Search results for "2011/04/2009/10/2010/05/song-without-words"
Below and above the surface
13 March 2014 | Extracts, Non-fiction
Fårö, Gotland, Sweden. Photo: Lauri Rotko
The Baltic Sea, surrounded by nine countries, is small, shallow – and polluted. The condition of the sea should concern every citizen on its shores. The photographers Jukka Rapo and Lauri Rotko set out in 2010 to record their views of the sea, resulting in the book See the Baltic Sea / Katso Itämerta (Musta Taide / Aalto ARTS Books, 2013). What is endangered can and must be protected, is their message; the photos have innumerable stories to tell
We packed our van for the first photo shooting trip in early May, 2010. The plan was to make a photography book about the Baltic Sea. We wanted to present the Baltic Sea free of old clichés.
No unspoiled scenic landscapes, cute marine animals, or praise for the bracing archipelago. We were looking for compelling pictures of a sea fallen ill from the actions of man. We were looking for honesty. More…
Helsinki: World Design Capital 2012
13 January 2012 | This 'n' that
Swimming in the rain: winter joys of Helsinki. Photograph: Valtteri Hirvonen – Eriksson & Co.
After Turin (Italy, 2008) and Seoul (Republic of Korea, 2010), 2012 Helsinki is the third World Design Capital, selected in 2009 by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID).
Helsinki was considered to be a city where ‘design has for decades been a pivotal enabler to building an open city’.
The theme is ‘Open Helsinki – Embedding Design in Life‘. The idea is to improve the everyday life and environment of the citizens and the development of both public services and private enterprises.
In addition to Helsinki, the realisation of the Design Capital year will be carried out by four other cities: neighbouring Espoo, Vantaa and Kauniainen as well as Lahti (some hundred kilometres north of the capital). The Finnish government, two ministries, 21 commercial companies and some universities will co-operate in this project, which has a budget of 16 million euros (2010–2013).
The programme includes some 300 different events, half of them development projects, themed ‘The changing city’ or ‘New solutions’; the other half consists of various exhibitions and encounters for the citizens of Helsinki, tourists and design people.
The ultimate goal of this all is said to be ‘permanent change’. Whatever that really means – good luck!
However, as writer and design critic Kaj Kalin noted in a review in Helsingin Sanomat newspaper (30 December), Finland is full of well-educated designers, but lacks both investment money prepared to take risks and working industry: soon all production will have moved to cheaper countries – and nobody will be able to produce anything. New Finnish design, Kalin argues, mostly approximates merely to ‘a show parade of models and prototypes’.
The life of a lonely friend
30 September 1986 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose
Bo Carpelan. Photo: Charlotta Boucht
Extracts from Bo Carpelan‘s novel Axel, ‘a fictional memoir’ (1986). In his preface to the novel Bo explains how he ‘found’ Axel.
Preface
In the 1930s I came across the name of Axel Carpelan (1858-1919), my paternal grandfather’s brother, in Karl Ekman’s Jean Sibelius and His Work (1935). In the bibliography, the author briefly mentions quotes from letters in the book addressed to Axel Carpelan, ‘who belonged to the Master’s most intimate circle of friends, and in musical matters was his constant confidant. Sibelius commemorated their friendship by dedicating his second symphony to him’. I had never heard Axel’s name mentioned in my own family.
Many years after Karl Ekman, the original incentive for the novel about Axel arose through Erik Tawaststjerna’s biography of Sibelius, in which Axel is portrayed in the second volume (1967) of the Finnish edition, and whose life came to an end in Part IV (1978). From early 1970s onwards, I started notes for Axel’s fictional diary from to 1919. It is not known whether Axel himself ever kept a diary. I relied as muchas possible on all the available facts. These increased when I was given access to letters exchanged between Axel and Janne from the year 1900 onwards. It became the story of the hidden strength a very lonely and sick man, and of a friendship in which the give and take both sides was far greater than Axel himself could ever have imagined.
Hagalund, June 1st, 1985
Bo Carpelan
1878, Axel’s diary
15.1.
On my twentieth birthday, I remember the young Wolfgang; ‘Little Wolfgang has no time to write because he has nothing to do. He wanders up and down the room like a dog troubled by flies’. However, that dog achieved a paradise. I have learnt yet one more piece of wisdom: ‘It is my habit to treat people as I find them; that is the most rewarding in the long run’. More…
Change the words
30 March 2008 | Fiction, poetry
Poems from Bul bul (‘Bulbul’, WSOY, 2007). Introduction by Karri Kokko
Opening
Which street was it? A question in a poem doesn’t demand an answer, it’s
itself, like that accurate filter, a blood-soaked liver –
The city was a giant, budging my brains, the fireworks’
ash trailed down to earth, the clowns screeched, a book’s face
was waiting like a child’s face,
and they began swarming out, releasing themselves from signposts,
neon signs, from the pages of a closed book (smelling of a dried
ranunculus), from graves, from a woman’s abhorrent womb – More…
Oink oink
23 June 2011 | This 'n' that
Naturally, here at Books from Finland, we’re keen to use the internet for serious (or not so serious) reading, but at the other end of the scale Finns are garnering considerable success in the world of smartphone games.
We don’t like to blow our collective trumpets, but it’s a little-known fact that the phone game Angry Birds, with birds and pigs in the starring roles, is actually Finnish, developed in 2009 by a company called Rovio. As the Helsinki freesheet Metro (31 May) notes, Angry Birds has been downloaded more than 200 million times on different devices since its launch in December 2009.
What is the secret of Angry Birds’ success? ‘I like it because it doesn’t really have any rules and you never know exactly what’s going to happen next,’ says our young reviewer Sophia, 9; her sister, Tia, 5, says ‘I like it because you get to shoot in it.’ To judge by the amount of time they spend playing Angry Birds, they like it a lot.
And how did Angry Birds come about? ‘At the beginning of 2009 our design group went through a number of different options,’ Rovio’s communications director Ville Heijari tells Metro. ‘One of them was angry-looking birds, and everyone fell in love with them right away.’ And what does Heijari himself like best about the game? ‘Definitely the fact that when you make a mistake, the pig laughs at you. That really makes you want to try again.’
In the pipeline is an Angry Birds movie, plus further development of the game itself. ‘So far the world has only seen an glimpse of the birds’ world,’ says Heijari.
Who for? On new books for children and young people
29 January 2010 | Articles, Non-fiction
Secrets: an illustration by Aino-Maija Metsola from Minä ja Muro (‘Me and Muro) by Mari Kujanpää
Books have a tough time in their struggle for the souls of the young: more titles for children and young adults than ever before are published in Finland, all of them trying to find their readers. Päivi Heikkilä-Halttunen picks out some of the best and most innovative reading from among last year’s titles
Nine-year-old Lauha’s only friend and confidant is her teddy bear Muro, because Lauha is an outsider both at home and at school. The children’s novel Minä ja Muro (‘Muro and me’, Otava), which won the 2009 Finlandia Junior Prize, provoked discussion of whether it was appropriate for children, with its oppressive mood and the lack of any bright side brought into the life of the main character in its resolution. More…
In Darwin’s garden
3 September 2009 | Authors, Interviews
Interview with Kristina Carlson, author of Herra Darwinin puutarhuri(‘Mr Darwin’s gardener’, 2009)
Kristina Carlson. Photo: Tommi Tuomi
Time: late 1870s. November. Place: the village of Downe, Kent, England. Villagers gather in the church on a rainy Sunday. Thomas Davies stays at home with his two children.
After the death of his wife, Thomas has been unable to get over his grief and anxiety. The villagers don’t approve of Thomas’s way of living – he isn’t sociable, keeps to himself, doesn’t go to church, and reads too many books. His employer is Charles Darwin: a famous – or notorious – man who writes too many books. ‘Mr Darwin lives here, and atheism is a worse threat than in the neighbouring villages,’ says Stuart Wilkes, voicing the views of the villagers.
Thomas is the central character in Kristina Carlson’s new novel, Herra Darwinin puutarhuri (‘Mr Darwin’s gardener’, Otava, 2009). Ten years ago her previous novel, Maan ääreen (‘To the end of the earth’), set in 19th-century Siberia, won the Finlandia Prize for Fiction.
As 2009 is the second centenary of Charles Darwin, the author of On the Origin of Species (published in 1859), the first question that comes to mind is whether this is coincidental or not… More…
Kjell Westö: Gå inte ensam ut i natten [Don’t go out into the night alone]
23 October 2009 | Mini reviews, Reviews
Gå inte ensam ut i natten
[Don’t go out into the night alone]
Helsinki: Söderströms, 2009. 604 p.
ISBN 978-951-52-2609-9
25 €, hardback
Finnish translation (by Katriina Savolainen): Älä käy yöhön yksin
Helsinki: Otava, 2009. 604 p.
ISBN 978-951-1-23833-1
25 €, hardback
This novel completes Kjell Westö’s Helsinki series and is his tenth book. As is the case with the three earlier books in this series (Drakarna över Helsingfors [‘The kites over Helsinki’], 1994, Vådan av att vara Skrake [‘The perils of being a Skrake’], 2000, and Där vi en gång gått [‘Where we once walked’], 2006, all also translated into Finnish) this is a character-driven, nostalgia-laden story that spans several decades. The central factor is music: in the 1960s three young people from different backgrounds become friends and record a single that ought to have been a huge hit, but because the song fades into obscurity, the circle of friends breaks up. In the latter part of the novel, a young man begins to investigate what became of the members of the trio and realises that his own life is linked to theirs. Westö (born 1961) writes remarkable experiential prose that brings the reader close to the characters. The retro setting may be a bit much for some: the avalanche of details feels rather excessive in places. Där vi en gång gått was awarded the Finlandia Prize in 2006. Another of Westö’s novels, Lang (2002), was published in England under the same title in 2005.
The guest event
12 November 2010 | Fiction, Prose
A short story from Vattnen (‘Waters’, Söderströms, 2010)
It was a lagoon. The water was not like out at sea, not a turquoise dream with white vacation trimming on the crests of the waves. This water was completely still and strange, brown yet clear, sepia and umber, perhaps cinnamon, possibly cigar with the finest flakes of finest wrapper. Clean. This water of meetings was clear and clean in a non-platonic, remarkably earthbound way.
Sediment and humus, humus floating about in the morning sun.
It felt comforting, as if the water didn’t repel the foreign bodies as a matter of course, didn’t immediately suppress the other particles and sanctimoniously hasten to force anything that wasn’t water, anything that could be interpreted as pollution and encroachment, down to the bottom and let it dissolve and die all by itself. This water sang its earth-brown song of unity without thereby becoming any less water than water-water was.
Helena felt cold. More…
End of the carnival
31 December 1991 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose
Extract from the novel Ottopoika (‘Otto the adopted’: Otava, 1991). Introduction by Pekka Tarkka
Verily, verily, keep peace with your God!
The way people are arranged in the courtroom means that Joseph Vissarionovich finds himself in the dock. All right, never mind, if they want to play games with Stalin: they’ll soon find out who comes off second best, very much second best.
The former politburo, led by Trotsky, has occupied the right wing of the front bench. Tanya, the girl from Petersburg, is sitting by Rykov, with her artificial leg under her arm, stuffing her pigtail in her mouth; she giggles and tries to stuff the other pigtail into Rykov’s mouth. Not succeeding, she spits in his face and pulls her skirt over her ears, revealing a small reddish quim. The 1925 politburo appears unmoved, but Trotsky jerks round enough for Stalin to see the axe sticking out of the back of his neck. Meanwhile, a susurrus of tut-tuttings goes round the courtroom. More…
Light songs and dark
4 August 2014 | Authors, Reviews
Aulikki Oksanen. Photo: Laura Malmivaara
On my wall at home are paintings given to me by the artist and poet Aulikki Oksanen. A watercolour from 1966 is a stylised depiction, a little in the manner of Modigliani, of a room with a girl by the window. In the background are a harbour and ships.
The work reminds me of the time when I got to know Aulilkki when we both moved in University Theatre circles and I visited her in the room shown in the painting. The flat was later the scene for Lapualaismorsian (‘Lapua bride’), a film which Aulikki (born 1944) took part in.
To me, with her blond, straight hair, she was like a beautiful, slender young filly, so I was not in the least surprised when her debut work included some enchanting horse symbolism. Her first book, an original, fresh collection of poems entitled Hevosen kuolema (‘Death of a horse’, 1966) gained immediate attention. More…
An eye of the unseen
30 June 2007 | Archives online, Fiction, poetry
Poems and aphorisms by Aaro Hellaakoski. Introduction by Pertti Lassila
Evening
How tranquilly the evening’s darkening,
dusk deepening beneath the trees.
Consult the long alleyways of the skies
for the gift of this evening
and the cause of your ease.
But the waste! the pain and stress –
those reachings into secrets of the dark –
quarrying endlessness,
plummeting bottomlessness,
quizzing every question mark.
Why this rummaging into whence and why?
Empty let’s be. Open and free.
Let secrets come, or let them fly
away, diffuse like cloudscapes
or whisperings through a tree.
Eyes must glow as your spirits peer
through a wakeful cranny in where you are.
Only the silent have ears to hear.
When the doorstep feels the touch of a toe
only the vigilant’s door is ajar.
Huojuvat keulat (’Swaying prows’, 1945) More…
How Real is a Dead Person?
30 September 1979 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose
An Extract from the Novel Sirkus (‘Circus’). Introduction by Pekka Tarkka
Once again I seem to be moving towards a deeper understanding of these people who figure in my recollections, most of whom, by now – by this particular Friday I am now experiencing – are already dead. And this, in its turn, sets me wondering about the degree of reality, if any, that they can claim to possess. How real is a dead person? Is he, perhaps, totally unreal? In memories, of course, he is real to the extent that the memories themselves are real. But objectively, independently of memory? But here a sadness comes over me, many-headed, hard to take hold of.
And in any case I think it is time I came to a clearer understanding of the economic circus founded by my grandfather Feodisius. Uncle Ribodisius has also already made the front pages of the newspapers, and the Bilbao has published an interview.
But I have left a picture unfinished. Father’s cardboard boxes! The separation from Dianita – and from the children! And I have broken off in the middle of these curious memoirs of mine. Thinking of which, I find myself grinding to a halt again, stuck with Yellow-Handed Fred and Haius and Desmer, Lesmer and Sesmer – until I realize that instead of coming to a clearer understanding of my grandfather’s economic circus, I am on Lesmer’s estate, one evening in late May – a couple of months ago – listening to the trilling of an unusually talented song-thrush. Perched on the top of a tall spruce, he goes through the repertoire of all the other birds he has ever heard, both native and foreign – creating, however, new combinations of his own; not content with mere mimicry, he rattles, croons, wails, whistles, whirrs, twitters, flutes, sighs, chirrups and shouts his way through a complete set of variations on themes provided by the rest of the bird world: like some rather advanced medieval chronicler who, no longer content to record faithfully (if perhaps chaotically, as Auerbach points out) what he saw, heard, thought and smelt, had begun to create personal shapes and entities – thus preparing the way for the greatest miracle in the history of world literature, the advent of the perceptive reader. More…