Mini reviews
Kaipaus Karjalaan. Matkoja kotiseudulle [Longing for Karelia. Journeys to the homeland]
8 October 2010 | Mini reviews, Reviews
Kaipaus Karjalaan. Matkoja kotiseudulle
[Longing for Karelia. Journeys to the homeland]
Toim. [Ed. by] Liisa Lehto
Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 2010. 231 p., ill.
ISBN 978-952-222-167-4
€34, hardback
The interest among Finns in making journeys to the areas of Karelia that were lost to the Soviet Union after the wars of 1939–1944 has showed no signs of lessening. On the contrary: the increasing preoccupation of researchers and ordinary citizens with the roots of the Karelians and with their modern way of life makes it possible to speak of a kind of Karelian renaissance. The opening of the borders after the fall of the Soviet Union triggered an enormous enthusiasm for tourism. This book contains fifty accounts of such journeys, drawn from the material of the Finnish Literature Society’s Folklore Archives collected in 1992 and 2007. The personal travel stories are by writers of different ages – the oldest was born in 1906, the youngest in the 1980s – and they focus on attitudes to loss of homeland that range from deep feelings of anger and failure to emotions of joy and of ‘reconciliation with oneself and with the whole of one’s life.’ Acts of purification in the water of the home village well or of swimming in Lake Ladoga are described in terms of a sacred ritual.
Elina Hirvonen: Kauimpana kuolemasta [Furthest from death]
30 September 2010 | Mini reviews, Reviews
Kauimpana kuolemasta
[Furthest from death]
Helsinki: Avain, 2010. 240 p.
ISBN 978-952-5524-81-9
€ 30, hardback
Elina Hirvonen (born 1975) came to international attention with her first novel, Että hän muistaisi saman (English translation: When I forgot). With Kauimpana kuolemasta she shows that her success was well deserved: she has both talent and originality, and also courage linked with a sense of form. This book belongs to the genre of Finnish novels set at the interface between two countries, a device that in some hands can become a facile dramaturgical trick for the creation of contrasts. The interweaving of human stories from Finland with stories from Zambia sets all the alarm bells ringing, but the encounter between Paul and Esther, two sad people who lack a secure homeland, vibrates with emotion-charged scenes. Paul is the son of Finnish overseas aid workers, Esther is an outcast from her Zambian village, in flight from one hell to the next. Slowly Paul and Esther are brought together and the reader hovers in uncertainty as to whether their paths will ever cross. The two characters see and experience violence as they journey towards pain, but Elina Hirvonen’s sensual and life-affirming language conveys the realisation that hope is – sometimes – stronger than death.
Anja Snellman: Parvekejumalat [Balcony gods]
30 September 2010 | Mini reviews, Reviews
Parvekejumalat
[Balcony gods]
Helsinki: Otava, 2010. 316 p.
ISBN 978-951-1-22756-4
€ 31.80, hardback
The theme of this novel is delicate and still largely silenced: the collision between the cultures of Muslim immigrants and the local population. Immigration into historically homogeneous Finland is a comparatively newer phenomenon than in many other European countries. Like other teenage girls, the Somali girl Anis dreams about partying, boys and a future, which completely deviaties from the customs and ideals of her patriarchal Muslim family. Her counterpart, the Finnish girl Alla, wishes to convert to Islam, because she has found herself suffering at home from the consequences of Western ‘freedom’ and is left with a feeling of devastating insecurity. Islamic culture’s halal and haram (strictly ‘good’ and ‘bad’) crushes or is crushed in Finnish life. The provocative contrasts and solutions presented in Snellman’s novel (her 19th) appear occasionally overemphasised. In defending the right of women to determine their own lives, Snellman (born 1954) deals Anis an extraordinarily tragic fate.
Maarit Knuuttila: Kauha ja kynä. Keittokirjojen kulttuurihistoriaa [The ladle and the pen. The cultural history of the cookbook]
24 September 2010 | Mini reviews, Reviews
Kauha ja kynä. Keittokirjojen kulttuurihistoriaa
[The ladle and the pen. The cultural history of the cookbook]
Helsinki: SKS (The Finnish Literature Society), 2010. 207 p., ill.
ISBN 978-952-222-187-2
€ 26, hardback
This book by ethnologist Maarit Knuuttila describes the history of European cookbooks, recipes and cooking. Knuuttila familiarises the reader with the earliest documents relating to the preparation of food, which were written by the ancient Greeks and Romans, but of which only a few have been preserved. Instead of haute cuisine the book concentrates on the authors and users of basic Finnish cookery books, and examines how those books reflect the times in which they were written, as well as their significance for women. While the literary high culture of gastronomy has been produced mainly by men, the everyday dishes represented in the basic cookbooks are the work of women. The author discusses the changes in perceptions of the ideal home and health, as well as the ways in which Finnish cookery, housekeeping and food culture have altered during the past hundred years.
Heikki Hiilamo: Kuoleman listat. Suomalaisten salainen apu Chilen vainotuille [Death lists. Secret assistance of the Finns to Chilean dissidents]
17 September 2010 | Mini reviews, Reviews
Kuoleman listat. Suomalaisten salainen apu Chilen vainotuille
[Death lists. Secret assistance by Finns to Chilean dissidents]
Helsinki: Otava, 2010. 362 p., ill.
ISBN 978-951-1-24003-7
€ 32, hardback
The 1973 Chilean coup that ousted President Salvador Allende, and the subsequent persecution of dissidents, forced Allende’s supporters to seek asylum in foreign embassies. A number of refugees climbed over the wall of the Santiago home of Finland’s chargé d’affaires, Tapani Brotherus. As the Finnish official line of neutrality was to avoid interfering in the internal affairs of other countries, Brotherus was taking a great personal risk, by allowing this, and keeping it secret from the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. With the help of the embassy’s undersecretary and the East German diplomat Arnold Voigt, he and his wife succeeded in helping some 2, 200 people to leave Chile. Brotherus also helped 182 political refugees to obtain asylum in Finland. Heikki Hiilamo, who is now Research Professor at Kela, the Social Insurance Institution of Finland, describes the background of the Chilean dictatorship and the development of the broad-based solidarity movement, which has been characterised as one of the central formative experiences of the generation that grew up in 1970s Finland. The movement’s activists included future Finnish presidents Mauno Koivisto and Tarja Halonen, as well as the future Nokia CEO Jorma Ollila.
Irma-Riitta Järvinen: Kalevala Guide
10 September 2010 | Mini reviews, Reviews
Kalevala Guide
Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 2010. 127 p., ill.
ISBN 978-952-222-193-3
€ 24.90, paperback
This book is a brief but comprehensive English-language guide to the Finnish national epic, which was based on the archaic oral, sung folk poetry of Karelia, but collected and personally compiled by the scholar and writer Elias Lönnrot (1802–1884). The epic (first edition 1839, complemented in 1849) is set in a mythic past; technically speaking, the metre is an unrhymed, non-strophic trochaic tetrametre, characterised by alliteration. Contents, characters, places and themes are explained in the Guide, which also explores myths of origin and the significance of the epic. On his eleven trips to Archangel and North Karelia, Lönnrot met some 70 singers. The Kalevala, now translated, at least in part, into more than 60 languages, has inspired artists the world over (J.R.R. Tolkien was a fan, while Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Hiawatha imitates the metre and style of the Kalevala). The composer Jean Sibelius and the artist Akseli Gallen-Kallela are perhaps the best known Finnish Kalevala artists. And the inspiration continues: for instance, rock musicians and visual artists make use of Kalevala themes, stories and characters in their work. The book includes a list of relevant websites and a select bibliography.
Linnoista lähiöihin. Rakennetut kulttuuriympäristöt Suomessa [From castles to suburbs. Built cultural environments in Finland]
26 August 2010 | Mini reviews, Reviews
Linnoista lähiöihin. Rakennetut kulttuuriympäristöt Suomessa
[From castles to suburbs. Built cultural environments in Finland]
Toim. [Ed. by] Pinja Metsäranta
Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 2010. 239 p., ill.
ISBN 978-952-616-206-8
€ 42, hardback
The 2009 inventory of the Finnish National Board of Antiquities includes about 1,300 nationally important built cultural environments, about a tenth of which are represented in this volume. The book introduces the reader to churches, mansions and military barracks, as well as to idyllic countryside and areas formed by industrial agglomerations. Reflected in the inventory is the diversity of the built landscape: the timber prefab districts and concrete housing estates, the reindeer fences of Lapland and the lighthouses of the archipelagos. On display are architectural masterpieces as well as everyday environments: hospitals, schools and prisons. Rural depopulation and urban sameness have changed the landscape in recent decades, but the book shows that much of value still remains. The book contains a list of all the inventory items, also available on the Board’s website (in Finnish and Swedish).
Lasse Rantanen & Hannu Tarmio: Lapin sydän [Heart of Lapland]
20 August 2010 | Mini reviews, Reviews
Lapin sydän. Etelän vieraat pohjoisen sielua etsimässä
[Heart of Lapland. Visitors from the south in search of the Northern soul]
Helsinki: Nemo Publishing Company, 2009. 216 p., ill.
ISBN 978-952-240-015-4
€ 33, hardback
Lapland and its myths have always inspired artists and tourists. In this book two Lapland enthusiasts ponder the things that make Finns from the south return to the north over and over again. Former publisher Hannu Tarmio lost his heart to Lapland 60 years ago; Lasse Rantanen is a graphic designer who is building his own cabin in Savukoski, eastern Lapland. The book is illustrated with his ink-and-abrasive drawings. Tarmio discusses Sámi identity, the history of log floating and gold panning, river pearl mussel fishing, alcohol use, mythology, and tourism and its impact on the environment. The book contains excerpts from literature on Lapland and portraits of its authors (including Yrjö Kokko, Timo Mukka and Nils-Aslak Valkeapää) and presents indigenous Lapps – one of them was Aleksi Hihnavaara, nicknamed Mosku, a legendary but controversial reindeer herder and hunter who fought the Russian Skolt reindeer poachers.
Anu-Hanna Anttila & al.: Kuriton kansa [Unruly nation]
13 August 2010 | Mini reviews, Reviews
Anu-Hanna Anttila & Ralf Kauranen & Olli Löytty & Pollari Mikko Rantanen Pekka & Petri Ruuska
Kuriton kansa. Poliittinen mielikuvitus vuoden 1905 suurlakon ajan Suomessa
[Unruly nation. The political imagination of the 1905 general strike in Finland]
Tampere: Vastapaino, 2009. 317 p., ill.
ISBN 978-951-768-246-6
€ 33, paperback
In the beginning of the 20th century the Grand Duchy of Finland, a part of the Russian Empire, entered a period of crisis and began to turn into a nation with its own institutions. Universal and equal suffrage increased tenfold the number of those eligible to vote. A move to the granting of political rights was demanded during the 1905 general strike, which was both an internal political power struggle and a demonstration by Finns against the Russification measures being imposed by their rulers. The book examines the ideological currents of the strike period and investigates their definitions of ‘nation’ and ‘nationality’, with reference to literary research, historical sociology, cultural studies and women’s studies, making extensive use of contemporary documents. The book’s essays portray the spectrum of ideas, reflected in groups like the theosophists, Tolstoyans and anarchists.
Valta Suomessa [Power in Finland]
5 August 2010 | Mini reviews, Reviews
Valta Suomessa
[Power in Finland]
Toim. [Ed. by] Petteri Pietikäinen
Helsinki: Gaudeamus, 2010. 287 p., ill.
ISBN 978-952-495-143-2
33 €, paperback
The authors have been involved in the Academy of Finland’s ‘Power and society in Finland’ research programme, which supports the multidisciplinary study of the historical impact that changes in Finnish society have on its power structures and on those who exert power in Finland. Among the changes are Finland’s accession to the European Union and the internationalisation of corporate and business life. Major power management and policy decisions have often been made without extensive public debate. The articles include studies of the historical changes in economic history and women’s status; other subjects include the conflicts between the forestry industry and nature conservationists; energy policy and the relatively low level of opposition to nuclear power among Finns, labour relations and the opportunities that citizens have to influence media content.
Matti Rämö: Polkupyörällä Intiassa. Lehmiä, jumalia ja maantiepölyä [Cycling in India. Cows, gods, and road dust]
30 July 2010 | Mini reviews, Reviews
Polkupyörällä Intiassa. Lehmiä, jumalia ja maantiepölyä
[Cycling in India. Cows, gods, and road dust]
Helsinki: Minerva Kustannus Oy, 2010. 301 p., ill.
ISBN 978-952-492-335-4
€ 27.90, hardback
The author decides to take a pinch of the ashes of his dead mother to India’s Varanasi, the city of pilgrims on the banks of the Ganges, and at the same time visit his daughter at an international high school on the country’s west coast. Rämö takes his bicycle on the plane to Delhi and in the course of a month cycles more than 2,600 kilometres, from Delhi to Mumbai. The cyclist is challenged by the heat and humidity, the chaotic traffic, the awkward sections of road and the endless thirst for knowledge on the part of curious bystanders – but his observations are deeper than those of the average travel author, as he worked in India in third world research during the 1980s and 1990s. In the summer of 2007 he completed a four months’ cycle tour of the Sahara, travelling some 9,600 kilometres, and published a book about his experiences (Rengasrikkoja Saharassa, ‘Punctures in the Sahara’, Minerva, 2008). In spite of the shorter length of the Indian journey, the author thinks it possessed a higher difficulty factor.
Lassi Saressalo: Pois Suomesta [Out of Finland]
12 July 2010 | Mini reviews, Reviews
Pois Suomesta – Suomesta paenneita, karkotettuja, väkisin vietyjä, laittomasti lähteneitä
[Out of Finland – refugees, deportees, abductees, illegal emigrants]
Tampere, Traff Kustannus, 2010. 297 p.
ISBN 978-952-99079-7-7
€ 29, hardback
Dr Lassi Saressalo, head of the Finnish Local Heritage Federation, has gathered a large collection of stories about people who were deported or abducted from Finland, or who fled as refugees. The examples relate to several periods of Finland’s history, including Swedish and Russian rule and the period since independence in 1918. People have had to leave Finland at different times for different reasons: some fled the cruelty of conquerors or conscription, others were forced to leave because of their political views or patriotic aims, either on their own initiative or by the government. The most recent cases discussed in the book date from the period following the end of the Second World War. The book is accompanied by a (Finnish-language) website, which provides additional background information on the events that are described as well as a forum for discussion.
Raija-Liisa Mäkelä: Minä, muilutetun tytär. Puoli vuosisataa Neuvostoliitossa [Abductee’s daughter. Half a century in the Soviet Union]
5 July 2010 | Mini reviews, Reviews
Minä, muilutetun tytär. Puoli vuosisataa Neuvostoliitossa
[Abductee’s daughter. Half a century in the Soviet Union]
Jyväskylä: Minerva, 2009. 321 p, ill.
ISBN 978-952-492-294-4
€ 24, hardback
During the period 1910-1930 many people defected from Finland to Russia/USSR both for political reasons and in the hope of better living standards. The labourite leader Yrjö Mäkelä was forcibly abducted across the border by the radical Finnish right-wing anti-Communist Lapua People’s Movement. Mäkelä’s fiancée also emigrated to the USSR, where the couple married and had two children. Raija-Liisa Mäkelä was born in Petrozavodsk, close to the Finnish border, in 1938, but never saw her father, who was interned in one of Stalin’s prisons and executed, although innocent. In the Soviet Union the Mäkelä family had both to carry the label of ‘enemy of the people’ and to endure majority (Russian) population’s antipathy towards Finns. The memoirs cover the family’s experiences from 1930 until 1990, when the author was able to move to Finland. In addition to providing evidence of remarkable survival skills, the book contains an interesting portrayal of Finnish widows and their families living in Petrozavodsk and nearby Sortavala.
Asko Sahlberg: He [They]
28 June 2010 | Mini reviews, Reviews
He
[They]
Helsinki: WSOY, 2010. 120 p.
ISBN 978-0-36170-2
€ 24.10, hardback
The Finland-Swedish author Asko Sahlberg (born 1964), who lives in Gothenburg in Sweden, has had an interesting, if uneven, career over the past decade. Sahlberg’s particular strengths lie in his precise use of language and the rhythm of his prose. Since his debut novel, Pimeän ääni (‘The sound of darkness’, 2000), part of Sahlberg’s output has been concerned with meditations on existence and the purging of emotions, with the rest delving into historical themes, such as his 2004 novel Tammilehto (‘Oak Grove’) which is set in the year 1918, and He, his ninth book, which takes place in 1809. (An extract from his novel Eksyneet (‘The lost’) was published in Books from Finland, 2/2002.) In He Sahlberg uses a first-person narrative technique with multiple narrators, which feels justified in this highly distilled portrait of a family. The plot is set against the backdrop of the Finnish War (1808–1809), waged by King Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden and Alexander I, Emperor of Russia. Henrik and Erik are brothers fighting on opposite sides, their mother drowns her sorrows hard liquor, and Anna, the neighbour’s daughter, ends up with the wrong brother. The end of this novella is surprising, dealing with the anatomy of revenge and deceit.
Leena Lander: Liekin lapset [Children of the flames]
23 June 2010 | Mini reviews, Reviews
Liekin lapset
[Children of the flames]
Helsinki: Siltala, 2010. 419 p.
ISBN 978-952-231-022-1
€ 27.30, hardback
Novels by Leena Lander (born 1959) have been translated into more than 20 languages. Liekin lapset is a family saga, told in two parallel timelines. One is a portrait of a small coastal community in south-western Finland from the turn of the 20th century up to the end of the Finnish civil war in 1918 and the years following it. Life in the area is governed by a sawmill and a manor, socially dividing the community in two. Saida, Joel, Anders and Arvi grow up together, the future workers dreaming of socialism and the sons of the manor playing warlords. In the contemporary strand of the story, Sakari Salin, Saida’s grandson, begins researching his grandmother’s life. The documents reveal some rather remarkable events: here, the author defends the rights of those who were on the losing side in the civil war and creates a lively – as well as historically grounded – portrait of the times. The dialogues and characters in this novel work well, and the structure supports a complex system of psychosocial interconnections, in which the present finds an explanation in the past.