Reviews
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.
So close to me
19 August 2010 | Reviews
Please try this first, before we enter the chamber of horrors. It’s a poem by Timo Harju:
… The old people’s home is the strange hand of God with which he strokes
his thinning hair,
a sudden shower of cackling in the dry linen closet, slightly
sad and lonely
God looks out, stirring his cup of tea as if it were on fire.
If Jesus had lived to grow old and gone into an old people’s home,
he would have been like these.
Timo Harju was awarded the 2009 Kritiikin kannukset prize (‘the spurs of criticism’, 2009) of the Finnish Critics' Association, SARV. Photo: Pia Pettersson
This spring a young Finnish female nurse was sentenced to life imprisonment for using insulin to murder a 79-year-old mentally retarded patient. Not long after, sentence was passed on another nurse – this time a meek and submissive-looking middle-aged woman who had murdered a whole series of elderly patients with overdoses of medication.
These are the terms – those of ordinary crime journalism – in which our recent public discussion of long-stay care of the elderly here in Finland was conducted. The discussion was followed by the usual misery of cuts, unchanged diapers, dehydration, over-medication, poor wages for hard work… No wonder that the concept of ‘healthcare wills’ and ‘living wills’, in which people are supposed to say how they want to be cared for in the last stage of their lives – is acquiring a disturbing undertone of ‘better jump before you’re pushed.’ More…
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.
A day in the life of a bookseller
12 August 2010 | Reviews
A happy day in Joel Lehtonen's life in 1933. Photo: Otava/H. Iffland
The bookseller Aapeli [Abel] Muttinen, a central figure in Joel Lehtonen’s ‘Putkinotko’ books, is one of those fictional characters for whom Finnish readers have cherished a particular affection, not least because of his keen enjoyment of the pleasures they themselves so regularly share when they escape to their lakeside cottages for the summer.
But although Aapeli Muttinen is Finnish through and through, he is not without counterparts in the literature of other nations. One of his close relatives is the laziest man in all literature, Goncharov’s Oblomov; others, perhaps more surprisingly, can be found in the works of Anatole France – booksellers like Blaizot and Paillot, both gentle dilettanti with a streak of individualism and a penchant for good living. Like them, Muttinen is tolerably well-read: at the beginning of the short story ‘A happy day’ we find him musing about Horace, and at least one of Horace’s odes must have appealed to him strongly: ‘Happiest is he who, like his sires of old, / Tills his own ground, and lives his life in peace, / Far from the tumult of the noisy world.’
More…
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.
Peter von Bagh: Sodankylä ikuisesti [Sodankylä forever]
11 June 2010 | Mini reviews, Reviews
Sodankylä ikuisesti
[Sodankylä forever]
Helsinki: WSOY, 2010. 308 p., ill.
ISBN 978-951-0-36290-7
€ 52, hardback
The Midnight Sun Film Festival is the world’s northernmost film festival. Held in Sodankylä, Lapland, it is now 25 years old. This scrapbook includes the text of speeches given by filmmakers as well as a wealth of material about the films shown over the years. Much of this material is based on the morning discussion panels which the festival’s director, film historian and author Peter von Bagh, has chaired with his guests. More than one hundred film directors, from Samuel Fuller to Wim Wenders, talk about the background and influences in their work. Von Bagh has constructed dialogues between directors who did not actually attend the same sessions; he calls these conversations – sometimes between the living and the dead – ‘heavenly dialogues’. The Festival was founded by Finnish film directors Aki and Mika Kaurismäki and Anssi Mänttäri in collaboration with the municipality of Sodankylä. The light summer nights and laid-back atmosphere at the festival delight the speakers and audience members every year. In the words of the American filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker, ‘Woodstock is fuckin’ nothing if you’ve been at the Midnight Sun Film Festival.’
Mirkka Lappalainen: Susimessu – 1590-luvun sisällissota Ruotsissa ja Suomessa [Wolf Mass. Civil war in Sweden and Finland in the 1590s]
4 June 2010 | Mini reviews
Susimessu – 1590-luvun sisällissota Ruotsissa ja Suomessa
[Wolf Mass. Civil war in Sweden and Finland in the 1590s]
Helsinki: Siltala, 2009. 319 p.
ISBN 978-952-234-016-0
€32, hardback
Sweden at the end of the 16th century was riven by struggles for power: the opponents were the Protestant Duke Charles and Sigismund, King of Poland and Sweden, a strong supporter of the Counter-Reformation in the Nordic lands. A peasant uprising that came to be known as the ‘Cudgel War’ was underway in Finland – then part of the kingdom of Sweden. This book recounts the dramatic history of that civil war and, in line with current interpretive methods of historical research, explodes some popular myths that have been built up around these events. Mirkka Lappalainen has gained recognition as a bold writer who skilfully combines micro- and macro-level history. She characterises Sigismund, whom the Vatican supported to no avail, as a ‘melancholy, absent-minded vacillator, who preferred to play music.’ Lappalainen provides a fascinating alternative historical interpretation of what would have happened if the Vatican’s plans to wrest Finland away from Sweden and unite it with Poland had come to fruition.
Tapio Markkanen Paratiisista katsoen. Tähtitaivaan karttojen historiaa [Viewed from Paradise. A history of maps of the night sky]
4 June 2010 | Mini reviews
Paratiisista katsoen. Tähtitaivaan karttojen historiaa
[Viewed from Paradise. A history of maps of the night sky]
Helsinki: Ursa (Astronomical Association), 2009. 143 p., ill.
ISBN 978-952-5329-80-3
€ 32, paperback
This book presents a scientific and cultural history of mapping the night sky, from ancient times up to the present day. In addition to the technical processes involved in producing celestial maps, it touches on a broad range of cultural connections, since the practice of mapping the heavens has always been inextricably linked with economic, cultural and political concerns throughout human history. How has mankind around the world experienced and comprehended the night sky? The title of this book refers to the ancient practice of portraying the skies the wrong way round – as a mirror image, as if viewed from heaven. ‘That’s how the gods would have seen it,’ the author, Professor Tapio Markkanen, an astronomer at the University of Helsinki, reminds us. This book was published in conjunction with an exhibition organised by the National Library of Finland as part of the International Year of Astronomy in 2009. Many of the maps reproduced in this book are from the Nordenskiöld Collection, housed in the National Library, and included in the UNESCO Memory of the World programme.
Outside the human realm
28 May 2010 | Authors, Reviews
Tiina Raevaara. Photo: Heini Lehväslaiho
Themes enriched by the natural sciences set in a kind of naturalised literary fantasy make Tiina Raevaara an interesting young prose-writer. She is a doctor of genetics and a science writer whose collection of fourteen short stories, En tunne sinua vierelläni (‘I don’t feel you beside me’, Teos, 2010), is her second literary work.
Fantasy and a sombre dystopia combine in her debut novel, Eräänä päivänä tyhjä taivas (‘One day an empty sky’, 2008), which took its readers to the centre of ecological catastrophes and struggles for power taking the form of family relationships. The novel was seen as a morality tale examining the issue of human responsibility, and Leena Krohn, Johanna Sinisalo, Maarit Verronen and Jyrki Vainonen were identified as its literary godparents.
What unites these Finnish writers working at the borders of fact, fiction and fantasy? They are distinguished from realist prose by the way they pose a certain type of ethical question: the complex relationship between humankind and what is called nature, and the inexplicable fuzzy area between the two, which the hard sciences are unable to grasp. In these writers’ work, fantasy often layers into philosophical allegories which examine the limits of what can be experienced as human. More…
Panu Rajala: Lasinkirkas, hullunrohkea [Glass-clear, daredevil]
20 May 2010 | Mini reviews, Reviews
Lasinkirkas, hullunrohkea. Aila Meriluodon elämästä ja runoudesta
[Glass-clear, daredevil]
Helsinki: WSOY, 2010. 417 p., ill.
ISBN 978-951-0-35488-9
€39, hardback
Aila Meriluoto (born 1924) is a poet, author and translator whose first collection of poems, entitled Lasimaalaus (‘Stained glass’), sold more than 25,000 copies in 1946. She became a celebrity of her time, as her young, fresh voice expressed post-symbolist visions and, after the long, cruel years of the war, spoke defiantly about the death of God. Hailed as a youthful prodigy, she was favoured by the dominant poet and professor of literature, V.A. Koskenniemi. Meriluoto has published ten collections of poems, as well as novels, children’s books, diaries, memoirs, and a book about her first husband, the poet and author Lauri Viita (1916–1965). She has translated works by Rainer Maria Rilke, Harry Martinson and Astrid Lindgren. This biography tends to concentrate on the writer’s personal history rather than on her works. The author and scholar Panu Rajala and Meriluoto became acquainted in the 1970s, and he calls his biography ‘a subjective testimonial’. Rajala has written plays, novels and film scripts as well as biographies, among them one of the classic author Mika Waltari (1908–1979).