Archive for March, 1997
I was born here
Issue 1/1997 | Archives online, Fiction, poetry
Poems, introduction by Ilpo Tiihonen
Bloggs
You work eight hours a day,
sleep thirteen.
Three hours are gone in eating
and telling dirty stories by your bed.
When they say, ‘If only you’d
read something, mate –
you’re dribbling your life away,’
back you come with:
‘Living like this 1 make everything mine.’
Bloggs, Bloggs,
should the world be changed for you?
From Tie pilven alta ('The way out of the cloud', 1939) More...
The monster reveal’d
Issue 1/1997 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose
Extracts from the novel Frankensteinin muistikirja (‘Frankenstein’s notebook’, Kirjayhtymä, 1996). Ern(e)st Hemingway and Gertrud(e) Stein – the narrator in these extracts – meet the famous creature in Paris. According to Juha K. Tapio in this, his first novel, Mary Shelley’s monster has been leading an interesting life during the past few centuries
My first impression was that there wasn’t anything particularly monstrous about him. I have already said that his age was hard to determine, but there was something about him that tempted one to apply the word ‘elderly’ to him. He was up in years, no doubt about that, but in a rather special, indefinable way – which made it hard to infer, at least from his outward appearance, what stage he had reached in terms of normal human life. It had to do with something outside of time. He was tall and a little more raw-boned than the average person, and this made one wonder, looking at him, what kind of body his very fashionable clothing concealed his suit and tie conformed to the latest style. This was certainly not the misshapen and monstrous creature I vividly remembered from Mary Shelley’s description.
It was obvious that the past decades had brought about an inevitable evolution. More…
Things
Issue 1/1997 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose
A short sory from Kaunis nimi (‘A lovely name’, Otava, 1996). Raija Siekkinen’s limpid prose is at its best when she explores the complex feelings that lie behind the events of everyday life. Here objects are indicators of emotions, memory and loss, and what is most important is left unsaid
And where was the pen, the fountain pen, black, chubby; the one which pumped the ink straight up from the bottle?
There were three gold-coloured bands on the cap of the pen, and its nib, too, was golden, It had been given to her in a case lined with black velvet, and there was a groove for the pen, and a depression for the ink-bottle; and the bottle was narrow -necked, with curving sides, and the ink in it was not bright blue, but dark, so that words written in it looked old, written a long time ago; one forgot that one had written them oneself, one read them like the words of a stranger.
She remembered the pen, and began slowly to wake up. More…
An infinite number of days
Issue 1/1997 | Archives online, Fiction, poetry
Poems from Molnsommar (‘Cloud summer’, Schildts, 1996). Introduction by Tuva Korsström
Old man
He almost merely slept
and while he slept
his life was accomplished.
Pieces slid out
were examined and fitted together
and while he slept
he was made ready. More…
I am a happy person
Issue 1/1997 | Archives online, Fiction, poetry
Poems from En lycklig mänska (‘A happy person’, Söderströms, 1996). Introduction by Rika Lesser
Why shouldn't Johann Sebastian Bach be good enough
even in this my 59th summer.
I contemplate the apple tree in the middle of the field.
The continuo branches out just above the earth into four
trunks, which, in turn, divide
into arms more slender, where the fruits ripen.
The foliage patterns the sky, hands plait the voices
into a basket.
Under the earth, where the roots rehearse, I wait for
the succulent, faintly sour fruit.
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