Search results for "2010/02/2011/04/2009/10/writing-and-power"

What makes a classic?

31 March 2004 | Archives online, Authors, Reviews

In the bicentenary year of Finland’s national poet, Johan Ludvig Runeberg, Pertti Lassila sets his work against the background of the country’s turbulent history

The fifth of February, birthday of Johan Runeberg (1804–1877), a Finnish poet who wrote in his native Swedish, was already a patriotic festival in the 19th century; lighted candles were set in the windows of the Grand Duchy of Finland. Late in the century, the custom became a silent protest against the measures which, in the opinion of Finns, represented Russian oppression and threatened the country’s autonomy. The candle tradition later moved to Finland’s independence day, 6 December.

When, in 1904, the centenary of Runeberg’s birth was celebrated, Russian pressure meant that this was a politically uncertain and dramatic period. A crisis developed when a Finnish student named Eugen Schauman, in the June of the same year, murdered the Russian governor general, Nikolai Ivanovitch Bobrikov, in Helsinki for political reasons. Runeberg’s centenary year gathered the nation around the poet who, more than any other in Finland, was the symbol of love of the country. The first systematic translation project for the rendering of Runeberg’s work into Finnish was also in progress. More…

Question time

30 June 2006 | Archives online, Authors

Ei. Siis kyllä (‘No. That is to say, yes’, WSOY, 2006) by Paavo Haavikko, the incredibly productive and versatile grand old man of Finnish letters, is a series of apothegms – ‘short, witty, instructive sayings,’ according to your basic dictionary definition. Formally, these may remind one of the Egyptian-born French writer Edmond Jabès’s works, Le Livre des Questions (The Book of Questions), but  is not so much a book of questions as it is a book of statements.

As the editor and translator of a number of Haavikko’s works over the past forty years, including two versions of a Selected Poems, two prose works, and, most recently, Kaksikymmentä ja yksi (One and Twenty), a wild mock epic of a band of Finnish Vikings travelling down to Constantinople and on to Africa, I have gained familiarity with the poet’s favourite images and strategies. He employs indirection and ambiguity with great skill:

‘There is no answer without a question, and without knowing the question you cannot understand the answer. But it has always been our habit to ask the question ourselves, then answer it ourselves. That is the only way to gain scientifically valid answers. Therefore, questions must be constructed with exactitude, to prevent their turning into answers.’ More…

Words and silences

31 March 1991 | Archives online, Authors

A collection of poems and photographs by the Finnish Lapp artist Nils-Aslak Valkeapää is an uncompromising statement of the culture of one of Europe’s last truly local peoples

After its supersonic journey across the skies, Concorde lands at Rovaniemi airport. The steel bird disgorges its cargo: rich Europeans on a day trip to Lapland. Among them are a few even more long-distance travellers, from Japan.

Father Christmas greets them cordially. They visit the Arctic Circle. They eat in the frosty outdoors, in front of a roaring campfire. They ride in a reindeer sled. It is the exotic experience they have hoped for; they laugh for the pleasure of it. More…

Temporarily out of order

10 May 2012 | Fiction, Prose

Extracts from the novel Hullu (‘The lunatic’, Teos, 2012). Introduction by Soila Lehtonen

I found myself standing in front of the noticeboard. The rules were on a sheet of paper:

Ward 15 5-C
MEAL TIMES:
Breakfast 8:00 AM
Lunch 11:45 AM
Dinner 4:30 PM
Evening Snack 7:30 PM
COFFEE:
After lunch
We recommend leaving money, valuables, and bankbooks for storage in the ward valuables locker. We take no responsibility for items not left in the locker! Money may be retrieved 1–3 times per day. Use of mobile phones on the ward by arrangement.
VISITING HOURS:
M–F 2–7 PM
Sa–Su 12–7 PM
PERSONAL CLOTHING:
Use of one’s own clothing by individual arrangement. Clothing care individual. Washer and dryer available for use in the evenings after 6 PM.
OUTDOOR RECREATION:
Arranged individually according to health condition. Outdoor pass does not include the right to leave the area.
VACATIONS:
Vacations arranged during morning report, according to health condition.
NOTA BENE!
Smoking is only allowed on the smoking balcony! Smoking prohibited from 11 PM to 6 AM.
Pastor Karvonen available by appointment.

These were impossibly difficult rules. I read them through three times and simply did not understand. ‘Clothing care individual.’ ‘Outdoor pass does not include the right to leave the area.’

What did these sentences mean? With whom did you schedule the pastor and how? And why? More…

Awards for young fiction

29 January 2010 | In the news

This year’s Topelius Prize has gone to Sello & Pallo. Vaaleansininen rakkauskertomus (‘Cello & Ball: a pale blue love story’, Tammi), a first novel for young people by the scriptwriter and film director Lauri Törhönen. More…

Jukka Sarjala: Kotomaamme outo Suomi [Finland, our strange homeland]

4 April 2013 | Mini reviews, Reviews

sarjala.jukkaKotomaamme outo Suomi
[Finland, our strange homeland]
Helsinki: Teos, 2013. 264 p.
ISBN 978-951-851-440-7
€ 27, paperback

Jukka Sarjala, ex-director general of the Finnish National Board of Education and bibliophile, is the author of several works of non-fiction, mainly in the field of history. In this book he focuses on the phenomena and events that characterised early twentieth-century Finland, some of them rather peculiar. In a couple of dozen chapters written in a humorous and conversational style the author does not conceal his own opinions, for example, on the foolishness of politicians. Much of the writing is devoted to the era of Finnish independence and the Finnish Civil War, as well as to episodes from political history, such as the story of the attempt to import to the newly independent country a German-born prince as King of Finland, the vagaries of the political far right and far left, the recruitment of Finnish Reds into the British Army – and the horse that gave rise to a small rebel movement. Sarjala draws many fascinating portraits of early twentieth-century figures, for example the utopian socialist Matti Kurikka and the founder of a party that in some ways anticipated the present-day True Finns [Perussuomalaiset], the talkative politician Veikko Vennamo (1913–1997). Although the book lacks footnotes and a bibliography, it demonstrates its author’s extensive reading.
Translated by David McDuff

Blowing in the wind

26 November 2010 | Reviews

Clarinettist who travelled: Bernhard Crusell

Bernhard Crusell: Keski-Euroopan matkapäiväkirjat 1803–1822
[Bernhard Crusell: Travel Diaries from Central Europe, 1803–1822]
Suom. ja toim. [Translated into Finnish and edited by] Janne Koskinen
Helsinki: Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seura [Finnish Literature Society], 271 p., ill.
ISBN 978-952-222-090-5
€28, hardback

Born the son of a poor bookbinder on the west coast of Finland, Bernhard Crusell (1775–1838) had talents as a clarinettist and composer that brought him considerable fame, both in his native country and further afield. Hannu Marttila reads the diaries he wrote on his travels in Europe, where his meetings with the great and the good chart the emergence of the new Romantic sensibility

‘Felix is a most beautiful child, and he is also said to be very unassuming. In his compositions one immediately recognises the signs of genius and good training. He continues to study under Zelter, and, thanks to an anticipated large inheritance, he, too, may become an independent composer. People here think he may even become another Mozart.’ More…

Intelligent living

8 June 2015 | Fiction, Prose

Minna Lindgren

Minna Lindgren. Photo: Ville Palonen.

In Ehtoolehdon tuho [‘The decline of Twilight Grove’, Teos, 2015), the final novel in a trilogy about life in an assisted living home, employing human staff has become too expensive and the old folk are part of a pilot project in which they are cared for by electronic devices, monitors, cameras, ‘smartwalls’ and cleaning robots: ‘there was intelligence everywhere, masses of it, just a hiccup and something terribly intelligent would happen.’

The aged lady residents don’t like their new life, but they’re resilient; they’re not about to let the new technology defeat them…

Minna Lindgren’s mordantly satirical, often hilariously funny writing has earned her a wide readership. Translations of the trilogy are soon to appear in English, German and French.

textdivider

An excerpt from Ehtoolehdon tuho [‘The decline of Twilight Grove’, Teos, 2015). Review by Soila Lehtonen

‘You’re 97 today! Your wakeup call service today congratulates!’

As if she wouldn’t have remembered. Ninety-seven was almost a hundred. She and Irma had decided that they would refuse to turn one hundred. It would only make trouble. One lady, in the bottom apartment of the A staircase, had received an invitation to the health centre on her birthday. Apparently all five-year-olds were called in for monitoring of their motor and psychological development, and when this lady turned 105, the computer system thought she was a toddler. The computer didn’t recognise numbers over one hundred. Siiri thought the lady should have kept the appointment; she would have done, for the tests were fun. You had to draw a triangle and walk along a straight line. Not that easy for someone of 105. But the lady didn’t go, she just made a terrible fuss about it and complained to everyone, until she died before her complaints reached the right official. More…

Rauhan ytimessä. Sadankomitea 50 vuotta [In the core of peace. Sadankomitea at 50]

3 April 2014 | Mini reviews, Reviews

rauhan_ytimessaRauhan ytimessä. Sadankomitea 50 vuotta
[In the core of peace. Sadankomitea at 50]
Toim. [Ed. by] Johanna Sumuvuori
Helsinki: Into, 2013. 170 pp., ill .
ISBN 978-952-264-264-6
€23, paperback

The nonpartisan Sadankomitea (‘Committee of 100’) peace organisation was founded in Finland in 1963 by the young radicals of their time. The movement was inspired by certain British non-governmental organisations. Its policies were established by research, discussion and writing rather than by direct action and marching. An important feature of the movement, especially during the Cold War, was its distinction from Rauhanpuolustajat (The Finnish Peace Committee), which was considered to be a mouthpiece of the Soviet Union. The movement’s discussion forum was the journal Ydin (‘The core’), founded in 1967, whose articles had more weight than its circulation might have suggested, a fact that also indicates Sadankomitea’s influence. This commemorative book contains a dozen or so articles in which peace movement veterans – including Finland’s foreign minister Erkki Tuomioja, who is a founding member – and younger activists discuss the movement’s work for peace. The fascinating articles range from personal recollections to analytical overviews.

Translated by David McDuff

The living
 and the dead

31 March 1995 | Archives online, Authors

The idea of the primacy of matter has taken on increasingly sombre resonances in
 Tiina Kaila’s work: in her third novel, Koe (‘The experiment’),
 an eccentric doctor seeks to reduce his human guinea-pigs to their primary,
 material, factors – and himself becomes the subject of his cruel experiment.

Tiina Kaila (born 1951) first came to the attention of the wider reading public in 1990 
with Bruno, a novel about the scientist and philosopher Giordano Bruno, whom the
 Inquisition burned at the stake in 1600; Bruno reached the final list for the Finlandia
 Prize. In creating her fictive Bruno, Kaila wished to
 portray how ‘terrifying, absurd and crazy a struggle the perception of the world is’.

Both Bruno and Koe combine acts of extreme violence with esoteric thought. But Kaila
 began as a children’s writer and a poet: her first book, a collection of poems entitled 
Keskustelu hämärässä (‘Conversation at dusk’), appeared in 1975, and was followed by
 children’s books and more poetry. More…

Fight Club

16 April 2012 | Fiction, Prose

A short story from Himokone (‘Lust machine’, WSOY, 2012). Interview by Anna-Leena Ekroos

Karoliina wondered whether her name was suitable for a famous poet.

Her first name was alright – four syllables, and a bit old-fashioned. But Järvi didn’t inspire any passion. Should she change her name before her first collection came out? Was there still time? She had four months until September.

Even if The flower of my secret was the name of some old movie, Karoliina clung to the title she’d chosen. It described the book’s multifaceted, erotically-tinged sensory world and the essential place of nature in the poems. Karoliina loved to take long walks in the woods. Sometimes she talked to the trees.

She had been meeting new people. At the writer’s evening organised by her publisher, she’d been seated next to Märta Fagerlund, in the flesh. Karoliina had read Fagerlund’s poems since her teens, and seen her charisma light up the stage on cultural television shows.

At first Karoliina couldn’t get a word out of her mouth. She just blushed and dripped gravy on her lap. But the longer the evening went on, the more ordinary Märta seemed. She was even calling her Märta, and telling her about a new friend on Facebook who said how ‘awfully funny’ Märta was. In fact, the squeaky-voiced Märta, with her enthusiasm for Greece, was a bit dry, and, after three glasses of white wine, tedious. But Karoliina never mentioned it to anyone, because she wasn’t a spiteful person. More…

The last glass of champagne

30 June 2005 | Archives online, Authors, Reviews

Anton Chekhov, at Yalta on the Black Sea to treat his tuberculosis, travels to Moscow in spring to meet his wife Olga, who is working as an actress in Stanislavsky’s Moscow Art Theatre. They have long had to maintain their relationship by letter. Now the doctors believe the patient must be sent to Germany for treatment at a spa. He himself does not want to acknowledge his condition, although as a doctor he cannot be unaware of the signs of approaching death. Olga accompanies him with mixed feelings, for she does not wish to interrupt her career.

Raine Mäkinen (born 1938) has been a rather unfamiliar name in literary circles. His novel Kuuma syksy (‘Hot autumn’) was selected as the best first Finnish-language novel of the year 1974, and in his long, rather than productive, career as a writer he published a few more novels before retiring from his position as chemist and industrial hygienist. Voin ja paljon paremmin (‘I already feel much better’, Loki, 2004), a novel about Anton Chekhov and Olga Knipper, is the work of a mature writer: biographical facts, understanding of human nature and imagination are well balanced. Mäkinen’s novel seems to have grown out of a virtually lifelong admiration and love for Chekhov. He does not try to write about Chekhov using Chekhov’s own style, of course – but his text breathes a simplicity, naturalness and purity impossible to achieve without hard work and humility. He does not try for pretty words, but he writes beautiful text. More…

Words of music

30 June 1993 | Archives online, Authors

Pentti Saaritsa believes that the perfect line of poetry is one from which all possible internal uncertainty has been honed away, which is based on lived reality, which stands up for the weak against injustice, which does not play games with words, whose strength lies in its rhythmic logic, above which spreads the sky and below which hell resounds. That is also the nature of his poetry. Resounding language.

In 1984 an ‘experimental’ group of musicians and composers, Toimii!, whose members included Esa-Pekka Salonen, currently principal conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, and the composer Magnus Lindberg, commissioned from a work from Saaritsa. The result was Ascensus, a composition – at least in the sense that it is performed in concerts, and that Saaritsa receives the relevant copyright fees. On the other hand, it is also poetry – it has, after all, been published as part of a collection of poetry. More…

Imagine

25 November 2014 | Authors, Reviews

Susanne Ringell. Photo: Anders Larsson

Susanne Ringell. Photo: Anders Larsson

Dreams about and in the Eternal City. Leonard Cohen who plays a shanty by the Swedish poet Dan Andersson on the lute. The narrator of these prose poems gives birth to a daughter who is as small as a fountain pen, but perfect and just the right size – and she brings up a litter of puppies too.

This and much more is included in the wonderful new collection of prose poetry, Tärnornas station – en drömbok (‘The Lucia Maids’ station – a book of dreams’, Ellips, 2014) by Susanne Ringell (born 1955), one of the most personal voices in Finland-Swedish literature today. After an early career as an actress, she made her debut with a short story collection in 1993, and since then she has written short prose of different varieties, poetry, and plays. In Ringell’s work there is nothing amiss in the style and language, in the audacious combinations, in the chronicled sadness and the unwaveringly discrete humour. With fantastic clarity she approaches the most elusive of motifs, the deepest content of the soul, making it vivid and recognisable. More…

Face to face

31 December 1989 | Archives online, Authors, Fiction, Prose

Daniel Katz interviewed by himself

I’m awaiting Daniel Katz surrounded by the wooden walls of his study, in what was formerly an old corn-shed.

‘For me,’ his wife confides, ‘he knocked together a study out of a stall in the cowshed.’ Then she withdraws to her cowpen, where she’s translating Bellman’s songs from Swedish.

Through the study window I can see a bit of eastern-Uusimaa forest, the village lane, and the corner of the family’s reddle-daubed peasant hut. A little distance away, like this, the boarding looks in better shape than it does close-up. The family dog, a Lapphund, is lying on the sofa and keeping a trained eye on me: with no reindeer to herd, he’ll make do with me. More…