Miranda July’s All Fours turns desire into a literary adventure

Miranda July’s novel All Fours, published in Estonian as Käpuli, follows a woman who abandons the itinerary of an intended trip and embarks on an unexpected journey into desire. ERR’s review, originally published in Värske Rõhk, examines the Estonian translation by Jüri Kolk, published by Puänt in 2026.

Dark wooden furniture, two armchairs turned slightly towards each other, a small mosaic table, an open shower covered in ochre limewash and a huge queen-size bed with an embroidered cover pulled smooth, as in a hotel. We have to sleep in the same bed for the next ten days.

The whole room-sharing situation makes me slightly anxious. Or is it excitement? It is difficult to tell the difference. We have not seen each other for a long time. We talk about this and that, joking that the room is our honeymoon suite. I watch as she takes things out of her bag while talking and arranges them neatly on a shelf. Is she always this orderly, or is it because I am here? We sit close together on the edge of the bed, our feet not reaching the floor.

“Have you read Miranda July?”

“I haven’t. Someone just told me about her,” I reply.

“She has a voice in the film Love of Fire, did you know? You should watch it.”

Our eyes meet. She shows me a new copy of All Fours that has already been read enough to become creased. “You would definitely like it.” I try to read the description on the back cover, but the words do not register. She adjusts her large mass of hair.

“Is it okay with you if I do not sleep here every night?”

“Of course,” I reply, before the disappointment reaches my throat.

I begin unpacking my things. Since our last meeting, something has heated up between her and our mutual friend, who is staying at a hotel a few streets closer to the sea.

Later, I notice Elisa on social media posing with the Estonian translation of the book. I trust her taste completely. Borrowing it from the library is out of the question. I make a plan for which shop would feel right for buying Käpuli, imagining myself spending the following week sprawled across the bed and devouring the novel, exactly as my friend did in our marital bed.

Of course, I am not entirely sure that it is the same book. Does any work remain the same after being translated into another language? Is that even the goal? Even the way the number of letters in the original title changes the cover’s design affects the feeling of the book. All Fours curves slightly downwards at the edges of the cover, while the author’s name rises upwards, creating an opening in the centre through which golden light can be seen. The Estonian title Käpuli, by contrast, is much straighter and more decisive. Some playfulness has been lost, although it would be too much to expect translator Jüri Kolk to ensure that every word retained the same shape and length after translation. Fortunately, Albert Bierstadt’s painting of Yosemite Valley is still in the book.

Käpuli flows through my body. At its centre is a woman in her forties, a creative person who decides to use a substantial fee earned from a commercial project to travel to New York. She does not get very far, stopping instead at a motel near her home. Soon, her room becomes a luxurious cave, while the husband and child left at home turn into wallpaper against which groundbreaking desires flare up.

The woman’s inner world unfolds gently. To acknowledge it, she must meet a world-famous singer, experience the touch of an older woman and masturbate a considerable amount. The book would of course be only half as captivating without the lesbian best friend whose life appears perfectly calm against the backdrop of the narrator’s vivid journey of discovery.

Because I have been taught since secondary school to construct my thoughts in English, I often find it difficult to enjoy literature in my native language. The structure of a language shapes experience and self-perception, including what I see and how I see it. Now, however, it feels as though I am reading an English frame rate in Estonian words.