Identities

Swedish author and translator Ulf Peter Hallberg recently visited Helsinki and wrote about what he perceived to be a "slightly alarming" social and cultural uniformity (entydighet) in the place and its citizens. When the piece was reviewed in Hbl (with an accent on Hallberg's pessimistic take on the future of Finland-Swedishness), some commenters took the opportunity of pointing out that because of its unique history, Finland and the Finns play a special role in today's Europe, preserving the concept and practice of national identity in an era when it has been less than fashionable to do so. Hallberg's reactions to Finland are particularly interesting in the light of German chancellor Angela Merkel's recent remarks about the failure of multiculturalism in her country.

Mirjam Tuominen - 7

By Tuva Korsström (continued)

Mirjam Tuominen left Nykarleby, at first for short spells of time, and then finally for good.

'The decisive thing had now happened,' she writes in a short prose piece called Skilsmässa (Divorce) in the book Tema med variationer (Theme with Variations, 1952). 'They were separated, spiritually and physically irreconcilable – and what divided them was stronger than reason and will, stronger than instincts and desires.'

What caused the divorce was not only male jealousy at the woman's 'fornication with spirits, demons and non-personified men' which Tuominen describes in Skilsmässa. It was perhaps above all the jealous, all-consuming attention she herself paid to her own spirits and demons. She demanded solitude and wholeness. At the same time she was torn apart by her own demons.

For a while she lived with her mother and sisters in her former home in Helsingfors – an old, dark apartment, similar to the one in which her little heroine Irina has nightmares. A few years later, as a single mother, she was allocated municipal apartment in Kottby (Käpylä), a suburb of Helsingfors. She moved there with her two daughters and lived there until she died.

The book of prose sketches Tema med variationer reflects this new phase in Tuominen's life. Stories like 'The New Houses' or 'Ahti laughs' derive their origin from the new environment: a row of recently and poorly constructed tenement houses, filled with large working-class families, gypsies, alcoholics, social casualties and rootless people from all over post-war Finland.

This apartment was the first that Tuominen felt to be entirely her own. It was with a sense of triumph that she sat down at her typewriter in the early morning hours. Outside her window construction workers climbed on scaffolds. All around new houses were going up. There was a kind of pioneering spirit in the air.

Kaveri - kamrat - toveri:‘ (comrade) they shouted in the pouring autumn rain, in thirty degrees of frost, Then one had a sense that it was not they, these fellows well wrapped up and yet lightly clad: young and old - who were carrying out the work, But angels, While the men - old and young - stayed at home in order to drink hot milk - Kaveri - kamrat - toveri: in a long line at 7 in the morning they came. They laughed. They whistled. And did the work: Together. In broken Swedish, in broken Finnish, natural Finnish, natural Swedish, natural Yiddish - homeless people from Karelia, homeless people from Hangö, homeless people from some concentration camp in Central Europe...

With Tema med variationer Mirjam Tuominen embarked on a stylistic experiment on the borders between prose and prose poetry. While hitherto she had employed a timeless and classical literary language, now she strove for the inner leaps of the stream of consciousness.

She was moving from prose to poetry.

<(to be continued)

Mirjam Tuominen - 5

By Tuva Korsström
(continued)
Prototypes

Besk brygd concludes with essays on Edith Södergran, Franz Kafka and Hjalmar Bergman. 1949 saw the publication of Tuominen’s essay collection Stadier (Stages), which contains studies of Valéry, Proust, Rilke and Cora Sandel, among others. Tuominen was an assiduous reader of literature in the Nordic languages,  German, French, and to some extent also Spanish and Italian. She had extraordinary literary intuition and, while she still wrote reviews in newspapers she often introduced new names there. She was one of the first people in Finland to write about Kafka, and was drawn to Hölderlin years before he was rediscovered by literary fashion, though she seldom used literature as a source of news items. The essays in Besk brygd and Stadier indicate that she wrote only about writers whom she liked and with whom she felt a spiritual affinity.
Of Kafka, she writes:

This latterday relative of Jesus of Nazareth was born in Prague and grew up in an incurably bourgeois home.
One may wonder if there is anything so immensely liable to have a hostile effect, an effect that is deeply and inwardly incurable to the bottom of the soul, on a growing poetic force that senses its possibilities but as yet has no idea of its own existence, than the helplessly arch-bourgeois mentality.

For Tuominen, Franz Kafka became n almost ideal object of identification. Both are victims and outsiders. They feel surrounded by despotic executionerss who want to reshape and adapt them to 'normal', bourgeois life. Both bear the harshest executioner within themselves.

Franz Kafka carried an extremely harsh executioner within himself. He was harsh with himself, exacting as to the quality of what he wrote, and equally exacting of other people.

In her Kafka essay, Mirjam Tuominen consciously or unconsciously defines herself and her writings. When she describes Kafka's irony, it is her own sense of humour she portrays, that of the physically passive, non-aggressive victim.
The irony of both writers is predominant in her analysis of Kafka’s story ‘Die Verwandlung’ (Metamorphosis). The metamorphosis is the only way of escaping the strains of normality:

Gregor Samsa persists in his existence as a beetle, he cannot part from this existence even by his own will, he lives in his dark, untidy bedroom, shabby and neglected, bitter and ashamed, guilty and yet neither ashamed nor guilty, because if he looks like a beetle in the eyes of the family, then there is nothing to be done about itl, then he must be a beetle, he wants to be a beetle, he has no wish to be the respected son, the good brother any more.

Tuominen concludes: 'In order to write a story like “Die Verwandlung” Kafka must have felt the conflict between the demands of his inner being and those of the world around him with extreme and almost intolerable intensity.'  She could hardly have found a more accurate definition of herself and many of her own characters.

(to be continued)

Mirjam Tuominen - 4

By Tuva Korsström
(continued)

Victim and executioner

'This morning I saw my book: Bitter Brew. In this dawn without light, in which whiteness glowed: melting snow, dirty white walls of houses. Rain, snow, slush, black trees with torture-twisted trunks. December dawn in this city, which can only inspire me with agony.

On this border I apprehend everything with painful clarity. But the tension in my throat gives me the evidence that it is the borderline that, overstepped, leads to the terrain of madness.'

The long essay Besk brygd (Bitter Brew, 1947) marks a watershed in Tuominen's writing, and it has been viewed by many critics as her most important book.

The mood of Besk brygd is one of departure and disintegration. Tuominen would soon abandon the short story and fiction as literary genres. She was about to leave the small town, and her marriage. Humanity had gone morally bankrupt; the holocaust of Hitler's Germany had been revealed to its full extent:

'If I were to stand on a square and howl out the horror that has seized me, they would take hold of me and cart me off to a mental hospital. They would look after me and declare me insane, but no one would look after my horror. Because I feel my horror so strongly that I must howl in order to obtain an answer, I am considered insane, but if I conceal my horror in my heart and talk about the weather, the shortage of food, clothes and tobacco, I receive a many-worded and many-voiced reply, and am considered sensible.'

Tuominen does not howl out her horror in the streets. Instead, she uses the tool she possesses, literature, to bring order to the chaos and decay. She analyses human guilt and the part played by the executioner, methodically, step by step. Her starting point is a news item about a German soldier who threw a little Jewish boy into a sewer because the boy cried as the soldier was whipping the child's mother.

This scene remained in Mirjam Tuominen's mind forever. She would return to it over and over again. When she was writing Besk brygd, she believed that she could analyse it away or, more typically of her character, that she could take the guilt upon herself.

'I want to become embodied in this German soldier, in his body and his soul. I would like to return with him into his mother's womb, be born with him, grow up with him and then, organically coalesced with him, exist until the day when he took the boy and threw him into the sewer.That is my most fervent wish and and my greatest desire. Often. But I cannot do it, and therefore I am helpless. I know nothing.'

In her autobiographical book from the years of the Second World War, La Douleur (Pain, 1985), the French author Marguerite Duras makes a similar effort to analyse a executioner. She states: 'His stupidity is impenetrable. It is completely without holes.'

In Besk brygd, Tuominen describes a more nuanced but equally impenetrable executioner:

'Yes, if the executioner could express himself - then nearly everything would be gained. Only he could fix on a pin this harmful human insect - only he see through it. But the executioner never speaks, he is the most laconic being that was ever created. He forces his victims to do the talking, the wailing, the stammering -- he himself is silent - one might think it was stupidity, but it is not stupidity, one might think that it was contempt for words, but he does not despise words, he is interested in words. It is perhaps quite simply inability. He is bound to the action, the victim is bound to the word.'

The classic example of the executioner who compels his victim to talk incessantly is, of course, 'The Sultan and Sheherezade' in The Arabian Nights. Tuominen points out that Besk brygd could equally well have been called 'Sheherezade and the Sultan' The book's cover illustration is a pen and ink drawing by Mirjam Tuominen's husband. It shows the cruel, sensual face of a man behind the slim silhouette of a young woman.

The relationship between man and woman is often based on ties that are reminiscent of those between victim and executioner. We all have a executioner inside us, we are executioners to our nearest and dearest, to our children, to our pets, to ourselves.

But, Mirjam Tuominen argues, there are people who have both a executioner and a victim inside them. These human beings have a highly developed sense of humour.

'The executioner has no sense of humour, he is always deadly earnest. How could he have a sense of humour, as he does not speak, but act. There is in fact in every action something irresistibly absurd. The victim senses the absurdity and acts very reluctantly.'

Mirjam Tuominen constructs a system of guilt and non-guilt, of executioners and victims. The least guilty beings are infants and animals. This book of meditation on humanity's greatest crime is about 'feelings of gratitude towards a fly, remorse for offence done to a cat, and the genuine joy the company of two infants has given me.'

The world of adults is false and hostile to life.

'The infant and the animal love what they see and feel in man, the adult person loves what he wishes to love.

What makes social relationships with other adults so difficult is that the other person for the most part seems to be indicating that he is associating with someone different from whom one really is, and that one is probably acting in the same way oneself...

An invisible executioner, not joy and happiness, seems to be the host at every social event.'

Mirjam Tuominen is looking for better company than that hosted by the invisible executioner. She finds her new intellectual friends among those who, according to her own interpretation, have 'pointed out' the executioner; writers and artists who seem to have known all there is to know about the problems of guilt and the anguish that 'fill my days and nights until it seems to me that I have sunk into a burning sea of fire.'

(to be continued)

Terrier tactics

Hufvudstadsbladet is running a series of articles and features (the website includes only a selection from the paper edition) under the general headline "Swedish Under Attack", focusing on the current language debate in Finland. Yesterday the paper asked some leading Finland-Swedish personalities what they thought of SFP ([Finland-]Swedish People's Party) leader Stefan Wallin's proposal, voiced during an interview on Sunday, that the party should be a "terrier" for Finland-Swedish interests.

Respondents were asked:

1 What do you think of terrier tactics in the defence of Swedish questions?

2 What sort of tactics should they be?

Among literary respondents, Jörn Donner wrote:

If by terrier tactics what is meant is a more aggressive style that beats fists on the table, I can probably see a point in it. It's getting too easy for the Finland-Swedes to become too accommodating and seek consensus. But if terrier tactics are on the agenda, the SFP should probably have left the government a number ofl times during the past 20 years. So far I have seen no indication that they ever intended to do so, alas.

And in the course of his (longer) reply Kjell Westö said:

I have no easy counter-prescription. I'm surprised that so many Finland-Swedes seem to experience Finnish-speaking Finland as a scary, completely alien world. This autumn's debate has made me realize that I've underestimated that sense of alienation. I personally get along well with  Finnish-speakers and have always felt myself to be a Finn who happens to have Swedish as his mother tongue. For me language - any language - is a tool that makes it possible to build bridges, and I don't think I'm going to abandon that position.

See also: Land of one language?
Land of one language? - 2

Voces intimae - 4

(continued)

November

3) Mood up – the Himalayas again! [deleted words]

8) Have been in Hades. A valley such as never was.

9) Better already. [hairpin crescendo] Business H:fors.

15) Mood has been good. Not much appetite for work. Hard to learn to work without a stimulus. A must!

21) Have worked well – freudvoll, leidvoll – for a few days. Business tomorrow.

30) Axel Carpelan was here. I admire this fine talent. His powers of discernment are outstanding even though he is physically worn out. Appetite for work has been very poor. Yet this evening it is good!

December

14) In Memoriam, the funeral march, finished. 3 [green box] Op 59

15) Melartin, that neuter, has been with me. A refined nature.

17) A deep valley again! Horribly dark and empty, and concentrated feed! Will the sun never shine again? My life is ebbing away before I have been able to carry out what I had sight of. My business affairs are dragging me down. My destiny! Is this to be the end of my composing = life?

21) Melartin! I admire his method of working. How to achieve this "nulla dies sine linea." And the technique! Starting on the ballet in earnest. [deleted words] And my business affairs! A miracle that I produce anything at all. Not out of the valley yet.

26) Abandoning the ballet because of too little reward for too much time. "Up and at ‘em” again! Damn it, do I sound like that?

27) Himalayas again. Everything bright and strong. Worked like a giant.

28) My throat! Good God! Worked a bit

29) Have even given up the Lottery Music. I am burning my boats deliberately. Holding high the banner of true art. Don’t let go of pathos in life. And one’s "grip".

30) Worked, though ill.

31) Another year. Everything still "pending".


translated from Finland-Swedish by David McDuff

Voces intimae - 1
Voces intimae - 2
Voces intimae - 3

Voces intimae - 3

(continued)

September

15) My old suffering (even not to be... etc.)! Will I really never escape from this pettiness. Always suffering - about everything! Suffering that gives me a metallic taste in my mouth!

23) At last signs of life from Breitkopf via Paul. – Verträge geschlossen. Result again equal to zero, I think! Mikael's "lizard" [op. 8] torments me. Must get rid of it as soon as possible. So it has taken a month to sell the piano stuff [op. 58]. Good God! My nerves!

Maud Allan again! Suppose I shall have to write her some music. Got 3000 Rmk. from B.& H. The first swallows in a long time.

[in pencil]

3000

27) [September]
− October 3)

In Koli! One of the greatest impressions of my life. Planning "La montagne"! Ill. Business affairs.

13) Sent off 'Shakespeare Songs "[op. 60] and "Christmas Song" [op. 1 No. 4]. All bagatelles. Still on “The Lizard”. [op. 8]. Appetite for work = 0.

15) “Lizard [op. 8] finished.” Yes. Yes.

21) Loafed about and attended to business in H:fors. Now the important thing is to get it all finished and out of the way. [deleted words]

23) How infinitely far I am from that rational work which brings life and joy to the practician and to those around him. I suppose I ought to console myself with the thought that this "joy" is always selfish, whereas my misery - - -!

Working on "Marche Funèbre" [op. 59]. Want it to have the most monumental form possible. Strange to think that it will probably be played when I am a corpse.

24) Have, I believe, a “sight” of "Marche Funèbre" [op. 59].

29) We must see how my brother holds up. He has enemies who want to bring him down. Him – a soul of the purest, a man of work and ideals. (My business affairs are taking up all my time).

(to be continued)

translated from Finland-Swedish by David McDuff

Voces intimae - 1
Voces intimae - 2

Voces intimae - 2

(continued)

May

15) A shock because others (?) write compositions to my texts. A sign of their weakness. Nobilitas unfashionable! Working on 8 songs to texts by Josephson, six of which completed today [op. 57]. – Beware this dreadfully cynical view of life. You cannot go through your entire life playing the cold cynic. Though can probably get away with the "man of honourable jealousy", etc. Ugh. Is this really worthy of Jean Sibelius?

18) 8 Songs Op 57 finished [the green line under the box] Have fulfilled the terms of Lienau’s contract. Went to bed at 9, dead tired.

21) Must go home. I can no longer work here. A change of style? Was at Lienau’s. He believes in my art. And knows how to keep company. Deswegen: write a Piano Piece for him.

[in the left margin]

Got home at 11pm.

Järvenpää. Bad conscience because of laziness.

28) Regarding the piano pieces [op. 58]. Do I really need to follow this advice – as this piano technique is rather alien to me. So. Nothing "for piano" yet, at least. "The Hunt" [op. 66 No. 1]! At the planning stage.

June

3) At work again. My business affairs compel me to write the piano pieces [op. 58].

July

12) Continuing with the piano things [op. 58]. They are starting to interest me. Evil tidings about business. Summer! Wonderful to live in the family.

26) Contract with Mikael Lybeck. "The Lizard" [op. 8]. (19) Music for it.

August

5) Bad reviews in Russia. Abuse. Where do they want to go? In England, too. My nerves are already pretty bad. A happy 30 years!

28) 10 piano pieces finished. Op. 58. It seems to me that the technique in these is better than in the other ones. Business affairs atrocious. I am beginning to think that the debts are impossible to settle. However, it depends on how I am paid. Reading proofs of Romance in C major Op 42 [op. 42]. Happy days when I wrote this music. "Quoth the Raven, ‘Nevermore.’”

(to be continued)

translated from Finland-Swedish by David McDuff

Voces intimae - 1

Uppslagsverket Finland on the Web

The whole of the extensive 5-volume Finland-Swedish encyclopedia and reference work Uppslagsverket Finland is now available on the Web. Access is free of charge.

The official URL appears to be http://www.uvf.fi/, but this translates to Uppslag.kaapeli.fi/bin/view/Uppslagsverket/WebHome

Access was a bit patchy today, but hopefully these are just teething troubles. Hufvudstadsbladet has a feature on the project.