Tag: novel
Arrest
Issue 4/1990 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose
An extract from the novel Jäniksen vuosi (‘The year of the hare’). Introduction by Mirja Bolgár
About mid-June Vatanen’s travels had taken him as far as the road to Nurmes. It was raining. He was cold.
He’d just hopped out of the coach from Kuopio, now on its way to Nurmes; so here he was, stuck on a rainy highway, getting soaked because of a snap decision. The village of Nilsiä was miles off.
The hare’s back leg had mended. Almost full-grown it was, now, that hare: good job it still fitted into the basket.
But, anyway, round the comer was a house: a bungalow with attic space – not a bad-looking set-up. Might as well call, Vatanen decided, and see if there’s a night’s lodging going. A woman in a raincoat was scratching away at the garden, her hands black with soil. And old woman – and a picture of his wife flashed though his mind: there was something of his wife about her. More…
Renaissance man
Issue 3/1990 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose
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…
Letters to Trinidad
Issue 1/1990 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose
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…
The anchor
Issue 1/1990 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose
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…
Looking back on a dark winter
Issue 4/1989 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose
Extracts from the autobiographical novel Talvisodan aika (‘The time of the Winter War’), the childhood memoirs of Eeva Kilpi. During the winter of 1939–40 she was an 11-year old-schoolgirl in Karelia when it was ceded to the Soviet Union and the population evacuated
Time is the most valuable thing
we can give each other
War’s coming.
One day my father comes out with the familiar words in a totally unfamiliar way, while we’re sitting round the kitchen table eating, or just starting to eat.
He says to mother, as if we simply aren’t there, as if we don’t need to bother, or as if listening means not understanding. Or perhaps they’ve simply no other chance to speak to each other, as father’s always got to be off hunting, or on his way to the station, and mother’s always cooking. More…
Digging for gold
Issue 2/1989 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose
Antti Tuuri has found his theme in the life of Finnish émigré communities and their experience in what used to be called ‘the New World’. Uusi Jerusalem (‘The New Jerusalem’, 1988), is about the Finns who migrated to Canada during the Depression, only to find that their utopian dreams had no basis in reality. In the following extract the narrator finds himself and his fellow mineworkers in the middle of the forest at night, on the way by foot to the Kirkland Lake gold mines, where they are going to be strikebreakers. The novel, an ironical tale of life in a new land, follows on from Pohjanmaa (‘Ostrobothnia’, 1982), Talvisota (‘The Winter War’, 1984), Ameriikan raitti (‘The American road’, 1986).
The train pulled up at Swastika station, many a mile from Kirkland Lake, and Hamina said we’d have to press on by foot from the station to the town.
Swastika, he said, meant the crooked cross, but he didn’t know whether there were any of those German Adolf-fanciers around, who were so keen on the sign. He was certain, in fact, the town had got its name long before anyone in Germany had heard of Adolf or his swastika.
We asked why we had to walk from here to the town. Hamina said we’d got to walk because even in Canada vehicles didn’t drive through the backwoods; moreover, it wasn’t a good idea to walk along the Kirkland Lake road: we might meet up with the kind of guys who’d make our arrival at Kirkland Lake seem very unwelcome. More…
Higher goals
Issue 4/1987 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose
An extract from the novel Tammerkosken sillalla (‘On Tammerkoski bridge’, 1982). Introduction by Panu Rajala
I had thought there were a lot of books in the libraries in Oulu. But both those libraries were totally overshadowed when, having climbed up to the top of the Messukylä Workers’ House, I began to cast my eyes along the bookshelves in the attic. A tallish and refined-looking librarian responded when I exclaimed aloud.
‘Just under seven thousand volumes altogether. Some of them are out on loan. We’d like to have a lot more books, but getting the money to buy them is like getting water from a stone.’
‘But you’ve already got an incredible amount compared to what we have in the rural library at home… In Taivalkoski during the war all we had was two cupboardsful.’
‘You didn’t have a lot of choice there,’ agreed the librarian. More…
Paris 2
Issue 3/1987 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose
An extract from the novel Paholaispoika (‘The devil boy’, 1987). Introduction by Austin Flint
You must sit down, sayes Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat.
(George Herbert)
The city was the sum of the whole century, the capital of the eighteen hundreds, of no particular country. Like millions of others, I passed time reading the newspapers and keeping up with what was happening in Europe. Acorns would get crushed. There were many omens of how everything would turn out.
There were still a few remnants of the World’s Fair over by the Palais Royal. Not very many. The latest and most shocking incident was that the Lipschitz sculpture, ‘Prometheus Strangling the Vulture’, had been chopped to bits. Then it was put into storage, in some secret place. Crumbling rough grey stone that gave no idea of its shape. Rumour had it that the statue had offended official policy, and all sorts of things were certainly in the air. There was no longer any sign of the sculpture near the Palais Royal. More…
Encounters with the real
Issue 3/1987 | Archives online, Authors
Kirsti Simonsuuri. Photo: Pertti Nisonen / Tammi
When one mentions Kirsti Simonsuuri to literary people in Finland, one is likely to get the response, ‘Ah, yes, very interesting, of course, but you know she’s not really a Finnish writer. Her themes are more international, more intellectual, more European.’
Looking at her career, one can see why she has acquired such a reputation. While she took her MA degree in English and Classical Studies from the University of Helsinki in 1971, since then she has spent most of her productive literary years outside Finland, studying for the PhD which she received from the University of Cambridge, England in 1977 and doing additional research in Paris, London, Strasbourg, and Bonn. More recently, in addition to teaching at the Universities of Oulu and Turku in Finland, she has held positions as Visiting Scholar at Harvard University, at the University of California, Los Angeles, and at Columbia University in New York, where she has taught a course on Finnish literature in the European context. More…
Lest your shadow fade
Issue 1/1987 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose
An extract from the novel Jottei varjos haalistu (‘Lest your shadow fade’, 1987). Interview by Erkka Lehtola
‘… learn, then, to like yourself.
Dancing beside your shadow, laugh and play.
Dance always in the sunlight, lest your shadow fade.’J. Fr. Erlander, 1876 (Erika Kuovinoja’s grandfather)
‘Tis in life’s hardness that its splendour lies.’
J. Fr. E., 1890
Three days before the date fixed for the funeral, the minister directed his steps towards the home of the deceased, trying, as he walked, to compose his thoughts, which were full of righteous Lutheran anger. There were many good reasons for this. On the other hand, nothing that had happened in the past ought to make any difference, now that he was on his way to visit a house of mourning. A visit that called for the exercise of understanding, and even, if possible, kindness. It was a lot for anyone to expect, even of a clergyman. It was not by his own desire that he was paying this call: it was a matter of duty. And this time he was the protagonist. Petulantly, his shoes crunched the gravel. More…