beer good
Well-Known Member
Diego Marani (born 1959 in Ferrara) is an Italian novelist, translator, and newspaper columnist. In 1996, while working as a translator for the Council of the European Union, he invented Europanto, a mock international auxiliary language.
New Finnish Grammar (2000, English and Swedish translation 2012)
Trieste, 1943: A man is found with his head bashed in, almost dead, severely brain damaged, and completely amnesiac - even his language is completely forgotten. The only clue to his identity is a Finnish navy uniform and a name sewn onto it. He's taken on board a German ambulance ship, where the doctor just happens to be a Finnish expat, who takes it upon himself to save his unfortunate countryman. He starts re-teaching him Finnish, that weird language of dozens of cases and almost no prepositions, and eventually manages to have him sent to Helsinki to recuperate and rediscover his identity in his supposed home town. There, our hero keeps a diary (helpfully transcribed and improved by his rescuer) of his painful, slow reintegration into Finnish society, Finnish history, Finnish language, all while the Continuation War rages at the Russian border.
New Finnish Grammar is an odd little novel, often both beautiful and frighteningly subtle, that I can't help feel deserves better than the slightly hamfisted (though justified) ending. It's most definitely a story for Europe in the 21st century, the European as a character who's forgotten who he is, and who has to be taught why he's better than others, his origin stories, his archnemeses; who is too caught up in trying to figure out who he was in some mythical past to see who he is now. An Italian writing a story of Finland in WWII, with absolutely nobody acknowledging whose side they're on in the struggle against a common scary subhuman enemy. A story written by a Eurocrat, set outside but never in Trieste and Vyborg, two of the major multi-ethnic cities that completely changed their identity following the war. A story about how language and myth is used to create and prevent thought, possibilities, futures and pasts. All centered around a simple tale of a man without a past (yes, Kaurismäki could film this) trying to figure out who he is by using grammar and music (the Finnish word for "Bible" literally means "grammar", he notes - or rather, it's noted for him) to create a context, a continuity.
I like it. I just wish I was better read up on the Kalevala.
New Finnish Grammar (2000, English and Swedish translation 2012)
Trieste, 1943: A man is found with his head bashed in, almost dead, severely brain damaged, and completely amnesiac - even his language is completely forgotten. The only clue to his identity is a Finnish navy uniform and a name sewn onto it. He's taken on board a German ambulance ship, where the doctor just happens to be a Finnish expat, who takes it upon himself to save his unfortunate countryman. He starts re-teaching him Finnish, that weird language of dozens of cases and almost no prepositions, and eventually manages to have him sent to Helsinki to recuperate and rediscover his identity in his supposed home town. There, our hero keeps a diary (helpfully transcribed and improved by his rescuer) of his painful, slow reintegration into Finnish society, Finnish history, Finnish language, all while the Continuation War rages at the Russian border.
New Finnish Grammar is an odd little novel, often both beautiful and frighteningly subtle, that I can't help feel deserves better than the slightly hamfisted (though justified) ending. It's most definitely a story for Europe in the 21st century, the European as a character who's forgotten who he is, and who has to be taught why he's better than others, his origin stories, his archnemeses; who is too caught up in trying to figure out who he was in some mythical past to see who he is now. An Italian writing a story of Finland in WWII, with absolutely nobody acknowledging whose side they're on in the struggle against a common scary subhuman enemy. A story written by a Eurocrat, set outside but never in Trieste and Vyborg, two of the major multi-ethnic cities that completely changed their identity following the war. A story about how language and myth is used to create and prevent thought, possibilities, futures and pasts. All centered around a simple tale of a man without a past (yes, Kaurismäki could film this) trying to figure out who he is by using grammar and music (the Finnish word for "Bible" literally means "grammar", he notes - or rather, it's noted for him) to create a context, a continuity.
I like it. I just wish I was better read up on the Kalevala.
