Tag: Diego-Marani • BookLikes

quote 2015-01-28 05:06

When you are learning a new language, the first thing you learn is the noun; the word noun is associated with the word name, and naming a thing is knowing it. This is why we cannot pronounce the name of God, because it would be presumptuous to hope to know him. The noun suggests an idea of something, it helps us know it. In Finnish to know is tietaa, and tie means road, or way. Because for us Finns knowledge is a road, a path leading us out of the woods, into the sunlight, and the person who knew the way in the olden times was the magician, the shaman who drugged himself with magic mushrooms and could see beyond the woods, beyond the real world. It is of course true there is more than one possible path to knowledge, indeed there are many. In the Finnish language the noun is hard to lay hands on, hidden as it is behind the endless declensions of its fifteen cases and only rarely caught unawares in the nominative. The Finn does not like the idea of a subject carrying out an action; no one in this world carries out anything; rather, everything comes about of its own accord, because it must, and we are just one of the many things which might have come about. In the Finnish sentence the words are grouped around the verb like moons around a planet, and whichever one is nearest to the verb becomes the subject. In European languages the sentence is a straight line; in Finnish it is a circle, within which something happens. In our language every sentence is sufficient unto itself, in others it needs surrounding discourse in order to exist, otherwise it is meaningless.

Diego Marani, New Finnish Grammar (trans. J. Landry). London: Dedalus, 2011, p. 56.

review 2015-01-28 04:53

New Finnish Grammar.

Kris' Books.

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.

Diego Marani finland excellent-reads 2015 reads italian-author new finnish grammar

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review 2013-12-19 11:05

New Finnish Grammar

Bettie's Books

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

Read from June 18 to 20, 2013

Translated by Judith Landry

To Simona, Alessandro and Elisabetta

Ei Suomi ole mikaan kieli, se on tapa istua penkin paassa karvat korvilla. Paavo Haavikko

Opening: 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.

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review 2013-10-13 12:25

DES

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.

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review 2013-06-20 00:00

Bettie's Books

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.