Tuula-Liina Varis
Autore di Kilpikonna ja olkimarsalkka
Sull'Autore
Opere di Tuula-Liina Varis
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Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Nome canonico
- Varis, Tuula-Liina
- Data di nascita
- 1942-06-30
- Nazionalità
- Finland
- Istruzione
- Turun yliopisto
- Attività lavorative
- toimittaja
- Relazioni
- Setälä, Rauno (puoliso)
Saarikoski, Pentti (puoliso) - Premi e riconoscimenti
- Marja-Liisa Vartio -palkinto (1996)
Utenti
Recensioni
Family Epic of Love & Loss
Review of the Loomingu Raamatukogu paperback (2020) translated from the original Finnish "Että tuntisin eläväni" (2013)
The eight stories of Tahan tunda… involve three generations of an extended family over the course of a century of time. It is not always immediately evident at the start of each story what the tie-in to the overall saga is going to be. At some point though, there will be a reference to another family member which provides the key. There is one paragraph in the 3rd story, The Lonely, which does provide an overview of most of the characters:
Solving the tie-ins of the overall family saga is the main challenge for the reader, but it is the human stories of each which are both wrenching and captivating at the same time. Many of the stories involve death and the reminiscing about the lives of parents and relatives who have passed but the overall effect is not sadness but a testament to love and endurance. Combining that with my love of puzzle stories made this an easy 5 out of 5 for me.
Trivia
The following are mostly the setups & the tie-ins for the stories without disclosing endings. Some may consider these spoilers, so I have blocked it accordingly.
1. Ester 1926. Aastal (Ester in the year 1926) – About Ester and her husband Hannes and her landlord magister Ranta. Ester is the older sister of Aarre in Story 2.
2. Sylvia tunded (Sylvia’s Feelings) – Sylvia thinks about life with her husband Aarre, a soldier who returned from the war. Their children are Ilari, Inari and Marketta. Aarre is a brother of Ester in Story 1.
3. Üksildane (The Lonely) – After the death of her parents (her mother was Lahja), Paula is raised by her aunt Rauha, a sibling of Ester and Aarre (Stories 1 & 2).
4. Lemmiklaps (Favourite Child) – A mother and father worry about their son Kari who is their favourite over daughter Kaarin. The father of Kaarin and Kari is Einar and he is the older brother of Ilmar who is the husband of Lahja (the mother of Paula in Story 3).
5. Ema süda (Mother’s Heart) – Inari finds her mother Sylvia (Story 2) dead. She reminisces about her parents’ lives. Later she meets with her brother Ilari to split up their inheritance including Sylvia’s ring.
6. Vaene Harri (Poor Harri) – Paula and her friend Hanne reminisce about her husband Harri, who has died. She also thinks about her aunt Rauha from Story 3.
7. Tahan tunda, et elan (I Want to Feel that I’m Alive) – After a funeral reception, Maukka is propositioned by the widow Militsa, who tells him the reason is that she “wants to feel that she is alive.” Later, Maukka’s wife Saga mentions that Militsa’s mother was the daughter of a woman who had a child with her landlord after her husband’s passing. From that we can deduce that Militsa’s mother was Erika, the daughter of Ester (in Story 1).
8. Teisepoole metsamaad (On the other side of the Forest Lands). Ilari (child of Sylvia in Story 2) is waiting for an old love, Rahe, at a restaurant. He has his mother’s ring which he inherited after her passing (in Story 5). … (altro)
Review of the Loomingu Raamatukogu paperback (2020) translated from the original Finnish "Että tuntisin eläväni" (2013)
The collection of short stories "I Want to Feel that I’m Alive" is a kind of novel in short stories. The stories paint a picture of a family over the course of 20th century Finland. Dramatic historical events take place in the background, births and deaths, weddings and funerals come to the forefront - in these stories, there are strong Finnish women who live and love, who fall and rise again. - translated from the Estonian language synopsis.Tahan tunda, et elan is again that sort of rarity in my reading where I am able to read a translation in my heritage language of Estonian where no translation in my native language of English exists. A recent translation of Yoko Tawada’s Kahtlased kujud öises rongis (Suspicious Characters on a Night Train) (2002/2020) was another example of this. Tuula-Liina Varis is a rarity in another sense. She has not had any works translated into English although she has had a long literary career in Finland. The recent Sattunut syntymään (Happened to be Born) (2020) is her 23rd published work for instance, as noted in the Afterword to this present translation by Estonian translator Piret Saluri.
The eight stories of Tahan tunda… involve three generations of an extended family over the course of a century of time. It is not always immediately evident at the start of each story what the tie-in to the overall saga is going to be. At some point though, there will be a reference to another family member which provides the key. There is one paragraph in the 3rd story, The Lonely, which does provide an overview of most of the characters:
Aunt Ester had Ekku and Erika. Ekku's father was dead and Erika’s father was not to be talked about. Aunt Alma had Martti, Matti and Marja-Liisa. Their father was a war invalid, he had a wooden leg and he was better off at home. Aunt Alma said: He is better off at home than coming to listen to the jabbering of old women, as he described it. Uncle Aarre and Aunt Sylvia had Ilari, Inari and Marketta. Lahja was a mother. She had Paula. Uncle Aarre was able to joke with his Russian war stories so much that Aunt Rauhu peed her pants and then Rauha yelled, how awful, how awful and ran off to the other end of the yard. Mother said to Uncle Aarre, stop your fooling around, once they had caught their breath. Aliina and Rauha did not have children, they were old maids and was that a reason they weren’t aunts?It is not made completely clear in the above excerpt, but Ester, Alma, Lahja, Rauha and Aarre are siblings. I think Aliina is perhaps another sibling by implication, but she is not mentioned very much and/or I missed making a note about her in my reading. Notes were essential for my reading of this as my Estonian reading speed and comprehension are slower than for my English. Reading this over a period of 2 weeks required some notes so that I could remember the various family names. Also, some Finnish names are not immediately clear to me as being male or female, so some notes were needed until context made it clear. It also became apparent after only a few stories that the tie-ins were going to be obscure in some cases.
Solving the tie-ins of the overall family saga is the main challenge for the reader, but it is the human stories of each which are both wrenching and captivating at the same time. Many of the stories involve death and the reminiscing about the lives of parents and relatives who have passed but the overall effect is not sadness but a testament to love and endurance. Combining that with my love of puzzle stories made this an easy 5 out of 5 for me.
Trivia
The following are mostly the setups & the tie-ins for the stories without disclosing endings. Some may consider these spoilers, so I have blocked it accordingly.
2. Sylvia tunded (Sylvia’s Feelings) – Sylvia thinks about life with her husband Aarre, a soldier who returned from the war. Their children are Ilari, Inari and Marketta. Aarre is a brother of Ester in Story 1.
3. Üksildane (The Lonely) – After the death of her parents (her mother was Lahja), Paula is raised by her aunt Rauha, a sibling of Ester and Aarre (Stories 1 & 2).
4. Lemmiklaps (Favourite Child) – A mother and father worry about their son Kari who is their favourite over daughter Kaarin. The father of Kaarin and Kari is Einar and he is the older brother of Ilmar who is the husband of Lahja (the mother of Paula in Story 3).
5. Ema süda (Mother’s Heart) – Inari finds her mother Sylvia (Story 2) dead. She reminisces about her parents’ lives. Later she meets with her brother Ilari to split up their inheritance including Sylvia’s ring.
6. Vaene Harri (Poor Harri) – Paula and her friend Hanne reminisce about her husband Harri, who has died. She also thinks about her aunt Rauha from Story 3.
7. Tahan tunda, et elan (I Want to Feel that I’m Alive) – After a funeral reception, Maukka is propositioned by the widow Militsa, who tells him the reason is that she “wants to feel that she is alive.” Later, Maukka’s wife Saga mentions that Militsa’s mother was the daughter of a woman who had a child with her landlord after her husband’s passing. From that we can deduce that Militsa’s mother was Erika, the daughter of Ester (in Story 1).
8. Teisepoole metsamaad (On the other side of the Forest Lands). Ilari (child of Sylvia in Story 2) is waiting for an old love, Rahe, at a restaurant. He has his mother’s ring which he inherited after her passing (in Story 5).
Premi e riconoscimenti
Statistiche
- Opere
- 15
- Utenti
- 92
- Popolarità
- #202,476
- Voto
- 3.6
- Recensioni
- 2
- ISBN
- 29
- Lingue
- 1
Tuula-Liina Varis (takakansiteksti)… (altro)