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Do you remember the yellow house?

14 February 2011 | Fiction, Prose

Extracts from the novel Enkelten kirja (‘The book of angels’, Tammi, 2010)

[Tallinn, summer] The past will not go away

and the present is insurmountable. Summer vacation has begun, the newspaper hasn’t come; it doesn’t get delivered here anyway. Can you remember the Isabelline yellow house? Remember the alley with the name that means hurry? Surely you remember the home with all the maps on the shelves, the important papers and the brass objects bought from nearby antique dealers? Also the rugs from North Africa and the obligatory cedar camel figurines on the windowsill. And so many glasses and plates and empty lighters in a cardboard box on the shelf on the left hand side of the kitchen.

Tallinn, June 7th. The floors creak. One step has split in half; some of the lights have burned out. This is a lovely home. A small window upstairs is ajar to the courtyard. Tuomas had latched it behind the Virginia creepers. The fountain in the courtyard is dry. On cold nights the smoke from the fireplace grows like a statue for the crows until it wraps around over the layered rooftops like a snake eating its tail. Russian men are repairing the attic of the house across the street for wealthy people to live in; they laugh in front of the window and smoke. Tuomas waves at them, and they wave back. The courtyard is creepy when it’s empty. Soon the neighbours would go about their day and quietly close their doors behind them, and two nearby churches would divide the hours into quarters, Russians and their gossip would make their way to the Alexander Nevski Cathedral, and the Estonians and their gossip would go to their own churches where a wise and peculiar, almost human scent would rise from between the headstones. Tuomas wouldn’t smell it, Aino would and would move to stand beneath the the center tower. More…

Tuomas Kyrö: Mielensäpahoittaja ja ruskeakastike [Taking offence: brown sauce]

25 April 2012 | Mini reviews, Reviews

Mielensäpahoittaja ja ruskeakastike
[Taking offence: brown sauce]
Helsinki: WSOY, 2012. 130 p., ill.
ISBN 978-951-0-39079-5
€23.90, hardback

The most popular book by Tuomas Kyrö (born 1974), so far, has been his sixth novel, Mielensäpahoittaja (‘Taking offence’: literally ‘He who takes offence’, 2010). It has sold nearly 65,000 copies as a book and audiobook. The protagonist is a 80-something man, a sturdy old bear who lives in the countryside, now alone, because his demented wife has been taken into care and the children have long since left home. Kyrö inserts genuine humour into the monologues of his stubborn – but by no means simple – character, defiantly critical, opposing new gadgets, fads and all sorts of silly stuff of the contemporary society. In this sequel Kyrö still manages to entertain the reader with his detailed portrait: now Mr Grumpy has to learn to cook, because the food a paid helper brings in just isn’t good enough. With the potato as the cornerstone of his diet, he finally learns how to make good, fatty and salty meals of meat and veg. ‘One must remember what’s important in life, marriage and prostate problems. Time and patience.’ Illustrations remind the reader of the old times: photographs of television programmes and printed recipes from the 1960s and 1970s.

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Des res

30 June 2003 | Fiction, Prose

Extracts from the novel Juoksuhaudantie (‘The Trench Road’, WSOY, 2002)

Matti Virtanen

I belonged to that small group of men who were the first in this country to dedicate themselves to the home front and to women’s emancipation. I feel I can say this without boasting and without causing any bickering between the sexes.

A home veteran looks after all the housework and understands women. Throughout our marriage I have done everything that our fathers did not. I did the laundry, cooked the food, cleaned the flat, I gave her time to herself and protected the family from society. For hours on end I listened to her work problems, her emotional ups and downs and her hopes for more varied displays of affection. I implemented comprehensive strategies to free her from the cooker. I was always ready with provisions when she got home exhausted after a day at work. More…

What Finland read in April…

18 May 2012 | In the news

…was Tuomas Kyrö mostly, it seems: at the top of the April list of best-selling fiction titles in Finland, compiled by the Finnish Booksellers’ Association, was his novel  Mielensäpahoittaja ja ruskeakastike (‘Taking offense: the brown sauce’, WSOY).

In March, Kyrö (born 1974) already featured twice on the list: his first novel about a 80-something man, Mielensäpahoittaja (‘Taking offense’,  WSOY, 2010) was number two, and the newly-published sequel, Mielensäpahoittaja ja ruskeakastike had shot up to sixth place. In April they changed places  – with the audio book version of the brown sauce book at number five.

This mielensäpahoittaja, ‘he who takes offence’, lives in the countryside and opposes most of what a contemporary lifestyle has to offer. Finns are evidently highly amused by the opinions of this obstinate, grumpy old man. But the popularity of Kyrö’s literary creation may also be boosted by the fact that he currently takes part in a television talk show every week, entertaining the audience and his fellow guests with his often acerbic remarks.

A crime novel by Seppo Jokinen, Hervantalainen (‘The person from Hervanta’, Crime Time), occupied third place, Tarhapäivä (‘Kindergarten day’, Otava) by Eve Hietamies fourth.

On the non-fiction list Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago, republished by Silberfeldt in April, was already in third place; we published a news piece about it  on 25 April.

The non-fiction list was topped by a new, controversial book by banker – and one of the richest men in Finland – Björn Wahlroos, Markkinat ja demokratia. Loppu enemmistön tyrannialle (‘Market and democracy. The end of the tyranny of the majority’, Otava). He favours the methods of Margaret Thatcher’s economic policy and opposes social benefits for the poor; according to him, the market economy is superior to democracy any time.

Sofi Oksanen wins the 2008 Finlandia Prize

10 February 2009 | In the news

Photo: Toni Härkönen/WSOY.

Sofi Oksanen. - Photo: Toni Härkönen/WSOY.

The Finlandia Prize for Fiction, Finland’s most prestigious literary prize, was awarded to Sofi Oksanen’s novel Puhdistus (‘Purge’, WSOY, 2008). ‘When the concentrated focus of drama and the multidimensionality of narrative conjoin, Puhdistus is born – a muscular, harsh, and solid book’, said the writer and critic Pekka Tarkka awarding the prize on 4 December. (For a short review, see the Review section.)

The prize, worth € 30,000, was awarded for the twenty-fifth time. The final choice was made from the shortlist of six candidates; the others were 14 solmua Greenwichiin (‘14 knots to Greenwich’, Otava) by Olli Jalonen, Kosmonautti (‘The cosmonaut’, Tammi) by Katri Lipson, Marie (Otava) by Arne Nevanlinna, Kohtuuttomuus (‘Excess’, Siltala) by Pirkko Saisio and Paholaisen haarukka (‘The Devil’s fork’, WSOY) by Juha Seppälä. More…

Hare-raising

13 February 2015 | Reviews

In this job, it’s a heart-lifting moment when you spot a new Finnish novel diplayed in prime position on a London bookshop table – and we’ve seen Tuomas Kyrö’s The Beggar & The Hare in not just one bookshop, but many. Popular among booksellers, then – and we’re guessing, readers – the book nevertheless seems in general to have remained beneath the radar of the critics and can therefore be termed a real word-of-mouth success. Kyrö (born 1974), a writer and cartoonist, is the author of the wildly popular Mielensäpahoittaja (‘Taking umbridge’) novels, about an 80-year-old curmudgeon who grumbles about practically everything. His new book – a story about a man and his rabbit, a satire of contemporary Finland – seems to found a warm welcome in Britain. Stephen Chan dissects its charm

Tuomas Kyrö: The beggar and the hareTuomas Kyrö: The Beggar & The Hare
(translated by David McDuff. London: Short Books, 2011)
Kerjäläinen ja jänis (Helsinki: Siltala, 2011)

For someone who is not Finnish, but who has had a love affair with the country – not its beauties but its idiosyncratic masochisms; its melancholia and its perpetual silences; its concocted mythologies and histories; its one great composer, Sibelius, and its one great architect, Aalto; and the fact that Sibelius’s Finlandia, written for a country of snow and frozen lakes, should become the national anthem of the doomed state of Biafra, with thousands of doomed soldiers marching to its strains under the African sun – this book and its idiots and idiocies seemed to sum up everything about a country that can be profoundly moving, and profoundly stupid.

It’s an idiot book; its closest cousin is Voltaire’s Candide (1759). But, whereas Candide was both a comedic satire and a critique of the German philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716), The Beggar & The Hare is merely an insider’s self-satire. Someone who has not spent time in Finland would have no idea how to imagine the events of this book. Candide, too, deployed a foil for its eponymous hero, and that was Pangloss, the philosopher Leibniz himself in thin disguise. Together they traverse alien geographies and cultures, each given dimension by the other. More…

Tuomas Kyrö: 700 grammaa [700 grams]

12 November 2009 | Mini reviews, Reviews

tuomaskyro.jpg700 grammaa
[700 grams]
Helsinki: WSOY, 2009. 379 p.
ISBN 978-951-0-35601-2
€ 30, hardback

The genre of the picaresque novel is doing well, and one of its foremost exponents in Finland is Tuomas Kyrö (born 1974). The plot of his ingenious first novel, Nahkatakki (‘Leather jacket’, 2001), revolved around a jacket that moves from one owner to another. His later novels maintain this comical tension, but with a deepening of themes and a more sober outlook. Liitto (‘Union’, 2005) portrayed people scarred by war, while Benjamin Kivi (2007, featured in Books from Finland 4/2007) retold Finland’s history in a light-hearted and anachronistic manner. 700 grammaa is a book about sports fever and family relationships, the exploration of love and the pursuit of dreams. The main character is a boy who at birth weighs only 700 grams, and whose father vows to perform a seven metre long-jump if his son survives. He does, and the father has to devote his life to this almost impossible sporting achievement This novel, with its fast-developing plot and varied narrative techniques, is a paean  to the heroism latent in mediocrity.

What Finland read in March

13 April 2012 | In the news

Tuomas Kyrö: ‘Taking offense’, part two

The top of the March list of best-selling fiction titles in Finland, compiled by the Finnish Booksellers’ Association, was Katja Kettu’s love story set in 1940s Finland at war, Kätilö (‘The midwife’, WSOY; see our feature).

Tuomas Kyrö (born 1974) featured twice on the list: Mielensäpahoittaja (‘Taking offense’,  WSOY, 2010) was number two and the newly-published sequel, Mielensäpahoittaja ja ruskeakastike (‘Taking offense: the brown sauce’, 2012) had shot up to sixth place.

The title is actually a noun:  ‘He who takes offence’: this person is an 80-something man who lives in the countryside and opposes most of what a contemporary lifestyle has to offer.

In the sequel, as his wife has to stay in a nursing home, ‘He who takes offence’ decides to learn how to cook for himself. He dismisses the ‘no-good’ girl who bring him food dailysent by a local agency. A firm believer in the potato, this no-nonsense character continues to fascinate lots of readers.

Rosa Liksom’s Finlandia Prize -winning novel set in the Soviet Union in the 1980s, Hytti nro 6 (‘Compartment number 6’, WSOY) occupied fourth place, a new novel about family life by Eve Hietamies, Tarhapäivä (‘Kindergarten day’, Otava) was number three.

The non-fiction list was topped by a new cookbook by Sikke Sumari, Sikke – ruokaa rakkaudella Toskanassa (‘Sikke – food with love in Tuscany’, Paasilinna). As books about birds featured on the list, one might assume spring is on the way, at last.

Solzhenitsyn and Silberfeldt: Sofi Oksanen publishes a best-seller

25 April 2012 | In the news

Nobel Prize 1970: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

After falling out with her original publisher, WSOY, in 2010, author Sofi Oksanen – whose third novel, Puhdistus (Purge, 2008), has become an international best-seller – has founded a new publishing company, Silberfeldt, in 2011, with the aim of publishing paperback editions of her own books. Its first release was a paperback version of Oksanen’s second novel, Baby Jane.

Oksanen’s new novel, Kun kyyhkyset katosivat (‘When the pigeons disappeared’), again set in Estonia, will appear this autumn, published by Like (a company owned by Finnish publishing giant Otava).

However, in April Silberfeldt published a new, one-volume edition of the autobiographical novel The Gulag Archipelago by the Nobel Prize-winning author Alexandr Solzhenitsyn. This massive book was first published in the West in 1973, in the Soviet Union in 1989.

A Finnish translation was published between 1974 and 1978. Back in those days of Cold War self-censorship, Finnish publishers felt unable to take up the controversial book, and the first volume was eventually printed in Sweden. The work, finally published in three volumes, has long since been unavailable.

This time the 3,000 new copies of Solzhenitsyn’s tome sold out in a few days; a second printing is coming up soon. Oksanen regards the work as a classic that should be available to Finnish readers.

 

Lady into Bird

31 March 1991 | Archives online, Authors

One of the ways in which the comparative youth of Finland’s culture makes itself felt is in the fact that there is never any great distance between low and high culture. Finnish literature has always naturally mixed popular and high art elements: in dealing with the themes and traumas that define the national consciousness, it has proved possible to use folk tales, pop songs or jokes as a distancing mechanism.

The work of Aulikki Oksanen is characterised by just this kind of mix. She is not only a writer: since her literary debut in 1966, she has also been well-known for her work as an actress, a singer of radical political songs, and for her illustrations of her own children’s books.

Oksanen’s interest in the world of folk tales and myths, and their modern equivalents, popular song and cinema, can be partly explained by her generation and its political consciousness. Appearing in politically engaged plays and films, writing and singing political songs, Oksanen (born 1944) was one of the most prominent figures in the Finnish cultural life of the Sixties. More…

Nordic prize to Sofi Oksanen

31 March 2010 | In the news

Sofi Oksanen. Photo: Toni Härkönen

The Nordic Council’s Literary Prize 2010 has been awarded to Sofi Oksanen for her novel Puhdistus (‘Purge’, WSOY, 2008).

The winning novel was selected by a jury from a shortlist of 11 works from the Nordic countries. The prize, worth approximately 47,000 euros, will be awarded in Reykjavik in November.

The novel, about women’s fates in the violent history of 20th-century Estonia, was awarded both the Finlandia Prize for Fiction and the Runeberg Prize in Finland, where it has sold more than 142,000 copies.

So far publication rights have been sold to 27 countries; the English translation, by Lola Rogers, will appear next month in the US, published by Grove Press.

Tuomas Kyrö: Kunkku [The king]

19 December 2013 | Mini reviews, Reviews

KunkkuKunkku
[The king]
Helsinki: Siltala 2013. 549 pp.
ISBN 975-952-234-173-0
€29.90, hardback

This novel is a satirical alternative history of successful Finland and self-destructive Sweden. It is also the story of the king of Finland – the protagonist, Kalle XIV Penttinen, is driven by his instincts, which causes him to fail as a family man. Pena, as he is called, would like to play tennis all day long and watch pole dancing at night. Finland is a fantastic wonderland of film and music industry, tennis, space technology and innovative legal usage, whereas Sweden, ravaged by war, suffers from the trauma that passes from one generation to the next. Estonia has done well for a long time, and the Soviet Union (sic) is a stronghold of democracy. Chuckling, Kyrö turns history upside down. As a writer of short prose and tragicomic novels he is currently a very popular author. However, this time his typically witty associations and inventive comedy suffer from the sheer size of this novel.

Sofi Oksanen: Puhdistus [Purge]

5 February 2009 | Mini reviews

Sofi Oksanen: Puhdistus [Purge]Puhdistus
[Purge]
Helsinki: WSOY, 2008. 380 p.
ISBN 978-951-0-33973-2
€ 29.90, paperback

Sofi Oksanen’s first play Puhdistus (‘Purge’) was staged at Finland’s National Theatre in 2007. Oksanen (born 1977) has an Estonian-Finnish background and studied at the Theatre Academy. Puhdistus, her third novel, retells the story of her play about two women and moves through the past by flashbacks between 1939 and 1992. Aliide has experienced the horrors of the Stalin era and the deportation of Estonians to Siberia, but she herself has to cope with the guilt of opportunism and even manslaughter. More…

Sofi Oksanen: Kun kyyhkyset katosivat [When the doves disappeared]

9 October 2012 | Mini reviews, Reviews

Kun kyyhkyset katosivat
[When the doves disappeared]
Helsinki: Like, 2012. 365 p.
ISBN 978-952-01078-19
€ 27.90, hardback

Four years after the huge national and international success of her third novel Puhdistus (Purge, 2008, now translated into 38 languages), Sofi Oksanen has published a new novel to the accompaniment of trumpets and drums – a launch cruise to Tallinn, Estonia, workshops and public readings. The Finnish film version of Puhdistus received its world premiere at the same time. Oksanen has earned her star status as a writer, but Kun kyyhkyset katosivat is not as good as its predecessor. The story of Estonian freedom fighter (‘Forest Brother’) Roland and his cousin Edgar, an opportunist who manoeuvres his way through the Nazi and Soviet occupations of Estonia from 1941 until the apparent liberalisation of the 1960s, is thin and fragmentary. The language and style are uneven and diffuse, while Edgar’s chameleon-like shifts of identity from pro-German sympathies through Siberia to complicity with the KGB deserve to be more carefully explored. While the book’s themes are unquestionably authentic and relevant, they don’t really blend together into a moving novel in the way that Puhdistus does.
Translated by David McDuff