Focus on Finnish Writers

Realistic Finnish young adult novels  are problem-focused, as can be seen in such books as Marja-Leena Lempinen’s Black Snow (Mustaa lunta, WSOY 2006) and Mila Teräs’ The Blue Room (Sininen huone, Otava 2006). In Black Snow, a stand-alone sequel to The Ice Circle (Jäänympyrä, WSOY 2004), 17-year-old Hanne fells a stag, which parallels her father’s later suicide. The main character of The Blue Room is a city girl who is also 17 years old, but Sigrid’s problems get their charge from the opposite pole of life: in spite of an accidental pregnancy she decides to have the child and begin an independent life. Neither of these books main characters gets any understanding from her boyfriend, but Sigrid, who is huddled within herself, finds support in a group of women of various ages, while Hanne gains social capital and strength from an unusual place – a hunting party.

Lempinen’s book is both traditional and unusual in Finnish literature in its depictions of rural life, in that the overwhelming majority of contemporary young adult fiction is set in the city, although an idealised rural life is still fostered in Finnish entertainment for adults. Both books are coming-of-age stories, but Lempinen’s is seasoned with travel. The protagonist is a student in the city, and her return home to the countryside splashes detailed descriptions of nature across the reader’s consciousness in a vivid, positive way.

An artist’s novel for young people

Sirpa Puskala’s Kingi (WSOY 2006) is a skilfully written, more multi-faceted realistic novel as full of joy and sadness as life itself.

Kingi is an artist’s novel on many levels. Miika, the main character, dreams of writing his first book, accidentally becomes acquainted with his dead stepbrother’s life in a band, and writes a musical about his brother’s terrible fate.

Miika’s schoolmates don’t know his history – his mother’s alcoholism brought on by his older brother’s death, his father’s disappearance, the children being taken into custody – and this creates a lot of tension in the boy’s relationships with his friends, and in his groping first love. The book’s description of inner life explores the protagonist’s attempts to balance the tough roles that a boy must play, and his painfully familiar struggle to express his feelings. The past and present are mixed and in the end the reader is left to ponder whether it is adults who shelter their children, or children their adults.

Bands and band life

Girls’ choices are no longer chained to traditional roles. In Vilja-Tuulia Huotarinen’s Silja’s Song: The Story of a Girl Band (Siljan laulu: Tarina tyttöbändistä, Karisto 2007), and Virpi Hämeen-Anttila’s Nietos: Intro (Otava 2007), written in collaboration with her daughter Maria Hämeen-Anttila, girls conquer new territory in the traditionally masculine world of the band.

15-year-old Silja, the protagonist of Silja’s Song is grieving for her father, but her life takes a turn for the better when she becomes the front woman in an all-girl band. Huotari’s book is structurally interesting because it is assembled like scenes in a screenplay. The musical and descriptive directions at the beginnings of chapters guide the reader to their themes, but it is the main text’s shuttling between reality, memory, and dreams that, at its best, climaxes with an epigrammatic insight. Silja’s Song won the Karisto Young Adult Book competition in 2006.

Nietos: Intro is the first book in a trilogy about Nietos, a band made up of high school students. The Hämeen-Anttilas’ book is a distillation of two trends. More and more young adult books are, like this one, stand-alone parts of a larger whole. A smaller but discernible trend is that novels no longer are written by lone foot-soldiers – many writers have discovered the joys of collaborative work.

Tales of escape and adventure

There are still sporadic re-workings of the “agrarian romance” for boys as well, but in the case of one book, what is central is the romance of the machine, and the whole of Finland. Tuija Lehtinen’s Tractor (Tractor, Otava 2007) is a hilarious depiction of a dream passed down from one generation to another, in which a boy who inherits a tractor from his uncle sets out to realise his uncle’s dream of travelling by tractor across Finland. Lehtinen’s travelling tale with its ironic jabs is a breath of fresh, joyous, positive air among realistic books. A multi-faceted lightness with a contemporary zeitgeist can also be found in Lehtinen’s www.liisasblog.net (www.liisanblogi.net, Otava 2006), which describes the events of the plot both directly and through their discussion on the internet.

A successful author for young adults is Ilkka Remes, whose Aaro Korpi thrillers have been continuously among the best-selling Finnish youth novels. The Cursed Code (Kirottu koodi, WSOY 2006) reached 24,300 copies sold in the year it was released, and his Hermes (WSOY 2007) sold 26,700 copies in Finland, a country of around 5 million inhabitants. The hero of Remes’ fast-moving thrillers is a 14-year-old boy who is drawn as an eyewitness into adventures both at home and abroad. It’s no wonder that this straightforward adventure is popular – the series, which has 5 books thus far – could be aptly described as James Bondian in spirit. Translations from the series have been successful in Germany as well, where they have been published by dtv junior.

Tales of escape and adventure with a contemporary spirit can also be found in Marja-Leena Tiainen’s Alex and the Time of Fear (Alex ja pelon aika, Tammi 2006) and its sequel, Alex, Aisha and Sam (Alex, Aisha ja Sam, Tammi 2007). The first book in the series fleshes out the hero’s decision to flee the Land of Two Mountains, and the second describes the lives of young people in a family group home in Finland.

Closed societies

The most interesting development in young adult literature can be found in the science fiction category, since Anu Holopainen’s With Both Feet (Molemmin jaloin, Karisto 2006) is serious sci-fi, and is by no means humorous sci-fi or space opera, like the large majority of youth science fiction. The book tells the story of a girl who applies with her girlfriend for work at the Mother’s Center. In this futuristic novel, the inhibitor, a device that suppresses the functioning of hormones and instincts, is installed in those who uphold the official culture. In the Center, the inhibitor is removed, at which time the function of hormones springs into action. A portion of the androgynous population thus voluntarily throws themselves into the storm of puberty, where few can bear the additional responsibility.

When their hormonal activity with its strong mood swings roars to life, these nearly asexual people are offered a new and intense outlook on puberty. The book is a journey into aneruption of feeling and sexuality, but also an adventure into an interesting, enclosed environment.

Seita Parkkola has used an environment in the same spirit in her novel Viima (WSOY 2006), in which the protagonist is placed in an almost absurdly doctrinaire reform school. Parkkola’s skilful book could be called a novel in the graffiti and hip-hop spirit, as well as an almost surrealist work of fantasy.

Floods of fantasy

The grip of realism has long been so strong that fantasy didn’t really bloom in Finland until the beginning of the second half of the 1990s. First-rate fantasy is written for different age groups; Finland-Swedish author Henrika Andersson’s Emma Gloria and the Living Omen (Emma Gloria och de Levande Varslarna, Söderström 2006) and Ritva Toivola’s  Ghost Birds (Aavelinnut, Tammi 2007) are suitable for preteens and teens. Ghost Birds has a largely realistic tone, but also an emphasis on ethics and environmental responsibility, an important message that is brought out in her use of ghosts.

Emma Gloria’s story is complex and touching. What should a child do when she is lonely and afraid? How can Emma get through the school day if the classmates around her have a completely irrational hate for her one day, and love her the next? Andersson weaves everyday life in a tight weft that links to the world of imagination and back to the world of reality. The language of the novel is rhythmically beautiful prose in which the wordless often expresses more than the diffuse description.

In young adult fantasy literature, Finnishness is manifest in nature, mythological themes, and in the way that subjects are handled. Ilkka Auer’s fourth book in his Land of Snow and Ice series (Lumen ja jään maa, Otava 2004-2008), set in the world of imagination, is influenced by Viking tradition, but there is also a Saami spirit in them. Jukka Laajarinne also uses a snowy landscape in his work of fantasy Ice Gods (Jäiset jumalat, WSOY 2007).

Contemporary fantasy has won many awards. Timo Parvela’s Fireblade (Tuliterä, Tammi 2007) is the first book of a series that makes use of the Finnish national epic Kalevala. The book was awarded the Topelius Prize in 2007. Päivi Honkapää’s Fifth Wind (Viides tuuli, WSOY 2007), which uses the winds as supernatural elements, won the Tampere University Literature Students Prize.

The master of polymorphism in fantasy is Sari Peltoniemi, who, in her most recent novel, The Scale (Suomu, Tammi 2007), takes on time travel and parallel worlds. As a fantasy that emanates from the everyday, The Scale enriches both the youth novel and fantasy literature in general.

Niklas Bengtsson

26.6.2008

The author is a non-fiction writer and young adult literature researcher, who, among other activities, is the 2006-2008 Nordic representative to the executive committee of the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY).