Books from Finland - A literary journal of writing from and about Finland.

A father kidnaps his 10-year-old daughter and flees to the western extremity of Europe, to Ireland, to begin a new life under new names. In the following extract, the girl is in a state of shock after witnessing an event organised by a religious sect in which animals are driven over a cliff to their death. The year 2000 approaches, and with it clarification of the relationship between father and daughter. An extract from Olli Jalonen’s novel Isäksi ja tyttäreksi (‘Becoming father and daughter’). Introduction by Erkka Lehtola

He begins leading his daughter back the way they came, along the hillside and the lip of the precipice.

The blare of the Legion’s display carries far, till finally the voices are scrambled in the bluster of the wind. The electricity crackles in the loudspeakers, and the thundersheets rumble out to the audience. ‘Be silent!’ come the roars from the plat­ form: ‘And look at each other! Each is fearfully following his way, each is a venue of good and evil, each is inscribed with God’s name!’ More…

Extracts from the memoir of a Helsinki childhood, Från Twenty Gold till Kent (‘From Twenty Gold to Kent’, Schildts, 2003). Introduction by Pia Ingström

My hair was dark and stuck up from my skull like little nails. My face was furrowed with red, my throat was wrinkled and I didn’t even have a pretty navel. This was because Daddy had to knot my umbilical cord himself while the obstetrician was busy on the ground floor with an appendix.

‘She looks like a forty-year-old errand-boy from the newspaper’s office: Daddy announced.

Mummy said she hoped I would soon change and have a long neck.

At Apollogatan street we took the lift up to the third floor where my sisters were waiting with the new nanny. They had no chance to welcome me with singing as they’d planned because both Renata and Catherine had colds. Nobody was going to be allowed to breathe anywhere near me, Mummy and Nanny were entirely agreed on that. More…

Extracts from the novel Vanikan palat (‘Pieces of crispbread’, Otava, 2004). Interview by Soila Lehtonen

Dad’s at the mess again. Comes back some time in the early hours. Clattering, blubbing, clinging to some poem, he collapses in the hall.

We pretend to sleep. It’s not a bad idea to take a little nap. After a quarter of an hour Dad wakes up. Comes to drag us from our beds. Crushes us four sobbing boys against his chest as if he were afraid that a creeping foe intended to steal us. We cry too, of course, but from pain. Four boys belted around a non-commissioned officer is too much. It hurts. And the grip only tightens. Dad whines:

‘Boys, I will never leave you. Dad will never give his boys away. There will be no one who can take you from me.’ More…

From the novel Luonnollinen ravinto (‘A natural diet’, WSOY, 1994). Interview by Tuva Korsström

My dear, wise and ever-faithful secretary, colleague, friend and right hand, you who, without counting the hours, have been my helpmeet in many awkward situations, and not only in work matters but in others, all sorts of matters that belong to my private life and particularly those, you have remembered things that I have found hard to remember, like the birthday of my wife or some important colleague, and at Christmas you have always remembered me with some small gift, always different and always carefully chosen, of which I hardly need say how much it has warmed my heart, when I haven’t been able to do better than a single miserable hyacinth. And you have always reminded me of engagements I haven’t been able to keep track of: dentists, barbers, garages, less important and more important receptions, lunches and dinners, but what is most important, and why l am most grateful to you, is that in your generosity and open-mindedness – your eternal femininity – you have understood that a person in my position may sometimes find himself in situations whose consequences he cannot always control, and that he begins to be bothered by all sorts of people, although they should understand from the smallest hint that their company is not required, and you have sensitively but firmly turned them away, sometimes telling a little lie, and you have never, ever taken a moral stand or judged my actions, but have averted your eyes, having made the decision to accept that your boss is anything but perfect. For that reason I wish to express my gratitude to you; but not, however, unreservedly. Our seamless collaboration, my ever-lovable secretary, has meant that something belonging to me has begun to belong to you, that you have become part of me just as I have become part of my wife, even before she touches me with her fork. So I have no doubt that you, too, could appear at the dinner that is soon to be arranged. Bon appetit! More…

An extract from the novel Vieras (‘The stranger’, Otava 1992). Introduction by Pekka Tarkka

I lay there for a moment, motionless, eyes closed.

The bunk was damp. It felt damp around my thighs; I slid down lower – and there, it was really wet.

My sleeping bag was obviously soaked, and that meant that the mattress was soaked, too. Oh, rats. I couldn’t imagine having wet myself. Or – worse – had the boat sprung a leak, the water already rising up to the floorboards? I bounded to my feet: the rugs were dry. So was the cabin floor. I raised the boards, peered down: two fingers of water in the forward bilge, as usual. So, where the –? In the course of yesterday’s rough sailing, some water had seeped in below the windowframe. No more than a cupful, but it had trickled down inside the panel and then onto the mattress. I tried the other side of the bunk. It was dry. Well, I would just have to pick up the mattress and set it on its side. More…