Author: Juhani Peltonen

Elmo’s fire

Issue 2/2008 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose

Extracts from the novel Elmo (WSOY, 1978)

After returning to Finland and Kainalniemi, Elmo got to feel like a celebrity. The various sport clubs were insufferably keen on getting Elmo into their training rings, but Elmo rebuffed them. He had belonged to Kainalniemi Sweat since he was a little boy, and that was enough for him. His mind was occupied by other matters. In the end, even his mother and father began to wonder at his attitude.

‘Why don’t you just go, since they keep asking, and since you do seem to have some talent in that direction,’ his mother urged as she made Sunday coffee from the can Elmo had brought as a gift.

‘Right. Somewhere down the road you could snatch a few gold medals out from under the noses of the others, just for the hell of it,’ his father said. More…

The Blinking Doll

Issue 2/1988 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose

A short story from Metsästys joulun alla (‘The hunt before Christmas’, 1982). Introduction by Erkka Lehtola

There was a strong bond between Juutinen and Multikka: both their lives, from their beginnings, had been fragmented and scattered, lacking any solid, reliable points of support. Even their marriages had come and gone; they had left no residue worth remembering. As in the old parable, their lives resembled the trail a skier leaves in fresh snow in a blizzard: behind him, it disappears in a few moments without a trace, and ahead and on either side there is only pristine density and no one or nothing one might follow. More…

Where have I gone?

Issue 2/1988 | Archives online, Fiction, poetry

Poems from Näköisveistos ruumiskirstusta (‘An effigy of a coffin’, 1987). Introduction by Erkka Lehtola

The maple is being stripped for nesting materials
by big crow and his lady.
Their endeavours are more pleasing
than the imminent drinking party, in a finished house
in celebration of early spring. Dreary, to know
in advance that one is insulting one’s guests
– and not even in a constructive manner. More…