Trying to understand the Finns since I learned of a foreign exchange student at our school is from Finland. She seems pretty interesting from what I have seen (of her artwork), so I figured that learning a little about her culture would tell for a little of how she acts.
Heidi
Favorite Answer
There are lots of great books in Finnish, but unfortunately only few have been translated. Here are some books I've enjoyed reading.
(descriptions from Amazon.com)
Popular Music From Vittula
(writer is Swedish, but there are also Finnish characters. One of my favourite books ever)
When a Beatles record falls into the hands of 11-year-old Matti, neither he nor his home village of Pajala, Sweden, will ever be the same. It is the early 1960s, and both Matti and Pajala are about to enter adolescence. This is a beautiful, poignant, often very funny novel about growing up in a remote area. Niemi writes with real poetry as he strings together the culturally rich vignettes of Matti's experiences, snapshots of childhood that are at the same time intensely personal and universal: the burn of the first alcoholic drink, the thrill of a first kiss, the awe of first sex, the special closeness of a first best friend, the pain of the first real loss--all rendered pure and convincingly as a young boy's perceptions. Niemi also seasons the book well with the mysticism of childhood that suffuses the usually hidden psychological space where the transformation from child to youth occurs. An exquisitely beautiful novel, artfully translated.
http://www.amazon.com/Popular-Music-Vittula-Mikael-Niemi/dp/1583226591/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-9472042-5949442?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180001822&sr=1-1
The Year of the Hare
In this back-to-nature picaresque from Finland, a "dissatisfied, cynical" journalist adopts an injured leveret as his companion on a series of mildly quixotic, satirically rendered wanderings. Leaving behind a spiritless job and a loveless marriage in Helsinki, middle-aged Kaarlo Vatanen lights out for the territories, the hare de-civilizing him as much as he tames it. While the hare wavers between companion, pet and symbol, the pair's innocent retreat is complicated at every turn by either man or nature. Foresters, bureaucrats and endangered-species laws are as likely to threaten them as bears, ravens and forest fires as they travel to the Arctic Circle and across the Russian border. Paasilinna's low-key narrative is translated plainly, but it never makes the most of its protagonists' experiences, despite such tempting scenarios as a bear hunt hosted for diplomats by the Finnish military or a defrocked divinity student looking for animal sacrifices for Finno-Ugric rituals. Instead, these adventures of a man and his hare unfold as superficially, though with as much ease, as a daydream.
http://www.amazon.com/Year-Hare-Arto-Paasilinna/dp/0720612772/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-9472042-5949442?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180002187&sr=1-1
Troll: A Love Story
A young Finnish photographer makes a pet of an orphaned troll in this strange, sexually charged contemporary folk tale, a hit in Europe. Mikael, nicknamed Angel for his stunning blonde good looks, finds the troll behind some dustbins after a night of drinking, and feels compelled to bring it home ("It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen... I know straight away that I want it"). The troll is small and black, thoroughly wild but also oddly human, with an overpowering, arousing juniper-berry smell. Obsessed by his new companion, whom he names Pessi, Angel sets out to learn everything he can about trolls, which in the novel's world are a real but extremely rare species. Much of the book is composed of excerpts from reference works and novels, the most valuable of which is a rare volume by Gustaf Eurén, called The Wild Beasts of Finland. This book is supplied by Ecke, Angel's nerdy, fervid suitor; Angel also coerces help from a veterinarian ex-boyfriend; an advertising art director who buys his photographs and rejects his advances; and an abused Filipino mail-order bride who lives downstairs. Sinisalo's elastic prose is at once lyrical and matter-of-fact, but this is not a comfortable novel. The troll brings out Angel's animal instincts, representing all the seduction and violence of the natural world. As the troll becomes ever more unmanageable, the sense of doom grows; the ferocious ending is thoroughly unsettling.
http://www.amazon.com/Troll-Love-Story-Johanna-Sinisalo/dp/0802141293/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-9472042-5949442?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180002699&sr=1-1
Wonderful Women by the Sea
The story centers on two families who meet every year at the same seaside enclave. It is told by Thomas, a small child when he first goes to the sea with his parents, Isabella and Kayus, and meets Renee, the daughter of Rosa and Gabriel. Renee's family has just returned from America, and soon Isabella and Rosa become friends. Together they pore over American magazines and speculate about the likes of Jackie Kennedy and Elizabeth Taylor.
As the summers roll by, these wonderful women are affected by changes in the outside world: the women's movement, the violent student uprisings of 1968, the social and political upheaval that washes across the world like a tidal wave. Soon the safe little world Thomas has always known will disappear, never to be seen again. Wonderful Women by the Sea pushes the boundaries of language and form, its wonderful vignettes arranged with fine disregard for chronology.
http://www.amazon.com/Wonderful-Women-Sea-Monika-Fagerholm/dp/1565844882/ref=sr_1_3/103-9472042-5949442?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180003158&sr=1-3
Red Moon over White Sea
This novel is set in Karelia in the period from roughly 1909 to 1919. It was definitely a page turner and held my attention -- a fun and quick read. The story centers around two girls and their families during the last years of czarist Finland, the Russian revolution, and the Finnish Civil War. I felt that the book interwove the political and human stories very well.
http://www.amazon.com/Red-Moon-over-White-Sea/dp/096858814X/ref=sr_1_1/103-9472042-5949442?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180003310&sr=1-1
The Priest of Evil
After a strange succession of deaths at Helsinki subway stations leaves police baffled, Detective Sergent Timo Harjunpaa of the Helsinki Violent Crimes Unit takes up the case only to uncover overwhelming forces of evil. With no witnesses to the deaths and closed-circuit tapes revealing even less, Harjunpaa slowly discovers the madman behind the murders—a fanatical priest who brainwashes teenagers into carrying bomb-filled backpacks. Having previously seen more than enough of the seamier side of human nature, Detective Sergent Harjunpaa must now face his most terrifying case yet.
http://www.amazon.com/Priest-Evil-Matti-Joensuu/dp/1900850931/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-9472042-5949442?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180003474&sr=1-1
Seven Brothers
Along with The Kalevala, Aleksis Kivi's Seven Brothers is Finland's most celebrated literary treasure. It remains the greatest Finnish novel of all time, and is a classic among the classics in Finnish literature.
http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Brothers-Aleksis-Kivi/dp/188047400X/ref=sr_1_1/103-9472042-5949442?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180003586&sr=1-1
The Unknown Soldier
If you are interested in a different perspective on WWII, that is, from the view of front soldiers in a scandinavian nation struggling against one of the juggernaughts of WWII this is for you. Though not a selfbiografy, Linna served as a machingunner in the Finnish army during WWII and relates his experiences in this novel. National pride demands that the Finns launch an offensive war ("the continuation war") to take back land conquerd by the Soviets earlier in WWII but deep down the Finns know their struggle is doomed. The strength of the novel comes from its realistic (self experienced) depiction of the realities of forest war, as well as the personalities of the Finnish soldiers during an increasingly desperate struggle against the growing strength of the Soviet army. You will expreience everything from the triumphs of the early months to the everpresent threat of a sudden deadly sniper bullet to the smell of peat pulverized by artillery into a haze hanging over the trenches as the Finns succesively fall back before the onslaught of Soviet tanks and infantry.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Unknown-Soldier/dp/9510112895/ref=sr_1_19/103-9472042-5949442?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180004618&sr=1-19
Anonymous
Koningsmarke, the Long Finn, A Story of the New World (London, 1823), by Irving’s friend and collaborator James Kirke Paulding; This is the only work of fiction dealing with Finnish Americans that I could find. It's an old one. A friend of mine read it several years ago and said it's not very good.
Google Finnish Americans and you can find lots of information. Good luck. I've known two people who dated Finnish exchange students. Both thought it was a worthwhile experience.
CarmelitaR
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