My book on Finnish Westerns

Sorry for the absence, folks. I've been working my ass off and writing my book on Finnish Westerns, but it's finally ready and being sent off to the printers. The book turned out pretty huge, clocking at 370 pages in its final version. You can see why I haven't been blogging - and not doing pretty much anything else either. This took me at least ten years from the first idea, and the actual writing took at least four years - but of course I did some other books in the interim.

I'm too tired at the moment to write more fully about the book and its contents, for now it's enough that I post the great cover by Timo Numminen. The book is out in May.

The book will be accompanied by an anthology I also compiled, with twenty or so Finnish Western short stories from the 1820s on up to this day. I'll post about it as well later.

Väinö Linna: The Unknown Soldier (1954)

Due to a book project I've been working on, I started to read Väinö Linna's classic war novel Tuntematon sotilas/The Unknown Soldier for the first time in my life. I'd earlier avoided the novel, mainly because I've always been a bit irritated at the notion of books one has to read for reasons larger than life (i.e. patriotism or the Fatherland or some such nonsense), but I was very glad to note I liked the book, was even thrilled by it.

The Unknown Soldier tells about the so called Continuation War in which Finland and the Soviet Union fought against each other. The war started in 1941 and ended in 1944. One of the biggest questions in Finnish history is whether Finland fought alongside Nazi Germany or whether it had its own war with the Soviets. The book is one of those realistic war novels, with the eye sight fixed on the everyday of the battling soldiers, their camaraderie, their fears, frustrations, hopes and anger. There are no heroes in this novel. The war is ugly, chaotic and violent. No one knows why they're fighting - only the higher officers have some idea and even that is filled with stupid notions of Greater Finland.

The Unknown Soldier has dated somewhat and we've had more realistic war novels since, but what keeps the book fresh is that it's polyphonic. There's not a single truth in the novel, there are only multiple narrators (or, actually, narratees) that present their variations of the situation. Linna writes warmly and empathetically of each and everyone of them, even the most obnoxious officers. And his battle scenes are quite good. He really captures the chaotic essence of war - well, as well he should, since he was himself at the war.

The book is available in English. The English translation came out from Putnam in the US and Collins in the UK in 1957, and I believe it was the same translation. For some reason or another, the translator's name isn't mentioned anywhere in the book. The translation is abridged (the reports on how heavily differ), and it's also clumsy with the Finnish idioms (which the book is full of). It's a miracle the translation should be so bad, since it's reported to be the work of one Alex Matson, a Finnish literary essayist, who spent many years in the 1920s living abroad and travelling the world seas. (Thanks for this tip to Ossi Kokko!)

However, it's the only English translation, and it's been used repeatedly even by Väinö Linna's Finnish publisher, WSOY (see the photo above for their edition). They've published several editions of the English translation - still with no translator's name attached. Seems like you could manage to buy the book via Amazon.

There's also the Ace edition from 1958, which is seemingly scarce (see above). The cover illustration is made by someone famous, but I forget who. The illustration was used in Finland in some entirely other paperback, but I forget even that one!

Edit: there's a small news item from 2012 saying that Penguin has bought the rights for Linna's novel and they are putting the new translation out in the near future. Liesl Yamaguchi is the translator.

More Finnish fantasy

Review of the first English-language collection of Jyrki Vainonen's silently surrealistic fantasy stories, out now. Recommended: Jyrki is a good writer (and a personal friend, but don't let that fool you).

Aino Kallas: The Wolf's Bride

I read this small classic of Finnish literature for the first time last week. It was originally published in 1928 and has been practically the only classic werewolf story written in Finnish language. Many friends of the book don't necessarily see it as horror. I should say it fits the genre bill, but I won't force my view down anyone's throat. The most important aspect of the story is that it's a love story, a story of a forester's wife, called Aalo, who can assume a wolf's shape and is killed in the end by her husband's silver bullet.

In Sudenmorsian/The Wolf's Bride Aino Kallas (the link is in English) uses archaic language of the 17th century and the story takes the form of a ballad, seen by an outsider, who shares his/her theological views on the side. The narrator seems to be well-educated, since he/she (most certainly "he") can talk about werewolves and the studies that's been made on them. Kallas's language and narration make a two-fold statement: while the narration and the use of old language could've been possible only in the modernist era, it also makes sure that The Wolf's Bride isn't easily dated. It still feels fresh and packs quite a punch. It's also a very beautiful story of an unfulfilled love.

The story was translated in English as early as 1930, by Alex Matson, a Finnish literary scholar and world-traveller, but the first (and only) edition from Jonathan Cape seems to be very rare: there's only one copy for measly 550 dollars on Abebooks. You can read the more current translation easily in The Dedalus Book of Finnish Fantasy where the whole story is contained in. Most highly recommended. (Especially since the Dedalus book contains Mika Waltari's great early sword-and-sorcery story "Island of the Setting Sun" from 1926 that could've easily been published in the pages of The Magic Carpet or The Weird Tales.)

The picture above is from a high-literary paperback series called Delfiini (Dolphin) in 1979. I believe the cover illo is by Kosti Antikainen, will correct if turns out I was wrong.

Kjell Westö: Lang (A Finnish crime novel)

Well, not actually a crime novel per se, more like a mainstream novel with a crime in its center. Kjell Westö's (from the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland) Lang (2002) is a tale of a celebrity writer and talk-show host who gets dragged down into a strange ménage à trois with a young woman, who has a 6-year old boy, and the son's father, a young man with a criminal bent. Seems like the woman and her former lover are still engaged in a sadomasochistic relationship that ends up in a tragic killing.

Westö tackles many issues, ranging from the verbal abuse that the talk-show host engages upon his interviewees to the larger social abuse the rich engage upon the poor, and the society of the spectacle.  This is all quite interesting and the book has a pretty good narrative drive, but Westö's style is overwritten. This could've benefited of being 40-50 pages shorter, though the last 50 pages were very good.

I don't know if this is translated in English (or any other language the readers of this blog master), but it might work in other languages, as it's not a typically Finnish novel. The themes are pretty global and the narrative is full of urbanisms.

Edit: my friend Tapani Bagge says this novel has been translated in English, he remembers seeing a review of it in CrimeTime magazine. Anyone? 

The cover for my war book

Here's the cover for my newest book, Tankki palaa! It's a collection of Finnish war-time stories about, well, war, namely the Second World War (which means in this case the Winter War and the Continuance War, Finland's two wars against the Soviet Union). The book collects together 22 (if I counted right) short stories and vignettes that were originally published in magazines or other periodicals. Almost all of the stories might be called propaganda, but some of them are also straight adventure (and some very good at that). One of the stories is a piece of left-wing critique against the war and the story in question isn't very well done, but interesting nevertheless. I would've liked to have more of that stuff in the book, but I couldn't find the estates for some authors. Here's the table of contents for the book; on the same blog, there's lots of other stuff concerning the book and war-time short stories.

The cover design is by me (oh man, I did the layouts for the whole book!) and the cover illustration is by Poika Vesanto, the artist extraordinaire. The picture is from 1943. (I posted Vesanto's western book covers here and here a while back.)

The book should be available through any bookstore in Finland, but not necessarily in any bookstore. So far the book doesn't seem to be available in the net bookstores, but it will.

A telling anecdote: I got my author's copies from the publisher earlier today (it's a local publisher, so I don't have to take a train to get to them) and walked home and forgot to tell Elina, my wife, about the books! A new book seems to be too common a commodity around here.