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…

An extract from the novel Bruno (WSOY, 1990)

Since her first collection of poems, which appeared in 1975, Tiina Kaila (born 1951 [from 2004, Tiina Krohn]) has published four children’s books and three volumes of poetry. Her novel Bruno is a fictive narrative about the Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno, who was burned at the stake in 1600. It is the conflict inherent in her main character that interests Kaila: his philosophical and scientific thought is much closer to that of the present day than, for example, that of Copernicus, and it is this that led him to the stake; and yet he did never abandon his fascination for magic.

The novel follows Bruno on his journeys in Italy; France, Germany and England, where he is accompanied by the French ambassador, Michel de Castelnau. Bruno finds England a barbaric place: ‘…These people believe that it is enough that they know how to speak English, even though no one outside this little island understands a word. No civilised language is spoken here’

In the extract that follows, Bruno, approaching the chalk cliffs of Dover by sea, makes what he feels to be a great discovery: ‘Creation is as infinite as God. And life is the supremest, the vastest and the most inconceivable of all.’

I was leaning on the foredeck handrail, peering into a greenish mist. The bow was thrashing between great swells, blustering and hissing and shuddering like some huge wheezing animal: Augh – aagh – ho-haugh! Augh – aagh – ho-haugh!

Plenty of space had been reserved for our use on this new two-master cargo boat. Castelnau was transferring his whole family from France – his wife, his daughter, his servants, his library, his furniture, his past and me – to London, where, as you know, he had been appointed Ambassador of France. More…

Extracts from the novel Kirjeitä Trinidadiin (‘Letters to Trinidad’, 1989). Introduction by Suvi Ahola

Elisabet suggested that they should go to the beach. Seppo would have liked to show her the coral, but his wife thought it was too far, and so they decided to go to the beach nearest the hotel.

They hired mattresses and a sun umbrella and found places in the first row, close to the water. The sea glittered, and long, shallow waves rolled towards the sand, like long, even snores. Seppo dozed for a moment, then sat up and, taking his binoculars, focused out to sea. Two warships sailed eastwards through the glittering waves. Egypt, Jordan and the Arab countries all around, Iran and Iraq close by, Libya not far away – it was like lying on a keg of gunpowder!

Elisabet went swimming, and he followed. He carried his wife through the waves, played the life-saver and dragged Elisabet’s apparently lifeless body through the waves. They dived, and Elizabet complained that the salt stung her eyes. They lay on their mattresses and when Seppo glanced at her, he felt again the sharp stab of desire, and would have liked to make love, but had to content himself with caressing her thigh. When his desire became too great he covered himself with a rowel, and Elisabet laughed.

‘Again? You’re insatiable’, she said. More…

An extract from the novel Leo (Söderströms, 1989). Introduction by Marianne Bargum

A summer quickly goes by and the beginning of autumn rolls merrily away. The middle of October is the time when things start slackening off, the harvest over, the flax brought in and the time for slaughter approaching. It is growing darker and the storm rumbles over the village, howling even more wildly out there in the darkness where the ships are gradually beginning to struggle home.

In stormy weather, we become touchy and angry. We think about those out there, and are irritated by minor matters people safe on the mainland make such a furore about. We conscientiously go to church the nearer autumn looms, and there we pray ardently for all those in peril on the sea. But then we have the pastor in the pulpit, irritable and angry like the rest of us, and he takes the opportunity to give us a reminder.

‘Out there in the storm the skipper calls on God, but when the storm dies down, he gives thanks for his own skill’, he begins. So you can work out what is to follow. Not very edified, we make our way home in the mud, in the cold wind, a shoulder like a wedge ahead of us. More…