A melancholic yet eerily captivating story about a young man who has been so severely injured he loses his memory and speech ability, set in WW2 Europe. He is taught the Finnish language from scratch by the Finnish doctor, who supposes his patient is a Finn from the 'Sampo Karljanen' tag stitched on the clothing he was wearing when discovered lying beaten to near death on a German quayside, of a nearby ship he was taken upon, then as soon as he garners a minimum ability to reproduce the unconventional phonetics of the Finnish lamguage is sent to Finland, out of the hope that among the icy, unforgiving Nordic landscapes he will discover some trace that will unfurl his memory and help him rediscover his identity.

 

Exquisitely written, I enjoyed the fact that I was able to relate to the protagonist's feelings of existential crisis and being not just a foreigner in his adopted country but, worse yet, a stranger among all people, incapable to chivvy himself into establishing a profound connection emotionally or intellectually with them because of incertainity about his identity, a great deal. The story ultimately magnifies the importance of language and the memories, history of times erstwhile it keeps alive within its particular anomalities to the future of a nation, as well as the effect memories and language have on individuals. The storyline made me recall plots involving characters pursuing happiness while holding the foolish presumption that happiness isn't a temporary state of mind, that it is something that should be felt at all times, for its similarity to this one in the sense that the protagonist was also pursuing something intangible, within the ruminations of ancient land and the souls of the surrounding people,- his memory and subsequently his identity, esentially his heart, as an individual who seeks to create substantial meaning in his world. It made me wonder about the inextricable connections between memory, language and happiness, three rudimentary aspects of human life.

 

Additionally, I highly appreciated the references to and supplementary insight provided regarding the Kalevala epic throughout the text, which added a sense of the mystic to the work and gave it a multifaceted finishing. In short, this is a book which has carved a niche to occupy in my heart.

bookshelves: translation, published-2000, italy, one-penny-wonder, paper-read, finland, under-500-ratings, wwii, summer-2013

 

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This was a fast and exiting read, and no knowledge of Finnish was required.
If one ever wondered how language is related to identity, this is a good start to get the thoughts coming. Tragic, yes, but insightful.

Translated by Judith LandryTo Simona, Alessandro and ElisabettaEi Suomi ole mikaan kieli, se on tapa istua penkin paassa karvat korvilla. Paavo HaavikkoOpening: My name is Petri Friari, I live at no.16 Kaiser-Wilhelmstrasse, Hamburg and I work as a neurologist at the city's university hospital.Some terrific POVs and (once settled into) lyrical writing.

Ivan, is the last of the Vostyachs, the last member of a tribe that connects the language of certain tribes of the North Americas and Finnish, they were also very powerful shamans, with the ability to be understood by most animals. Although he hasn’t spoken a word in years, not since as a child he saw his father shot dead at the slave labour camp they were prisoners at. Shoot forward twenty years and Ivan wanders out of the camp after the guards all left when their wages stopped arriving. He leaves the camp moving out into the woods, then as if led by some occult power, he returns to his place of origin and starts to live as his forebears did, through this mystifying power he also rediscovers his language & the ability to be understood by the wildlife. Winter hits the region and the weather turns harsh forcing him to visit a local village to trade for food.It is here that Ivan is discovered by Olga, a linguist, stuck in the village because of the weather, her curiosity is roused by this man who speaks this strange language, which she soon realises is an ancient tongue, and possibly one that joins Finland to pre-Columbian North America. She confides this information via a letter to Professor Jaarmo Aurtova, an expert on Finno-Ugric. This turns out to be a bad decision (Understatement Alert!!) as he plans a speech at the 21st Congress of Finno-Ugric, and in that speech he aims to pronounce Finnish as Europe's oldest & purest language, meaning Olga’s news will blow his speech out of the water.Not knowing this, Olga sends Ivan to Helsinki, and arranges for Jaarmo to meet him. From this point the writer of the book chucks in a couple of murders, a zoo emptied of it’s wildlife, an angry ex-wife trailing around the city & an Estonian folk group, all linked in some way by the professor, as he tries to bury all knowledge of the existence of Ivan & more importantly his language. To find out how the author combines all of this you will have to read this very clever and very funny book. Diego Marani’s book New Finnish Grammar, made the Official Shortlist for the 2012 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, with the judges stating that..“This subtle and moving novel shows how much of what we take to be ourselves depends upon the language that we speak and the identity it gives us. It also shows how suddenly that self can be taken away.” In the Last Of The Vostyachs, the author’s obsessions are still the same, language, it’s purpose not merely as an instrument for communication, but also how it relates to the behavioural codes and cultural values that go to construct ones identity and that not only does language define the characteristics of a specific group or community, it is also the means by which an individual identifies themselves and how they identify with others. Although this time he has used them to create a fantastic clever, funny mystery/thriller complete with a wonderful villain, that you’ll love to hate and whose exploits you’ll be amazed and shocked by, all whilst laughing at him, especially in the end scenes………. but I’ll let you discover the delights of that moment.This book as with New Finnish Grammar, was translated by Judith Landry, and as with that book, she has my heartfelt thanks for allowing me the opportunity to read this with the ease I did. It has also made the longlist for this years Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, it will be interesting to see if Diego Marani and Judith Landry make the shortlist for the second year running.http://parrishlantern.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/the-last-of-vostyachsdiego-marani-iffp.html