkel Raud that you will get to know in a one-on-one conversation.
Three years after his Canadian lecture, he had settled in the city of Chicago. Getting to the “Windy City” was not direct, though. It happened after almost moving to Seattle, then moving to San Diego for eight months. This was a huge change for Raud, his wife Liina, and their two children. As he described, it caused a marriage crisis, which then led to writing a book.
Raud broke out onto the book scene with his 2008 rock and roll coming-of-age story/autobiography Musta pori näkku, about his memories of playing music in Estonia during the 80s. However, the challenges encountered since his family arrived in the United States in 2017 were what initiated his 2020 book, Võtku homme mind või saatan. The title could be translated as “Tomorrow may the Devil take me.” It's a line from the Rock Hotel song “Aita mööda saata öö”, which in turn is an adaptation of Kris Kristofferson's pining country ballad “Help Me Make It Through the Night.”
Based on what Raud said, it would seem that the lyric in the title, as Estonians will have heard sung by Ivo Linna, is used in a tongue-in-cheek manner. The book is part advice and part humour; what Raud refers to as “self-irony”, or eneseiroonia in Estonian. It's a genre he's been writing in for five or so years now, including the two books before this one. The advice is based on the scientific theories and studies of other researchers, while the humour and observation are sourced from his own life. Essentially, he wants to “drag the theories through [his] own life experience” and use comedic self-deprecation to make the ideas more relatable.
Before making the transatlantic move, Raud considered Seattle, as it's one of his favourite cities in the US. But at the last minute, while looking for apartments, he and Liina decided that they wanted to try living in a climate even more different than Estonia's. They “fantasized that the idea of eternal summer would be interesting.” Though, as it turned out, if one is used to changing seasons, it can be hard to cope without them. The Raud family had their first American Christmas in sunny San Diego, but were soon drawn to Chicago after a family trip there; enjoying the space, theatre, arts, and lively music scene of the metropolis. From this scene, Liina starting photographing local and national bands that came to the city.
As mentioned above, moving somewhere new wasn't easy. Regarding their marriage crisis, he says, “It's a very common thing that happens to families and couples who move to another country. Even though American culture is not too different for Europeans, it still is. Every country is different from what you're used to. Moving to a totally new culture had a very severe impact on our relationship because I travelled, and still do, back and forth a lot [to Estonia]. But my family stays here in the United States.” His professional life remains wholly in Estonia, and he has been able to pull off an arrangement that works for everybody.
The book follows the journey of someone who has had challenges in their relationships and is luckily able to navigate through that. It describes the process of “how he would have done it if he knew the things he knows now.” The fact that he's someone who has “been around for so many years in the Estonian public eye” gives readers a better chance to connect with the content of the book. “Hopefully they will learn new things about the character, me being the character. Hopefully it's inspirational.” He wants to be honest even to the point that some people might call “too honest.” “Sometimes I paint a picture that might come off as offensive, but it's just so that I can make my point even louder. It's a question of writing style rather than philosophy.” Speaking again about his character, Raud says “the Mihkel Raud in the book is not always and rarely is the same person.”
Still, I wanted to know what the biggest differences were that he noticed between relationships in North America and Estonia. For him, a big difference is willingness to talk.
“Americans love to talk about their relationships, intellectualize about them, analyze them. There's a culture of therapy, which is very new to Estonians. It is starting up now. There are more and more therapists working in Estonia. But in America, everybody has one. Whereas I have never done it before. My wife is very Americanized in that sense, as she likes to talk about stuff. In hindsight, I think that was probably one of the things that created the crisis. I was very unwilling to share my feelings or talk about them. Whereas in America, everybody does it. Americans are not afraid or ashamed of their problems. They're probably ashamed if they don't have problems...Writing about relationships as a 52 year old Estonian man, is unheard of, weird, bizarre.”
“Writing about relationships as a 52 year old Estonian man, is unheard of, weird, bizarre.”
Raud contends that the difference between his book and other relationship books is that the others come from authors who are “winners” who have “tools and knowledge to share.” Conversely, Raud's book is taken from the perspective of someone whom he considers to be more of a “loser.” Someone who is still learning.
For that reason, some of the content may be apparent to readers already. “I would hope the most entertaining part is about the story of this one person, rather than some knowledge that they're about to acquire. There are so many better and more sophisticated, informative books if you want to learn about relationships. But if you want to have a laugh, or relate to someone who has been really bad with relationships throughout his entire life, I think that's what my book aims to achieve.”
Being able to take things less seriously sometimes is a dire necessity. Humour isn't flawless. It may distract us from real problems. But, as Mihkel Raud tries to achieve with Võtku homme mind või saatan, humour can also reveal deeper truths.
Written by Vincent Teetsov
Originally published in Estonian Life.