This ‘n’ that
Dear Reader!
13 January 2011 | This 'n' that
Reading Books from Finland here, there and... Photo: Google Analytics
2011 is well underway, and it’s back to business – reporting on good books from Finland, that is!
The new year also marks the beginning of our third year online: we are very pleased to note that last year visits to this site increased by 187 per cent compared to 2009!
Our foreign readers hail from a total of 149 countries, although the majority are in the United States and the United Kingdom – with a surprisingly large number of neighbourly visits from readers in Finland.
There are some countries where only one reader has taken a look at Books from Finland last year; greetings to our own readers in Honduras and Papua New Guinea…. But, on the other hand, readership in Belarus has grown by 2.400 per cent, from just one in 2009 to a grand total of 25!
We’ve been very glad to have your online feedback, which prompted us to think that since we haven’t done a reader survey for a longish time, we might take the opportunity to run another one now – so we’ll be quizzing you about your views of the contents of the journal on this page soon.
We hope to offer you more that is diverting, entertaining and thought-provoking this year than ever before. Remember, you can also keep abreast of what’s going on on the Books from Finland website by subscribing to our RSS and e-mail delivery services (and we’re on Facebook, too).
Happy new year, and good reading!
The editors
Soila Lehtonen (Helsinki)
Hildi Hawkins (London)
Beyond words
15 December 2010 | This 'n' that
Meeting place of the Lahti International Writers' Reunion: Messilä Manor
‘Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent.’
This famous quotation from the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein has been adapted by the organisers of the Lahti International Writers’ Reunion (LIWRE): the theme of the 2011 Reunion, which takes place in June, will be ‘The writer beyond words’.
‘Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must write.’ How will the writer meet the limits of language and narration?
‘There are things that will not let themselves be named, things that language can not reach. Our senses give us information that is not tied to language – how can it be translated into writing? And how is the writer going to describe horrors beyond understanding or ecstasy that escapes words? How can one put into words hidden memories, dreams and fantasies that lie suppressed in one’s mind? Does the writer fill holes in reality or make holes in something we only think is reality?
‘Besides literature, there are other forms of interpreting the world; can the writer step into their realms to find new ways of saying things? The surrounding social sphere may put its own limits to writing. What kind of language can a writer use in a world of censorship and stolen words? How does the writer relate to taboos, those dimensions of sexuality, death or holiness that the surrounding world would not want to see described at all? Is it the duty of literature to go everywhere and reveal everything, or is the writer a guardian of silence who does not reveal but protects secrets and everything that lies beyond language?’
The first Writers’ Reunion took place in Lahti at Mukkula Manor in 1963; since then, more than a thousand writers, translators, critics and other book people, both Finnish and foreign, have come to Mukkula to discuss various topics.
In 2009 the theme was ‘In other words’, which inspired the participants to talk about the power of the written word in strictly controlled regimes, about fiction that retells human history and about the differences between the language of men and women, among other things. See our report from the 2009 Reunion; eleven presentations are available in English, too.
Ho-ho-no!
10 December 2010 | This 'n' that
In the olden days: Father Christmas dressed in grey. A Christmas magazine illustration, 1926. Picture: Helsinki City Museum
St Nicholas, Father Christmas, Santa Claus? According to Finns, the benevolent, bearded, reindeer-driving, present-giving figure lives on Korvatunturi fell in Lapland (not at the North Pole, not anywhere else!).
In Finnish his name is Joulupukki, ‘Yule goat’ (or ‘buck’, Old English, bucca). Joulupukki developed from pagan traditions where his predecessor was a creature called Nuuttipukki, ‘Knut’s goat’, which referred to St Knut’s day, originally on 7 January.
The end of Christmas was celebrated by itinerant groups of people visiting houses playing for food and, in particular, booze. Leading them was the scary ‘Knut’s goat’ disguised in horns, a face mask and lambskins, frightening children. If he wasn’t given beer, he could steal the spigot from the beer barrel or beat people with a bunch of twigs.
This tradition was popular until the beginning of the 20th century, when the good Joulupukki replaced his old bad post-Christmas counterpart, shedding his horns and mask. However, when he came to people’s homes on Christmas Eve to bring presents, he still wore a fur coat, was heavily bearded and might still carry both twigs and gifts – so children had indeed better watch out how they behaved all year.
Naughty or nice? A new full-length Finnish film directed by Jalmari Helander entitled Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale was released internationally in early December.
In this Yuletide film the central figure of the mundane Christmas celebrations is not the red-dressed, jolly Santa we know, but ‘a sinister old codger who chews off ears and whose demon minion kidnaps innocent children. Ho ho no!’, as Jeannette Catsoulis reported in the New York Times.
‘Rare Exports is an enormously entertaining and unpredictable Yuletide romp packed with sly wit, solid scares and naked geriatrics,’ said Tom Huddleston of Time Out London.
Frank Lovece, in Film Journal International, wrote: ‘Some human and reindeer gore make this inappropriate for young children, as much as the movie’s boy-hero denouement may suggest otherwise. But for anyone who needs an inoculation of humbug to counter artificial sentiment, or who simply likes to smoke their Christmas cheer or put it in brownies, this off-kilter return to roots is a welcome gift.’
The plot involves a mysterious block of ice that has been unearthed in Lapland, sprouting a pair of horns. Children begin to disappear, reindeer are found killed. A ten-year-old boy finds out what’s happening, and he and his dad take up fighting back. ‘Wicked fun in the manner of a 21st century Grimm’s fairy-tale,’ said Chris Barsanti of filmcritic.com. ‘Exuberantly pagan images,’ wrote Jeannette Catsoulis.
Santa's place: 360° panorama from Korvatunturi, Lapland. Photo: Wikimedia/Panoramio
Well, Rare Exports was in fact filmed in Norway: Finnish fells are low and unimpressive in comparison to the higher Norwegian fells and mountains. Joulupukki’s home on Korvatunturi is particularly difficult to access, as the Russian border cuts through this formation of fells, which is also a part of a nature conservation area.
Santa’s red, fur-lined outfit is a comparatively recent invention, by the way: it became popular in the United States in an advertising campaign for Coca-Cola in 1931. By a trick of fate, though, the image was designed by one Haddon Sundblom who was of Finnish (Åland) origin.
So, what’s the truth about Joulupukki ? Could it be that an incarnation of the ancient horned shaman-like creature might still dwell in the depths of that faraway Lapland fell, and that the Coca-Cola man on whose lap your kid is sitting, listing his or her wishes, is just some commercial impostor?
Coming up…
25 November 2010 | This 'n' that
Next up, Christmas! Not to mention the New Year! And holidays…
In suitably festive mood, we’ll be posting a short extract from the novel Seitsemän veljestä (Seven Brothers, 1870) by the classic writer Aleksis Kivi.
It is a nostalgic glimpse of a Christmas spent in the Finnish countryside, in a humble cottage inhabited by seven brothers and their animals: ‘Alike in a lowly cottage and stately manor-house, joy and peace prevail…’
Little and large
5 November 2010 | This 'n' that
A Finnish tale set in Egypt: Mika Waltari's post-war novel has been translated into 30 languages, English in 1949
a about after again against all also always an and another any are around as at away back be because been before being between both but by came can children come could course day did didn’t do does don’t down each end er even every fact far few find first for from get go going good got great had has have he her here him his home house how i i’m if in into is it its it’s just kind know last left life like little long look looked made make man many may me mean me might more most mr much must my never new no not nothing now of off oh old on once one only or other our out over own part people perhaps place put quite rather really right said same say says see she should so some something sort still such take than that that’s the their them there these they thing things think this those though thought three through time to too two under up us used very want was way we well went were what when where which while who why will with without work world would year years yes you your
Doesn’t this just run like a poem? An extract from somebody’s stream of conscience? ‘…again against all also always… quite rather really right said’? Actually it’s a list of the 200 most used words of the English language in alphabetical order.
This remarkable list is among the references* in a new doctoral thesis from the Department of Modern Languages at the University of Helsinki, Englanniksiko maailmanmaineeseen? Suomalaisen proosakaunokirjallisuuden kääntäminen englanniksi Isossa-Britanniassa vuosina 1945–2003 (‘To world fame in English? The translating of Finnish prose fiction into English in Great Britain between 1945 and 2003’). More…
The legacy of a self-made man
29 October 2010 | This 'n' that
On camelback: in the exotic part of Veijo Rönkkönen’s concrete cosmos there are animals and palm trees, side by side with the living plants of the northerly latitudes. - Photo, left: Veijo Rönkkönen; photo, right: Veli Granö
Some of our readers may remember a story entitled ‘Self-made man’, published in Books from Finland in April 2009: Veijo Rönkkönen, who lived his entire life on a small, isolated farm in eastern Finland, built a garden inhabited by five hundred human and animal figures made of concrete.
Rönkkönen worked in a nearby pulp factory for 41 years. He lived in a small house in the middle of the garden, surrounded by his sculptures, which he had started making in the early 1960s.
Photographer and writer Veli Granö introduced the life and works of this self-made artist in his book Veijo Rönkkösen todellinen elämä / The real life of Veijo Rönkkönen (text in Finnish and English, Maahenki, 2007).
Contemporary folk art in Finland goes by the acronym ITE, from the words itse tehty elämä, ‘self-made life’. The French called it art brut; the English-language term is ‘outsider art’. The artists are ‘unschooled visionaries’ who make their art independent on any societal requirements or definitions.
The sculpture park became the most notable tourist attraction in Parikkala, visited by as many as 26,000 visitors every summer. Rönkkönen, however, refused to turn it into business. He never talked to visitors voluntarily either, but the park was open and free to all. He was awarded a state prize for artistic achievement, the Finland Prize, worth €30,000, in 2007, which he accepted.
Veijo Rönkkönen died last spring at the age of 66. The estate – Rönkkönen’s siblings, living elsewhere in Finland – offered the unique park to the county of Parikkala, which declined the offer because it’s upkeep was estimated to be too expensive.
In October businessman Reino Uusitalo bought the place for €140,000, with the intention of founding an administrative committee for the upkeep of the park. Rönkkönen’s extraordinary ‘total work of art’, will thus stay open – at least until nature – lichen, moss, creepers – claims what it considers it own. 500 sculptures: a self-made man’s open-air art
Hip hip hurray, Moomins!
22 October 2010 | This 'n' that
Partying in Moomin Valley: Moomintroll (second from right) dancing through the night with the Snork Maiden (from Tove Jansson’s second Moomin book, Kometjakten, Comet in Moominland, 1946)
The Moomins, those sympathetic, rotund white creatures, and their friends in Moomin Valley celebrate their 65th birthday in 2010.
Tove Jansson published her first illustrated Moomin book, Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen (‘The little trolls and the big flood’) in 1945. In the 1950s the inhabitants of Moomin Valley became increasingly popular both in Finland and abroad, and translations began to appear – as did the first Moomin merchandise in the shops.
Jansson later confessed that she eventually had begun to hate her troll – but luckily she managed to revise her writing, and the Moomin books became more serious and philosophical, yet retaining their delicious humour and mild anarchism. The last of the nine storybooks, Moominvalley in November, appeared in 1970, after which Jansson wrote novels and short stories for adults.
Tove Jansson with her creations (Photo: www.moomin.com/tove/travel, 1993)
Tove Jansson (1914–2001) was a painter, caricaturist, comic strip artist, illustrator and author of books for both children and adults. Her Moomin comic strips were published in the daily paper the London Evening News between 1954 and 1974; from 1960 onwards the strips were written and illustrated by Tove’s brother Lars Jansson (1926–2000).
Tove’s niece, Sophia Jansson (born 1962) now runs Moomin Characters Ltd as its artistic director and majority shareholder. (The company’s latest turnover was 3,6 million euros).
For the ever-growing fandom of Jansson there is a delightful biography of Tove (click ‘English’) and her family on the site, complete with pictures, video clips and texts.
The world now knows Moomins; the books have been translated into 40 languages. The London Children’s Film Festival in October 2010 featured the film Moomins and the Comet Chase in 3D, with a soundtrack by the Icelandic artist Björk. An exhibition celebrating 65 years of the Moomins (from 23 October to 15 January 2011) at the Bury Art Gallery in Greater Manchester presented Jansson’s illustrations of Moominvalley and its inhabitants.
In association with several commercial partners in the Nordic countries Moomin Characters launched a year-long campaign collecting funds to be donated to the World Wildlife Foundation for the protection of the Baltic Sea. Tove Jansson lived by the Baltic all her life – she spent most of her summers on a small barren island called Klovharu – and the sea featured strongly in her books for both children and adults.
Icy prospects
8 October 2010 | This 'n' that
Jorma Puranen: Juovlajohka, Norway, 1997
Photographer Jorma Puranen (born 1951) has long been concerned with nature and the representation of northern landscapes, particularly Lapland, as well as light and its reflection.
One of his most famous projects is Imaginary Homecoming. In the 1990s, on a visit in the Musée de l’Homme in Paris, he found some old archive boxes full of glass negatives. They were ethnographical images of the Sámi, taken by G. Roche, employed by the French Count Bonaparte on an expedition to Lapland in 1884.
Puranen took them back to the wildernesses of Lapland and photographed them once more in their native surroundings, where they became a photographic installation in the tundra. He published them in his book Kuvitteellinen kotiinpaluu / Imaginary Homecoming (Pohjoinen, 1999).
Puranen’s 2006 series Icy Prospects explores landscape: the large pictures are made by painting wood with black gloss paint, reflecting the landscape on the wood and photographing the reflection.
Snow, ice, water, sky and trees are portrayed the way that brings Impressionism to mind, as Liz Wells writes in her introduction in the book entitled Icy Prospects, published by Hatje Cantz (Germany, 2009).
Jorma Puranen: Icy Prospects (series, 2006)
A new exhibition of Jorma Puranen’s work from 1992 to 2010, at EMMA, the Espoo Museum of Modern Art, opened on 29 September; it runs until 9 January 2011. Partly retrospective, it features Puranen’s techniques of chromogenic colour and black and white photography, showcasing his highly original style.
Dog days
30 September 2010 | This 'n' that
Russian dogs by Pentti Sammallahti (Solovki, White Sea, 1992)
How does he do it? The dogs pose in Pentti Sammallahti’s photographs like professional models who know how to keep still.
Sammallahti admits sausages and sardines sometimes help communication.
In 1998, in the old, printed version of Books from Finland, we published a selection of Sammallahti’s photographs, together with some written impressions by the British photographer and essayist John Berger. According to him, people who first see the selection of Sammallahti photographs he has, ‘usually gasp at first, and then peer closer, smiling,’ as they seem to remember something they knew as children, but which they have forgotten how to see – from the times ‘we talked to the dogs, listened to their secret and kept it to ourselves.’
Sammallahti (born 1950) is one of the pioneers of the Finnish photographic art and fine art printing, which he has also taught at the University of Industrial Arts and Design in Helsinki.
Specialising in black-and-white photography of people and their environment, Sammallahti has travelled extensively throughout Russia and Siberia, France and Finland. This autumn his work is featured in a retrospective exhibition at the Finnish Museum of Photography in Helsinki; you can see a selection of his photos here.
HEL YES!
24 September 2010 | This 'n' that
Dinner time: HEL YES pop-up restaurant in London; lighting by Harri Koskinen. Photo: Adam Laycock
Run that by me again, please?
Oh: HEL is the airport abbreviation of Helsinki, and the second word completes the title given to a pop-up restaurant set up by a team of Finnish designers and chefs in London. It takes place at 1–3 Wenlock Road, London N1, between 15 September and 3 October.
HEL YES! is commissioned and produced by the Finnish Institute in London as part of its Arts & Culture Programme, in anticipation of Helsinki’s role as World Design Capital in 2012.
The restaurant offers inventive Finnish dishes, the dinner service plates are mix ‘n’ match vintage Iittala and the diners sit on Alvar Aalto and Artek’s ‘403’ chairs painted in a new range of colours.
We hear the reservations for dinner are now been fully booked, but coffee and drinks are available in the restaurant, a former depot. See what the press said, here.
Dark, cold – yet happy?
27 August 2010 | This 'n' that
In the fields of education, health, quality of life, economic dynamism and political environment, the best country in the world is… Finland.
According to the American Newsweek magazine (August 15), Finland is now the best place to live – if you appreciate the factors of life mentioned above. On the list of a hundred countries, Switzerland and Sweden were numbers two and three. More…
Lucky strikes
12 August 2010 | This 'n' that
Stumbled upon: readers find Tommi Musturi's comic strip (June 10–June 18)
When Books from Finland was a printed journal, it was relatively easy to define its readership – now it is different: we are a part of the internet’s ecosystem, its surging and multifarious mass of knowledge.
Those who visit our pages may have the most diverse motives for wanting to read our articles – and they may travel surprising itineraries before arriving on Books from Finland’s pages, as we found out recently: StumbleUpon is still a fairly little-known service in Finland. Thus it took a while before we realised why so many of the comments about our piece on Tommi Musturi’s wordless comic strip, on colour and friendship, began with the words ‘I stumbled upon’… More…
Postcards from the lakeside
8 August 2010 | This 'n' that
A tower with a view: Olavinlinna (St Olaf's castle). Photo: Lola Rogers
Translator Lola Rogers (of, for example, Sofi Oksanen’s best-selling novel Purge), from Seattle, spent a few weeks in Finland, and went on a cruise on Lake Saimaa.
Olavinlinna (St Olaf’s castle), and the opera, in the city of Savonlinna, was one of her stops; take a look at her blog – you’ll perhaps recognise the the inventive 16th-century wall privies on the towers we wrote about a while ago.
There are quite a few photos from Helsinki, too – from this hot, hot (too hot?) summer.
Face to face
24 June 2010 | This 'n' that
You can now keep up with what’s new at Books from Finland on Facebook.
And remember: you can also get Books from Finland articles delivered straight to your inbox or smartphone by signing up to our RSS feed, or subscribing to our regular newsletter – the new one is, as we used to say, currently in the typewriter and will be with you soon.
Let’s keep in touch!
Need to go?
23 June 2010 | This 'n' that
No traveller can avoid toilets, as the internet service about.com (run by the company that owns the New York Times) points out on its Scandinavia travel website.
Thus, it may be reassuring to know that ‘the days of outhouses are numbered’, and in Finland there are no squat toilets, according to the experiences of the editor, Terri Mapes. (The concept of ‘Finlandic restrooms’, however, is a new one to us – as is, for that matter, the adjective ‘Finlandic’.)
However, under the title ‘Bad Things About Toilets in Finland’ you’ll be informed about the possibility of outhouses without running water, should you choose the option of wandering into the wildernesses. And as toilets at airports or train stations may occasionally smell bad, it is advisable to use the bathroom at your hotel, unless your needs are urgent of course. More…