Search results for "herbert lomas/www.booksfromfinland.fi/2004/09/no-need-to-go-anywhere"
One night stand
31 March 1987 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose
Stories from Yhden yön pysäkki (‘One night stand’, 1985) and Unohdettu vartti (‘The forgotten quarter’, 1986). Introduction by Pekka Tarkka
At the beginning of November it really started to freeze. A month earlier than usual. There was little snow to speak of, but the ground froze hard as bone.
Tamed by hunger, reindeer clustered along the roadsides and on the village outskirts. Many of them ended their misery by flinging themselves under the timber-lorries in the evening dark. Bony and bloody carcasses littered the ditches and field-edges.
Then the snowstorms came. It snowed without stop for nearly two weeks. At times the whole landscape was reduced to a white line. Snowdrifts mounted round the houses and up the snow fences. The reindeer carcasses lay about under the snowbanks, waiting for spring. More…
Manmother
31 December 2002 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose
Extracts from the novel Granaattiomena (‘Pomegranate’, WSOY, 2002). Introduction by Kristina Carlson
The journey
Mother had sent her son to the island of Rome.
She’d sent him for pleasure and recreation, and also to have a little time by herself. Even though their life together was on an even keel, it was sensible to have some time away from each other. She herself was sixty-eight, and her son an unmarried hermit in his thirties, on sickness allowance for the last couple of years. He was afflicted with chronic depression. The doctors had been unable to identify the cause. The origin of a disorder of that sort was often looked for in some infant trauma; but the boy’s childhood, from all appearances, had been harmonious. One doctor suspected the time of his father’s terminal illness, when the boy had had to nurse his father for a long while. More…
The lady who could fly
30 June 1989 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose
A short story from Kenkää suurempi jalka (‘The foot bigger than the shoe’, 1992)
A day came when she felt she could fly. You used technological gear and gadgets for flying, or meteorological shifts in the air masses: rising currents gave you a weightless ecstasy with the lightest of equipment. But that wasn’t it.
To begin with it was one of those typical flying dreams, which gradually extended into the waking state: she could feel it coming in her sinews, her nervous system, her cortex. She was acquainted with Freud and Jung and the other dream-interpreters of today. Characters in the myths and fairytales flew; cruel princesses flew on the wings of the storm; Gogol’s overcoats, Chagall’s lovers, cows and cats flew; and vampires – those last leather-winged flutterings of the prehistoric archaeopterix in the mud of the gene pool. More…
Rock or baroque?
30 April 2014 | Extracts, Non-fiction
What if your old favourites lose their flavour? Could there be a way of broadening one’s views? Scholar Olli Löytty began thinking that there might be more to music than 1980s rock, so he turned to the music writer Minna Lindgren who was delighted by the chance of introducing him the enormous garden of classical music. In their correspondence they discussed – and argued about – the creativity of orchestra musicians, the significance of rhythm and whether the emotional approach to music might not be the only one. Their letters, from 2009 to 2013, an entertaining musical conversation, became a book. Extracts from Sinfoniaanisin terveisin. Kirjekurssi klassisen musiikin maailmaan (‘With symphonical greetings. A correspondence course in classical music’)
Olli, 19 March, 2009
Dear expert,
I never imagined that the day would come when I would say that rock had begun to sound rather boring. There are seldom, any more, the moments when some piece sweeps you away and makes you want to listen to more of the same. I derive my greatest enjoyment from the favourites of my youth, and that is, I think, rather alarming, as I consider people to be naturally curious beings whom new experiences, extending their range of experiences and sensations, brings nothing but good.
Singing along, with practised wistfulness, to Eppu Normaali’s ‘Murheellisten laulujen maa’ (‘The land of sad songs’) alone in the car doesn’t provide much in the way of inspiration. It really is time to find something new to listen to! My situation is already so desperate that I am prepared to seek musical stimulation from as distant a world as classical music. I know more about the African roots of rock than about the birth of western music, the music that is known as classical. But it looks and sounds like such an unapproachable culture that I badly need help on my voyage of exploration. Where should I start, when I don’t really know anything? More…
Do you speak my language?
23 August 2012 | Articles, Non-fiction
Finnish spoken outside Finland: Sweden (west), Estonia (south), Karelia/Russia (east), Norway (north). Illustration: Zakuragi/Wikipedia
Finland has two official languages, Finnish and Swedish. Approximately five per cent of the population (290,000 Finns) speak Swedish as their native language. All Finns learn both languages at school, and students in higher education must prove they have an adequate knowledge of the other mother tongue. But how do native speakers of Finnish cope with what is, for many of them, a minority language that they will never need or even wish to use? We take a look at bilingual issues – and a new book devoted to them
‘In many parts of the world, language can be a fiery and divisive issue, one that pits the powerless against the powerful, the small against the big. The Basques battle the Spanish. The Flemish tussle with the Walloons. The Québécois scuffle with the rest of Canada.’
That is how Lizette Alvarez illustrated her theme in her article ‘Finland Makes Its Swedes Feel at Home’, published in the New York Times in 2005.
In Finland, language has been a fiery issue at times, though things have cooled down a bit since the early 20th century. The use of Finnish as a written language dates back to the 16th century, but the territory of Finland was part of the Swedish Empire until 1809. Swedish was spoken by the nobility as well as most of the peasant class – the mechanism of the state did not serve Finnish-speaking peasants or other segments of the population in Finnish. More…
The report
30 September 1984 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose
A short story from Kesä ja keski-ikäinen nainen (‘Summer and the middle-aged woman’) Introduction by Margareta N. Deschner
Dear Colleague,
First of all, I want to thank you and your wife for the pleasant evening I and my wife had in your summer villa in August. Briitta (since we are old acquaintances: with two i’s and two t’s, remember?) especially wants me to mention that she will never forget the half moon climbing the hill behind your sauna, surprising us with its speed. The next time we looked it was half-way up the sky! Without doubt, your fine tequila had something to do with the matter, one shouldn’t forget that. Even so, it was quite a show, just like the time a bunch of us guys had gone skiing and you bragged that you had arranged for the barn to catch fire. I hope that you and your wife – I mean Alli – will be able to visit us next winter and taste a superb Mallorca red wine called Comas, which we brought home. It is by far the best red I have ever tasted and indecently cheap to boot. I hope you will come soon. The wine won’t keep indefinitely, as you well know. We’ll save it for you. So thanks again.
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…
To sleep, to die
30 September 2004 | Fiction, Prose
Extracts from the novel Unelmakuolema (‘Dreamdeath’, Teos, 2004)
Dreamdeath
Who would not like to cheat the grim reaper? Ways are known, of course, both scientific and non-scientific, but all of them are uncertain and temporary. Except for the simplest: to get there first oneself.
The refinement of this idea was Dreamdeath’s business idea. ‘Dreamdeath – because you deserve it!’ went Dreamdeath’s slogan.
The Dreamdeath home offered those who wished it the means to the most pleasant, even luxurious realisation of an autonomic death in an atmosphere of moral approval, against a suitable fee. At Dreamdeath the client himself decided when and in what conditions he would leave his mortal clay. More…
For the love of a city
31 December 2004 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose
Extracts from the novel I väntan på en jordbävning (‘Waiting for an earthquake’, Söderströms, 2004). Introduction by Petter Lindberg
Nonna Rozenberg lived quite near the special school where I was a boarder, in a block nine stories high with a bas-relief to the right of the door. This bas-relief featured a fairy-tale figure – the Firebird or the Bird Sirin.
I often saw Nonna stepping out of a tram carrying a large brown case. She moved carefully, as if afraid of falling.
She played the cello, and resembled that bulky, melodious instrument herself. Women’s figures are often compared to guitars. But Nonna’s appearance never hinted at parties at home with parents away or singsongs around the camp-fire.
She was no beauty. Her slow, precociously mature body was neither graceful nor girlishly delicate. If I’d met her later, when I was working at a gym, I’d have said she was overweight and lacking in self-discipline. More…
Mother-days
30 June 2006 | Fiction, poetry
Poems from Yhtä juhlaa (‘It’s all a big celebration’, WSOY, 2006)
(a square metre, 3.)
Now for the-kick-of-being-the-good-mum:
after the rye porridge
after the sons washed with camomile foam
and slipped into clean sheets
with mummy singing a sweet song.
Something about shadowed snow
and how at the blue twilit-moment one can
go inwards. If you’re up to looking. All that garbage and slag:
ash from the too-small days, clotted with
non-combustible blots, even though here
the sky’s clear
and the windows open to the winds.
Good grief, here we’re making new people.
But all I’d time for
was the track from the dishcloth to the nappy bin,
and back from the children’s painting-table
to the sink. No job
for spoilt girls, this: the prissiest minx
would soon turn woman in this fix:
kids coming next after next,
years of full-time labour
in a square metre where
you make no point about peccadilloes,
because so much is at stake.
You’re no longer a rose,
pimpinella, rosabella,
but subsoil: loam
and spots of unrottable compost.
A feebler person would have reversed on
the first tantrum;
the child’s learnt to say things
and is saying things
I never thought would come. More…
How to win literary prizes
30 September 1991 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose
A short story from Terveessä ruumiissa (‘In a healthy body’, Gummerus, 1990)
Later, as he mulled over the moments just before it all happened – with himself delivering his appreciative peroration to the prizewinner in the front row – the Chairman of the Prize Committee could recall no warning sign. Antti was tense, of course, but, considering his artistic sensitivity and the hundred-strong audience, there was nothing abnormal about that.
The Chairman was improvising from scanty notes: only the finishing touch was written out in full:
‘And so, with immense gratitude, we shall store up your many achievements in our hearts and minds.’ More…
All aboard
30 December 2005 | Fiction, Prose
Extracts from the novel Nooakan parkki (‘Noahannah’s barque’, Tammi, 2005)
A Royal Navy Three-funnel Brig
The crew:
Matilda, an overeating cat
Five geese
20 hens
A fat narcoleptic cock
A couple of ducks
A goat
Three dogs
48 bats
Six woodpeckers
104 titmice
There’s a north-westerly blowing.
Djibouti 253
Three feet long from the east and five from the west, plus two hat-heights above the earth’s surface; standing on the sauna bench I scan the horizon for any omens – a raven, a woodpecker or a flock of waxwings. A crow would do. More…
Animal crackers
30 June 2004 | Children's books, Fiction
Fables from the children’s book Gepardi katsoo peiliin (‘A cheetah looks into the mirror’, Tammi, 2003). Illustrations by Kirsi Neuvonen
Rhinoceros
The rhinoceros was late. She went blundering along a green tunnel she’d thrashed through the jungle. On her way, she plucked a leaf or two between her lips and could herself hear the thundering of her own feet. Snakes’ tails flashed away from the branches and apes bounded out of the rhino’s path, screaming. The rhino had booked an afternoon appointment and the sun had already passed the zenith.
When the rhinoceros finally arrived at the beautician’s, the cosmetologist had already prepared her mud bath. The rhino was able to throw herself straight in, and mud went splattering all round the wide hollow. More…
The way to anywhere
30 September 2003 | Archives online, Fiction, poetry
Poems from Parittelun jälkeinen selkeys (‘Post-coital clarity’, WSOY, 2003). Introduction by Matti Saurama
Enlightenment needs no tools
1. And I laughed at everything
and didn’t want to see anything old
there was a fingernail-sized buddha and I walked by it
in the room, trying to find the ceiling,
camping out in life, fag in mouth
the soft letters of the clouds, and a blowing skysign
oh sky
2. I stand on the street corner
illuminated like a phone box.
On the way to anywhere
and always there already. More...