Rosa LiksomRecensioni

Intressant om svenska läger för finska krigsflyktingar väster om Torneälven i slutet av andra världskriget. Men språket är märkligt med plötsliga malplacerade ord. Beror antagligen på dålig översättning. Man störs också av plötsliga hopp i handlingen, som om något väsentligt utelämnats.

The is the biography of a woman of northern Finland, born about 1915, who was taken very young by a much older colonel, went thru the Interwar period as a devotee of nazism, as was the colonel, lived the high life of a colonel's wife through most of WWII, then existed through a long post-war period in which their side had lost the war, finally freeing herself and taking on a new life. I found it compelling, deeply intrusive on my complacent middle class psyche, and riveting to the extent of mesmerizing.

Je n’arrive pas à comprendre pourquoi j’ai lu ce livre… j’avais vu des notes de lecture élogieuse, certes, mais en les relisant j’ai l’impression qu’il n’y avait rien dedans qui aurait dû m’attirer… Et effectivement, cela a été une lecture laborieuse et qui ne m’a rien apportée. De ce quasi monologue d’un homme se vantant d’avoir tout compris à la vie et aux femmes, qu’il traite comme moins que rien et qu’il n’hésite pas à violenter de temps à autre, sûr qu’il est d’être dans son bon droit, face à une jeune femme que l’on sent fragile et qui ne dit presque pas un mot de tout le trajet, mais qui a l’air de développer au bout d’un moment une sorte de syndrome de Stockholm face à cet homme qui l’importune et l’insulte mais dont elle semble par moments rechercher la présence, je ne sais pas ce qu’il faut retenir, à part un immense malaise et un désir de refermer ce livre au plus vite.

I have read two Liksom novels in translation* and enjoyed both very much, but this slim book, which I picked up way back in 2010, kept being passed over for no good reason…until now.

This 1989 book is a collection of very short fiction, which might be called ‘flash fiction” these days. It’s 117 pages of short pieces varying in length from a half page to perhaps six pages (and the pages have fairly liberal margins top and bottom). But, those stories!

Liksom is a master of dark humor. Many of her first lines seem so subtle, so ordinary, to the reader, one hardly expects to be caught by it, but so we are. A few examples of first lines:

"I got out of the handcuffs on Friday morning",
"The sun was shining behind the factory"
"Every day I eat at least two bars of Marabou Chocolate"
"While the ‘soldiers at the military were putting on their leather suits and flying boots…"

So, yes, I was hooked.

*Compartment No. 6: and The Colonel's Wife½

This is the classic set-up of two fundamentally incompatible people trapped together for an extended period and forced to learn to get along, but it's far from being a silly romantic comedy. We're in the dying Soviet Union in the uncertain weather of a mid-1980s spring, where the Finnish postgrad archaeology student Anna finds herself sharing a compartment on the seemingly endless train journey from Moscow to Ulan Bator with the rough-hewn construction worker Vadim Nikolaevich.

Vadim — whom the narrator only ever calls "the man" — soon reveals himself as unpleasant company in all sorts of ways. He's a violent misogynist who is proud of beating his wife only in private, frequents prostitutes, drinks far too much, seems to have killed a few people with his flick-knife, and is forever telling stories that are clearly designed to shock Anna, even if they aren't always strictly true. But he does have a very sure sense of how to survive in the complicated world of Soviet semi-legality through which they are travelling, and he seems to feel an obligation of hospitality towards Anna. She's travelling to get a breathing-space from a complicated situation in Moscow, and she seems to be almost grateful for his unwanted attentions as a distraction from all that she's left behind.

A wonderfully convincing portrait of Soviet Russia at a very specific moment in history, obviously observed in detail at first-hand, and performing the difficult trick of mixing a travel book with a novel without the joins ever becoming too obvious.

Poetiskt språk men alltför ojämn berättelse för att hålla intresset på topp, Vissa anekdoter är riktigt bra medans andra faller platt.

A young Finnish woman sets out on a long train journey across the Soviet Union, from Moscow to Ulan Baator, Mongolia. The person assigned to share her compartment is an older Russian man, often drunk, usually loud, sometimes unsafe. But also expansive and somewhat friendly. As the journey progresses, he talks, the Russian landscape scrolls past the windows and the trains stops in towns further and further from Moscow.

I'm not sure how to describe this book, except that it is about a place and a style of life that doesn't exist in the same way anymore, written about vividly and without judgement. The protagonist's words are omitted from the story, leaving only the place and the people, especially her travel companion, to speak for her. This is an extraordinary novel and one I'm so pleased to have read.

The best thing about the old days is that they’re over…But nothing is ever really gone for good.

In the last days or hours of her life, an elderly woman living in Lapland, Finland thinks back on her life; her childhood as a devout member of the “Little Lottas,” her days as a Nazi sympathizer, then married young to an older military man (a friend of her father’s), and her later years a woman—as noted in one blurb on the back cover—who has been, for most of her life, on the wrong side of history.

This story is both fascinating and often repulsive; it’s definitely addictive and strangely timely . Liskom’s protagonist is not quite likable, but she honest about who she is. By the end of the story the reader understands how one might take this path. And while unlikely a Finnish ‘everywoman’ she seems inextricably tied to what her nation is experiencing.

I admit to not knowing very much—except some generalities—about Finland or the Lapland area of Finland; or the country’ involvement in the various wars of the 20th century, so I picked the brain of my husband and occasionally made short excursions to the internet. Considering the current political climate here in the states, the choices we face every day; it’s a strangely prescient tale.

"Little by little I got my head turned around to a new point of view. I started to think that Germany had been rescued from Nazism and that the war was all the German’s fault, that it was their precious violence that had given us all these ruined cities. I felt no pity for them. Now I think that Nazism didn’t end when Hitler killed himself. I think that, given a chance, new Nazis and fascists will spring up,because that’s how people are. They keep repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results. There’s loving-kindness inside all of us, but it sits side by side with cruelty, heartlessness, and indifference."

I read this book because I had enjoyed Liksom's previously translated book - Compartment No. 6. I have her "Dark Paradise" in the TBR pile.½

en voldsom og til tider ret modbydelig fortælling om en ung finsk piges livslange forhold til en ældre oberst. Finsk historie i det 20 århundrede danner ramme om historien.½

I was not crazy about this book, but I did appreciate how often it had me turning to the internet to look up the name of a city or food I had never heard of. It was a struggle to stay engaged with the story.

ALSO! Either I'm stupid and didn't understand the continuity, or the actual path of their train journey makes no sense. Why did they go all the way to Khabarovsk if the end destination was Ulan Bator? I don't know much about Russian cities, and was curious about the ones mentioned, so I mapped them out. Unless there are two cities with the same name, it seems like they would have had to do some pointless backtracking to get from Khabarovsk to Naushki, going back through some of the same cities they'd already passed through before. If I'm totally misunderstanding this, hopefully somebody will enlighten me.
Link to my map: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1pSCyz-Jy8BsPuHGCeFaVCeD0XeU&usp=sharing
Link to Trans-Siberian Railway routes: http://www.baikalcomplex.com/images/common/map1.jpg

It is the late 1980s and the Soviet Union is in its last days. A young Finnish woman, escaping the untidiness of a failed relationship, boards a train in Moscow which is ultimately destined for the Mongolian capital. She settles into compartment no 6. It almost looks as if she will have the compartment to herself when Valdim—opinionated, mouthy, uncouth, crude—settles down in the seat opposite. It’s going to be a long train ride, we think. She doesn’t talk, so he fills the space with his colorful and crude stories, boasting of his exploits and sexual encounters. They are the most unlikely of companions and as the train travels on, making stops both hours short and days long, the two passengers get along as best they can.

It’s clear fairly early on that the 3rd main character in the book is the Russian landscape, not romanticized but presented clear-eyed, and very often rendered poetically beautiful. It almost seemed an elegy of sorts. This is an excellent book and something a bit different, the story has wheels under it, and one cannot help being carried along with it.

This book won the Finlandia Prize, the most prestigious literary award in Finland.

Very short stories, most of them a page or two, that are more like snapshots than stories and more like film clips than snapshots. A few of them have something resembling a plot, e.g. one beginning 'Tonight I am going to find myself a man': off to the hotel bar, find a suitable mark, up to his room, order up caviar, take off frock, refresh makeup, say good-night to doorman. Mission accomplished: the narrator had been able to flash her new body stocking from Paris. There's a high body count in the book but the murders are recounted at the same pitch and in the same detached way as everything else is and so the violence seems slightly absurd rather than realistic. Most of the stories begin and end at what seem like arbitrary points in time, have no dialogue, and don't engage one emotionally. (The last is no bad thing, and Liksom's intentions whatever they are aren't to pull at the heartstrings.) Having said that, one story--on Good Friday an immigrant re-enacts for villagersJesus's trudge to Golgotha-is touching, and one of my favourites does have dialogue: a monk and a woman in a fur coat travel to a country house. The monk goes to the kitchen, fiddles about with an amazing array of expensive gadgets, and serves the woman dinner whereupon she remarks apropos of nothing 'Such a naively theistic image of God fails to answer the existential questions of postmodern man.'

For some reason Daniil Kharms kept coming to mind as I read this, but any relation between him and Liksom is a fairly distant one. Despite the extreme simplicity of the book I feel I didn't take it all in and so shall be re-reading it.

Ihan ok, nopea- ja sujuvalukuinen kirja. Loppu kyllä lässähti jotenkin kesken minunkin mielestäni. Tämä olisi mainio alku jollekin kunnon kirjalle.

Tarina, joka tapahtuu entisen Neuvostoliiton aikana. Tyttö matkustaa Trans-Siperian radalla. Liksom luo hienon ja syväluotaavan kuvauksen kommunistisesta ajasta. Samassa junan kabiinissa tytön kanssa matkustaa puhelias venäläinen mies. Tyttö on hiljainen ja lähinnä kuuntelee miehen kertomuksia. Liksom on hyvin perehtynyt itäisen naapurin silloiseen tapakulttuuriin. Hytti nro 6 toi Rosa Liksomille Finlandia-palkinnon.

Olen yrittänyt monta kertaa tarttua Liksomin kirjoihin jo senkin takia, että hän on lapista kotoisin niinkuin minäkin. Tämä on siis ensimmäinen kirja, jonka olen kokonaisuudessaan häneltä lukenut.
Kyseessä on junamatkan kuvaus. Samassa hytissä Moskovasta Ulan Batoriin matkustavat nuori suomalainen tyttö ja keski-ikäinen venäläinen äijänköriläs (Vadim). Mies on todella puhelias ja votka maistuu koko reissun ajan. Kirjoittaja kuvaa Neuvostoliiton oloja erittäinkin asiantuntevasti ja ruoka on lähes päähenkilön osassa tässä tarinassa.Teksti on hyvin kuvailevaa ja paikoitellen ronski kielenkäyttö sai aikaan lähes oksennusrefleksin. Tulipahan luettua, mutten edeleenkään tunnusta olevani Liksom-fani.

A fascinating story about a girl student travelling through the whole Russia that was formerly known as Soviet Union. The train journey happened during the Soviet era. Rosa Liksom achieves a perfect vision of what was going on at that time in Finlands big eastern neighbour country by using accurate details in her descriptive style of writing. This serves well to show the futile and neglected that was characteristic of living in the Soviet Union during the communist regime. The talkative Russian male travelling companion in the same cabin on the train makes an interesting contrast compared with a very silent Finnish girl who mostly listens what her companion has on his mind.
I think this is the best book by its author, painter, playwright and novelist who has written several short story collections as well. This one is also one of the best books in the history of literature in my opinion.

En ole lukenut kirjaa kokonaan, sillä en pystynyt siihen. Tämä arvio on nyt siis koottu pienen aiheeseen perehtymisen ja niiden sieltä täältä lukemieni kokoelman kertomusten pohjalta, jotka luettuani laitoin kirjan sivuun lopullisesti.

Yhden yön pysäkki on Liksomin ensimmäinen vuonna 1985 julkaistu novellikokoelma, joka jakautuu neljään osaan: ensimmäinen osa on Steissi, Kaivopiha, Steissi jonka rankat aiheet on takakannen erään arvostelun sanoin tiivistetty seuraavasti: ”Nuoret dokaavat, hakkaavat toisiaan, pamahtavat paksuiksi, joutuvat putkaan”. Toisen takakannen arvion mukaan lyhyet novellit kertovat niistä nuorista, joita kaduilla vaivautuneena väistellään ja jotka koulussa laitetaan tarkkailuluokalle. Teksti on raakaa ja aiheet julmia, mutta pelottavan todellisia. Itselleni Yhden yön pysäkin tämä osa oli liikaa, sillä jokaisen kertomuksen toinen toistaan karumpi ja armoa antamaton kuvaus elämästä oli liian toivoton. Kokoelman toisessa osassa Euroopan eteisaula vieraantumisen teemaa käsitellään eri tavoin, muualta. Kolmas osa 67 astetta pohjoista leveyttä kuvastelee arktisten olosuhteiden ja säälimättömän luonnon ahdistavuutta ihmismielelle. Neljäs osa Neljä variaatiota kertoo yksinäisyydestä. Kirja ei tosiaan ole viihteellistä luettavaa, mutta antaa paljon sellaista ajateltavaa, jota yleensä haluaa vältellä.

puutteellinen isbn :-) piti lisätä yksi numero, jotta sai oikein..

Tähän kirjaan ihastuin ensin sen kuvitusten vuoksi. Ystäväni totesi kannen nähtyään, että kirja on kyllä heti minun tyyliseni. Se kun kertoo kissasamuraista ja minä rakastan kissoja.

Kirjan kuvitukset ovat huimaavia ja pelkästään niiden ansiosta annankin kirjalle neljä pistettä. Tarina ontuu hieman. Se olisi pitänyt kertoa jotenkin kauniimmin ja runollisemmin, yhtä lumoavasti kuin kuvitukset antavat odottaa.

Sisältää muutamia synkkiä kohtia, mutta muuten Piilomaan Pikkuaasiin verrattavissa oleva lastenkirja.

Lukeminen yhä kesken.