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Shards from the empire

5 February 2010 | Fiction, Prose

‘Imperiets skärvor’, ‘Shards from the empire’, is from the collection of short stories, Lindanserskan (‘The tightrope-walker’, Söderströms, 2009; Finnish translation Nuorallatanssija, Gummerus, 2009)

Gustav’s greatest passion is for genealogy. He dedicates his free time to sketching coats of arms; masses of colourful, noble crests.

Gustav asked me to do a translation. I sat for ten days trying to decipher a couple of pages from a Russian archive dating from the 1830s. Sentences like, With this letter, we hereby give notice of our gracious decision.‘

The intricate handwriting belonged to some collegiate registrar or other. Perhaps Gogol’s Khlestakov. More…

What if?

30 December 2001 | Articles, Authors

GateA little familyFor an extraordinary period between 1944 and 1956 part of Finland – the Porkkala peninsula, close to Helsinki – was leased to the Soviet Union as a military base. Inspired by the photographs by Jan Kaila, Olli Jalonen explores those silenced and mysterious years, which prompted Finns to ask the question: what if the whole of Finland had succumbed to the same fate?

In the autumn of 1944, the Soviet Union set up an enormous military base close to Helsinki. The Porkkala area, which had been forcibly leased from Finland for 50 years, was returned to the Finns early, in 1956. Completely divorced from its surroundings and strongly armed, the foreign power’s base was like a bear sleeping in Finland’s back yard. It has left in the minds of Finns hidden images of silence, fear and mystery. More…

One hell of a time

31 December 1997 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose

Extracts from Lanthandlerskans son (‘Country shopkeeper’s son’, Söderströms, 1997). Brooklyn Bridge, Christmas Eve: Otto, a Finland-Swede, attempts to start a new life in 1930s America, where swindlers and even gangsters can, he finds, be duped – even Al Capone. Otto’s grandson listens to his story on tape

I have always loved that sight. A city that you see from the air at night, all lit up. It’s’ beautiful – and at the same time so frightening. I don’t really know how to describe it.

Well, it was Christmas Eve. I was wandering around New York. I had eaten at an automat. Do you know what that is? They don’t exist any more, but in the Twenties and Thirties they were common in America. It’s a cafe, but they didn’t have any staff or waiters, instead the walls were full of little glass boxes where the food was on display. You could select what you wanted – sandwiches and pies and salads, anything. Then you put your nickels and dimes in a slot beside the box and the glass opened and’all you had to do was take out the plate. I was fond of the automats. I liked just sitting there and watching other people eat, no one bothered about you, you were left alone and that suited me. When I’d finished eating I went outside again and somehow or other I wandered upon to Brooklyn Bridge. There was a lot of traffic, people were on their way home. Well, just as I was walking there alone in the company of my thoughts I heard someone shouting ‘Help! Help me!’ More…

The coder’s Latin

30 October 2014 | Articles, Non-fiction

Pleasant interface still? Old book bindings ( Merton College library, Oxford, UK). Photo: Wikipedia

Pleasant interface still? Old book bindings (Merton College library, Oxford, UK). Photo: Wikipedia

Writing is arguably brain-control technology, notes our columnist Teemu Manninen. Writing might not be on its way out, at least not quite yet, he thinks, but the printed book might not stay with us for ever. And would that be a happier world?

When the future of literature is discussed, either here in Finland and elsewhere, topics usually revolve around changes in the economics and practicalities of reading, writing, and publishing: how will writers and publishers get paid, and how can readers find more books to read.

What is taken for granted in these instances is that literature itself will continue to be something that exists in a recognisable way – which itself of course implies that writing itself will remain a viable mass medium for the transmission of information over the transcendent, enormous, unfathomable gulfs of space and time, as it has been for thousands of years. More…

tulip, ‘tulip’, and Tulip

30 September 1996 | Archives online, Authors

There are times when, on first reading, an entire collection of poems seems anchored to a single line. The overture to Annukka Peura’s Erotus* (1995) ends with such a crystallized moment:

I pulled the curtains aside,
and there, behind the green-
speckled glass,
dazzling,

was the 20th century.

This expansive sigh became instantly memorable; the landscape it offers is so vast. Most works of art have, in addition to their title, some detail, line, or moment for which a space is reserved in one’s memory, privileged above the work’s other components. For me, Mahler’s Fifth Symphony is represented by the adagietto’s veiled, secretive life, the cathedral at Chartres consists neither of the enormity of its towers nor the abundance of its rosette, but of the sacristy’s specific odor of sacral dust. More…

Science facts, science fiction

31 March 1987 | Archives online, Articles, Authors, Non-fiction

Science fiction has never been one of the great success stories of the Finnish book business. But interest in the genre is nevertheless undoubtedly greater than the sales figures give us to understand. And there are other pointers: at present, for instance, five magazines entirely devoted to the subject are published in Finland.

In 1986 the astronomical society Ursa organised a science fiction writing competition, in connection with which a preliminary bibliography of Finnish science fiction was put together.

That bibliography revealed some surprising science fiction enthusiasts: some of the best-known names in Finnish literature, such as Mika Waltari and Toivo Pekkanen, turned out to have given their imaginations a holiday at some point in their careers and turned their hands to a couple of colourful pieces of science fiction. More…

The Writer’s dilemma

30 June 1984 | Archives online, Authors, Interviews

Marja-Liisa Vartio and Paavo Haavikko

Poets Marja-Liisa Vartio and Paavo Haavikko. Photo: SKS archives

Philip Binham interviews Paavo Haavikko

I think it’s impossible to be just a writer. That would mean isolating oneself completely from the outside world – so it’s important to have other work.

The appointment is on 5 April 1984 in Paavo Haavikko’s city office. Clearly a newly-inhabited office – he recently left his post as Literary Editor for the Otava Publishing Company to become a literary consultant under the letterhead of Arthouse Ltd. A desk jumbled high with papers and photos on which my tape recorder perches precariously; Haavikko is currently working on a history of a leading Finnish industrial enterprise, Wärtsilä. Typewriters, a phone, a few odd chairs, a secretary. Haavikko himself is business-like: well-cut grey suit, well­-trimmed greying hair and beard, neat dark-blue tie: When I play the recording over, our voices echo oddly in the bare, high-ceilinged rooms.

PB: May I start by asking you something about your reading?

PH: That’s a very difficult question for me because up to now I’ve had two jobs – as a writer and a publisher, so my own reading has been more or less non-existent. Writing has taken up all my leisure time. And I thought, now that I’m not in the publishing business any more I’d have time for such reading – but so far I haven’t had any, so that seems to be something for the future. More…

The almost nearly perfect travel book

4 April 2014 | Articles, Non-fiction

Illustration: Joonas Väänänen

Illustration: Joonas Väänänen

The question of what foreign people think of us Finns, and Finland has always been a particularly burning one in these latitudes: a young nation, a small people. Can we be as good as bigger and wealthier nations? Tommi Uschanov reads a new book on the Nordic countries published in England, keeping a sharp eye on what is being said about…. Finland, naturally

When an article based on The Almost Nearly Perfect People: The Truth About the Nordic Miracle by Michael Booth was published last January in the London Guardian, there was a nationwide outcry in Finland. ‘Finland being bashed in the British media,’ one tabloid headlined grandiosely, while a sober financial paper spoke of ‘a broadside full of stinky stuff’. It takes a re-reading of the article after having read the book to understand why. To create an artificial atmosphere of controversy, the article is lop-sidedly critical of Finland in a way which the book goes out of its way to avoid.

The Almost Nearly Perfect People belongs in a by now time-honoured genre within English letters: the humorous encomium to a host culture by an expatriate – or immigrant, as we hosts impolitely insist on calling them. The only difference is that Michael Booth, a British food and travel writer, does not discuss only Denmark, where he has lived for a decade, but visits each of the other four Nordic countries in turn. More…

Re-inventing the book: on the papernet, pod and the unbook

20 May 2009 | Articles, Non-fiction

Mind-map: using the papernet to produce books just for you. Photo: Brian Suda

Mind-map: using the papernet to produce books just for you. - Photo: Brian Suda

Just as Books from Finland finally goes online, the brightest minds of the internet are forecasting a return to paper. In the first of a series of articles, the poet and scholar Teemu Manninen celebrates the second coming of the book

Last week I did something I’ve never done before. I uploaded the manuscript of my third book on to the website Books on Demand, an internet print-on-demand (‘pod’) service, chose the format (a large 19×22 cm size with a hard cover), selected a picture for my cover, copy-pasted a poem by Clark Ashton Smith – an American science fiction and fantasy writer – on the back flap and ordered a copy. More…

Keeping up with the Joneskis

17 April 2009 | Extracts, Non-fiction

Wedding

Toasting the bride: cheerful wedding parties drive up to the Sparrow Hills in Moscow in summer

Moscow-based journalist Anna-Lena Laurén finds the new Russia a promised land of materialism – a place where appearances are everything, and how you pay for maintaining them is a matter of strictly secondary interest

‘I want to go to the nightclub by boat! Come on, let’s hire one,’ Ilya says, heading towards the shore where a boat for at least twenty people is moored. There are six of us.

After two minutes of negotiation, he takes up his position alongside the gangway. He welcomes us onboard with a chivalrous gesture. We step onto the boat and are gently taken off down the Moyka canal in the white night of St Petersburg in June. The sky is pale pink and dark blue-lilac, the air damp and cold, but the captain hands out rugs to keep us warm. The ornamented bridges and pastel-coloured façades of St Petersburg glide past in a faint glow, it’s just light enough to make out the colours, powdery pink, vanilla yellow, pale blue. More…

Away with darkness

28 December 2011 | This 'n' that

Helsinki Cathedral, lit by Martin Kuhn. Photo: Ralph Larmann

Helsinki is about to celebrate its third Season of Light. A team of designers and artists have created a series of works that will transform the urban milieu and buildings into ‘an experience for the senses and emotions’ in early January (31st December to 9 January).

For example, Helsinki Cathedral will be illuminated by light artist Mikki Kunttu, accompanied by a special sound environment. The light installation will run every day from 5 pm to 11 pm.

The German lighting designer Martin Kuhn will create an installation around Unioninkatu street, using LED technology. It will run from 6 pm to 10 pm.

Take a look at the programme – there are also photo and video samples from the previous Seasons of Light – here.

Who knows whether Helsinki will see any snow at New Year either (Christmas was black this time); nevertheless, these colours will brighten up the darkest hours in the city.

And hey, the winter solstice is already behind us, there is going to be more and more light each day!

The Last War Hero

31 March 1981 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose

An extract from 30-åriga kriget (‘The Thirty Years’ War’). Introduction by Markku Envall

First he heard the noise.

It was an unfamiliar noise and therefore doubly dangerous. Viktor grabbed his machine-pistol. It was a sputtering noise, like that of a cracked machine-gun. But it came from above. And what came from above could be dangerous, Viktor knew.

Then he saw the helicopter, flying just above the tree-tops. He had never seen a helicopter before. Nor had he ever seen the circular markings carried by the aircraft as a sign of the nationality. More and more nations were getting involved, he had had a visit from an American, for all he knew this might be a plane from Australia. The Russians must be in a tight corner if they had to keep sending their allies into the firing line.

He bitterly regretted having let the American sergeant get away.

Now they were after him in real earnest. It must have been the Yankee who had sent them.

Viktor directed a long burst of fire at the plane, which was now hovering almost motionless in the air, like a bee over a flower. The bullets shattered the roboter blades, splinters flew in all directions, and the helicopter dived at a steep angle and plunged into the lake. Viktor leapt to his feet and shouted “Hurrah!” and proceeded to execute a gleeful victory dance. He had shot down an enemy aircraft. More…

Life and letters

30 September 1989 | Archives online, Authors, Interviews

Meeting grey-suited Jarkko Laine on a Helsinki street, few would guess that he is a poet. His black briefcase seems more likely to contain accounts and computer printouts than Chinese poems or short stories by Raymond Carver. Few would imagine, either, that this friendly, smiling, gentle poet chairs the Finnish Writers’ Union, a post he has held since 1987.

And even fewer would guess that this is the most characteristic poet of post-war Finland, an ‘urbanist’, ‘child of Marx and Coca-Cola’, ‘mouthpiece for his generation’, ‘Nordic beatnik’, ‘the Gladstone Gander of Finnish literature, who succeeds in everything he sets his hand to’…

‘Sometimes it seems to me that people still brand me as a young poet,’ says Jarkko Laine, whose work is prolific and diverse: poetry, prose and journalism, in his capacity as editor-in-chief of the literary journal Parnasso. More…

Midsummer madness

31 December 2005 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose

An extract from the novel Voimattomuus (‘Powerlessness’, WSOY, 2005). Introduction by Maila-Katriina Tuominen

Cast:
a man
a woman
a boy

Midsummer Eve. A cabin.Outside it’s raining a little, but the blanket of clouds is already breaking up.
It’s bright in the cabin, like daylight. The table is set.
A bunch of wild violets, torn from its means of support, droops in the middle of the table, surrounded by stemmed glasses and paper napkins folded into the shape of swans. The champagne, aquavit and white wine are still chilling.
A man and a woman walk into the cabin wearing bathrobes. She has a terrycloth towel wound around her head like a turban. They’re coming from the sauna. He looks at the table with surprise. The table is set for three.
She notices the man’s gaze and hurries into the bedroom to get dressed.
He takes a beer out of the refrigerator and sits down at the table in his bathrobe.
A long silence. More…

Hearth, home – and writing

30 December 2007 | Archives online, Extracts, Non-fiction

Extracts from Fredrika Runeberg’s Min pennas saga, (‘The story of my pen’, ca. 1869–1877). Introduction by Merete Mazzarella

The joy and happiness I experience at being able to see into [her husband] Runeberg’s soul, at living with him in his heart and his thoughts, belong far too firmly to the mysteries of my soul that I should wish to attempt to express them in words. But of the life that existed around us I should like to try and give an impression of sorts.

We moved to Borgå in 1837. I was unfamiliar with the town and knew only a little old lady, weak with age, and found myself very lonely indeed, accustomed as I was to living with relatives and a genial circle of friends. I did, however, still have my two eldest sons at home to keep me happy and occupied. More…