Mini reviews
Tuula Kallioniemi: Rottaklaani [The rat clan]
24 February 2009 | Mini reviews
Rottaklaani
[The rat clan]
Helsinki: Otava, 2008. 192 p.
ISBN 978-951-1-23159-2
€ 16, hardback
Tuula Kallioniemi (born 1951) manages to deal with difficult issues without resorting to conventional solutions. Ykä, who is nearly 12, suffers from the normal anguish of early adolescence until the CP [cerebral palsy]-disabled Sami pushes his wheelchair into Ykä’s life. The boys decide to get the better of Antikainen who is bullying Sami, but in order to carry out their plan they need the help of quadraplegic Pete and Susanna, who has MBD [minimal brain dysfunction]. Kallioniemi’s literary prescription for the prevention of illness in young people is a simple one: we must all be friends with one other, be allowed to express wonder out loud, and remember that laughter is the best therapy. Kallioniemi’s merits are her verbal skills and her natural cultivation of situation comedy.
Sofi Oksanen: Puhdistus [Purge]
5 February 2009 | Mini reviews
![Sofi Oksanen: Puhdistus [Purge]](https://booksfromfinland.fi/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/puhdistusweb-130x164.jpg "Sofi Oksanen: Puhdistus")
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…
Olli Jalonen: 14 solmua Greenwichiin [14 knots to Greenwich]
30 December 2008 | Mini reviews
14 solmua Greenwichiin
[14 knots to Greenwich]
Helsinki: Otava, 2008. 381 p.
ISBN 978-951-1-23014-4
€ 34.40, hardback
The ‘knots’ in the title refer to the 14-part control device in a competitive expedition that the participants have to use to check in at the control points. The Finn Petr Järvi leaves London together with his scientist friend Graham and Graham’s wife Isla on a year-long contest, held in honour of the 350th anniversary of the scientist Edmund Halley. More…
Juha Seppälä: Paholaisen haarukka [The Devil’s fork]
30 December 2008 | Mini reviews
Paholaisen haarukka
[The Devil’s fork]
Helsinki: WSOY, 2008. 267 p.
ISBN 978-951-0-34534-4
€ 32, hardback
Seldom does a novel manage to be as topical as Juha Seppälä’s latest – his tenth – which portrays a great economic crisis and the people who are dragged along with it. Seppälä has written lines for his characters where they claim that a novel is only able to depict a reality that existed years ago – but Paholaisen haarukka proves this is not true. More…
Katri Lipson: Kosmonautti [The cosmonaut]
30 December 2008 | Mini reviews
Kosmonautti
[The cosmonaut]
Helsinki: Tammi, 2008. 199 p.
ISBN 978-9513-142940
€ 22.50, hardback
Kosmonautti is a reflective first novel by a mature author; Lipson (born 1965), a medical doctor, has succeeded in weeding out the non-essential. In a cold, dark Murmansk during the final decade of the Soviet Union, three people live out their dreams. Seryozha is the good boy who adores space travel and his beautiful music teacher, Svetlana Kovalevna. She is harassed both in the classroom and in the staffroom, and by her snooping neighbours in the communal apartment. More…