by Leena Krohn
“Presence” is a compelling record of a shaken mind. The story follows events from three points of view: Sofi’s, her husband’s, and her father’s. The alternation of perspective helps make the story touching while blurring black and white into shades of grey.
“There is no making up for loss, what is empty remains empty. Only loss, absence itself, is the new knowledge.”
How do people endure loss? This is the subject tackled by the book’s other novella, “Absence” (“Poissaolo”), though now from the perspective of an entire town in upheaval. The residents of the town are disappearing one by one, and at an increasing rate.
Most of those who remain either lose their minds or wait, terrified, for the moment when their loved ones will disappear. There are some, however, who carry on as before, like the main character Gamma, who walks along the town’s emptying streets.
As often happens in a crisis, the residents try to figure out who to blame: aliens, diverging universes, or perhaps some political organization? The only thing that is certain is that no one is safe. Annihilation comes democratically for everyone, sweeping both rich and poor from the face of the Earth.
Gamma asks the question, what if the culling of humanity is a good thing for the Earth? She believes that humanity will be preserved in language, but who to preserve it for if no one is left?
The Dreadful and Wonderful Countryside
I became five years old and soaked my toes in the shallow water on the shore. It wasn’t tomorrow. Or yesterday. It was only now.
“The countryside is the worst place in Finland,” says Uncle Arnold in the short story “Phenomenon” (“Ilmiö”). In the 1970s, you would have been hard pressed to find a sentence like that in Krohn’s work. Back in those days, one of her recurring subjects was defending rural vistas and respecting traditions.
Krohn’s two-sided view of the city and the country is reflected in her personal life. She divides her time between Helsinki and Pernaja with her partner Mikael Böök. Krohn grew up in Helsinki, however, and its neighborhoods, such as Katajanokka and Kruununhaka, often appear in her texts.
However, let’s now visit the village of Pölkki, the setting for “Phenomenon”, from the collection Do Not Read This Book.
Olli is a boy who moves with his family to Pölkki. One would think that it would be quiet and calm after the bustle of the city, but no. The village is plagued by a monotone, rhythmic sound that not everyone can hear. Pets flee the village, and the residents are jumpy and irritable. A meeting is arranged at the village hall to discuss how to live with the Sound.
Olli’s family isn’t able to live with it, though, and one day they pack up and move back to the city. Just in time, too, as shortly after they leave, Pölkki vanishes from the face of the Earth.
The villages Krohn depicts do not normally suffer such an extreme fate. The Forest Cover (Metsänpeitto, 1980) takes place in the same small village as Tales from the Waterline. It also shares the same old-fashioned language, and uses the rhythms of oral traditions. The effect works, as the story is set in the past, when Finland was ruled by the Russian Emperor and industrialization was just raising its head.
A drunk, a healer and a woman of ill repute. The main characters of Metsänpeitto are not the standard fairytale fare.
The village healer, Granny Staava, raises her two grandchildren in a dark cottage. They are poor, but manage to get by just as long as they live in peace with the forest spirits, gnomes, and elves.
Granny Staava tries to teach her wards the secrets of her trade, but they look down upon them and long to head out into the wider world as soon as grown up. They desire coffee, spices, and snuff.
The Forest Cover is the story of these two children getting lost in the world. The original meaning of the Finnish title is a goblin hoard in the forest that one can vanish into. The characters in the book are not lost amongst the trees, however, but amongst the boulevards of the city. The girl, Ankeliana, falls into bad company, has a baby, and ends up scrubbing other people’s floors as a maid. The boy, Sameli, injures his leg, loses his job, and starts hitting the bottle. Eventually, both of them return home to Granny’s cottage.
The central message of this generously illustrated tale is respect for nature and traditions, not to mention the importance of family. On the other hand, it also makes point that there is no point in struggling against children becoming independent.
“The road was a stream that took them in two directions. It took them on its shoulders and carried them far from their childhood.”
An Activist in Human Clothing
“The President of the Republic of Finland has awarded the Commander of the Order of the Lion of Finland to Indonesian Forestry Minister Djamaludin Suryohadikusumo. For this reason, we the undersigned, to whom the President of the Republic awarded the Pro Finlandia medal last Independence Day, wish to return our medals.”
This statement was written by Leena Krohn and graphic artist Marjatta Hanhijoki in January 1998. The return of the medals was a major sensation in Finland, and gave rise to a wider debate concerning the ethics of Finnish foreign policy.
Leena Krohn is an avowed defender of human rights and the environment. Her analytical opinion pieces and columns have aired out attitudes towards art and morality. She has taken a stand on a wide variety of issues, such as the cat murder video made by Finnish artist Teemu Mäki, circumcision among Somali refugees, globalization, fur farming, as well as the leadership of her home municipality, Pernaja.
It is no surprise, then, that Krohn began her writing career with fervent texts, as befits the activist spirit of the 1970s when they were written. They are for peace and against war, worried about developing countries and poverty, and are all linked by the shared theme of preserving nature.
Krohn began her career with the outspoken Green Revolution (Vihreä vallankumous, 1970), which is illustrated by Inari Krohn. The two got the idea for the book from a newspaper article about a riot in an English park that was violently broken up by the police. The book ends more happily, with its protagonist Mortti and his friends taking back the park for the residents of the city. “Children, dogs, and cats of every block—unite!”
Her next book, The Girl Who Grew Up and Other Stories (Tyttö joka kasvoi ja muita kertomuksia, 1973) keeps to the same subject matter, but uses more heavy-hitting methods, which have undoubtedly brought tears to the eyes of more than one reader. Krohn has described the book as a biased fairytale that clumsily sketches some thoughts that have always fascinated her. Famine in developing countries, the bombing of Vietnam, the destruction of the Earth.
This is evident in the story “Small and Grey” (“Pienet harmaat”), in which Matti is exited to get a model jetfighter for Christmas. When his father tells him that the machines it is modelled after are killing people in Vietnam, Matti paints it green and writes “peace” on the side in big letters.
The collection The Last Summer Guest (Viimeinen kesävieras, 1974) can also be placed in the group of Krohn’s ideological works, though it is more subtle in its approach. In the collection’s dozen stories, poverty turns out to be a better choice than material riches. Urban life, industrialization, and development are negatives, whereas traditions, the purity of nature, and the tranquility of the countryside are positives.
The ideas presented by the book are brought together in the story “The Village That Chose Poverty” (“Kylä joka valitsi köyhyyden”). The powers that be in the capital decide to modernize the village of Harmaja and fill it with factories and highways. The villagers do not agree, however, and they send a committee of their own to have a look at the reforms carried out in neighboring villages. They find nothing worthy of praise: nature has been polluted by oil, the food is toxic, once peaceful places are now full of noise and hurry. The residents of Harmaja decide they would rather live in poverty. The story ends on an ominous note: “There will be a time when people will want to buy a strawberry field, the cry of a tern, and the splash of a perch. But they will no
longer be for sale.”
Krohn takes a more humorous approach to the destructive power of humanity in “The Beginning of the Game” (“Leikin alku”) a story about two young gods. The divine brothers compete to see who can create a better universe. One creates the Earth, with its two-legged inhabitants who sow sorrow and destruction. The other brother creates a lifeless world that never changes. Which one wins? The Earth, which sees moments of joy amidst all the misery or the sandy globe that has never seen a smile?
As a whole, The Last Summer Guest is an interesting curiosity, a kind of rare collector’s item. There is nothing wrong with the subjects it deals with as such, but it is brought down by the transparency of its message. For fans of the 1970s, though, this is a real find.
In Human Clothing (Ihmisen vaatteissa, 1976) continues Krohn’s series of children’s and young adult books with an environmental slant. In the book, two lonely residents of a noisy city meet: Emil and Mr. Hyyryläinen. The first is a small boy who has moved into a small rented apartment with his mother after his parents’ divorce. The second is a pelican that has also left his home behind and has decided to become more like a human.
In the bustling city, people don’t seem to notice that Hyyryläinen is a bird—big webbed feet, baggy beak, waddling walk and all. All they see is his human clothing, which is enough for them. Emil, on the other hand, is able to see past the outfit.
Krohn used the same “animal as a person” idea in her 1974 short story “When the Snake Wanted to Walk” (“Kun käärme halusi kävellä”), in the collection The Last Summer Guest. In this tragicomic tale, a grass snake wants to become a person and decides to fulfil its dream by swallowing a human shoe. All it gets for its trouble is a bad case of indigestion.
If Krohn’s snake story is a study of the supurfluousness of humans in the cycle of nature, In Human Clothing is a story about more human problems: feeling like an outsider and adapting to new circumstances. Both Emil and Hyyryläinen are homesick, but their friendship helps them both get over it. At the same time, they realize that, though they are not country people any more, they are not fully city people either. They are something in between.
The book questions many senseless human habits and ways of thinking without delving into them too deeply, for instance, gender prejudice, violence, pollution, and the unethicalness of zoos. Emil’s mother’s depression, exhaustion, and drinking are also touched upon in a way not commonly found in young adult books.
What makes us human? Fancy Clothes? Literacy? The ability to smile? Or is it our understanding of the past and the future?
A Friend of Technology
“The best part about writing is the loneliness, which is, of course, always partially broken by publication”. (Interview with Leena Krohn)
Leena Krohn (born 1947) can certainly not be accused of being a writer stuck in a rut. She has studied literature, philosophy, and psychology and worked in the Helsinki University library throughout the 1970s—at the beginning of the decade she was working on a master’s thesis on suicide in Finnish literature, but her plans changed. Since then she has also studied information technology, neurology, and the biosciences, which is evident in both her fiction and other texts. Krohn is also a sought-after lecturer and speaker.
The writer’s profession is a kind of hereditary trait in Krohn’s family. She is a member of a Finnish “cultural family”, which includes many artists and scientists. Her mother wrote poetry and radio plays, and her father was, among other things, the editor of a Finnish fine arts magazine.
Krohn has written stirringly about her experiences as a child and youth in Rustling and Other Papers (Rapina ja muita papereita, 1989). The book is normally called an essay collection, though it is in fact an unprecedented combination of stream of consciousness recollections and musings on everyday phenomena. Its pages play host to Uncle Ernst, an artist who died of rabies, Uncle Paavo, a soldier who may have defected to Russia, and a horrible girls’ school in Helsinki and its physical check-ups. Coexisting with these are ponderings on the nature of reality, the aims of Tainaron, and the structure of termite colonies.
The same termite and ant hills are revisited by the essay collection Tribar (1993), a light book about difficult subjects. Can digital creatures think? Why are people afraid of death? What separates dreams from reality? The book provides fascinating background information for readers of Krohn’s fiction, as the texts in the collection touch on all of her central themes in one form or another.
The same is true of The Pen and the Machine (Kynä ja kone, 1996). If Rustling is the most personal of Krohn’s essay collections and Tribar the most lively, the one that pushes you to think the most, The Pen and the Machine is the most academic. It is perfect for people who enjoy bibliographical and biographical references, and it has a great deal to say without many easily digestible examples. One of the main subjects of the book is technological development, the humanity of it and its significance in increasing freedom of choice. Other themes include morality, language and writing, and the imagination. And, of course, ants.
In addition to essays, novels, and short stories, Krohn has also written poems and radio plays and has translated a large stack of other people’s works into Finnish.
The Finnish Mignon (Suomalainen Mignon, 1977) collects Krohn’s early poems and songs, featuring subject matter familiar from her 1970s work. There is war, famine, and pollution. The book also has a few enjoyable connections with other works, such as a poem that refers to Riioraa, the setting for Green Revolution.
Her next book of poetry is a collaboration with artist Riitta Nelimarkka. In Gallery (Galleria, 1982), Krohn’s poems are accompanied by textile illustrations based on Nelimarkka’s paintings. In places, the book’s birds, foxes, and other animals lend themselves to humorous verse.
Krohn was inspired to write the poems collected in Heart Tree (Sydänpuu, 1984) by the prints of Outi Heiskanen. This collection, too, features many of Krohn’s recurring themes, like the nightmares in “November” (“Marraskuu”), in which cars burst into flame and new shoes can be made from grass at the snap of one’s fingers.
Krohn’s career as a poet was not very long. She has said that she realized quite quickly the poems are not her thing. “I managed to produce some decent song lyrics. All my other efforts were conventional and dull. I was warming myself by dying embers,” she once wrote.
An Invitation to Imagine
Leena Krohn’s texts are best enjoyed like fine food and drink: slowly, so that you can savor them. This allows all of the nuances and aromas to come into their own. Everyone will get something different out of her work. One will find ants, another, robots, yet a third, human themes like gut-wrenching guilt, while a fourth may be excited by Krohn’s wonderful words and polished sentences.
Whether writing about long-extinct creatures, modern-day little girls, or future space captains, Krohn’s stories ultimately dig into at least one of three themes: morality, perceptions of reality, and technology. Krohn prods, pokes, and pinches these subject to get the most out of them.
One could call Krohn a moralist—in the positive sense of the word. From one decade to the next, her works revisit musings on morality or the lack thereof, the definition of a good life, and wrong choices. The preservation of nature, respect for other people, non-violence, and tolerance, just to name a few of Krohn’s favorite children.
Krohn also repeatedly takes received truths to task. Gravity, linear views of time, and mortality are all ideas she has put through the wringer, along with a long list of others. Technology could also be considered one of her regular themes, such as the possibilities of hypertext, robots teaching humans, and human minds living in virtual realities.
Regardless of their subject matter, Krohn’s basic optimism always shines through her stories. She has a firm belief that there is always something that can be done. Even if you fall flat on your face in everything you do, with the right attitude you can turn things around tomorrow. Or maybe next week. Or
next year.
Like in a flashback from Tainaron, in which the narrator’s childhood self suddenly realizes a terrible fact of life: one day her mother would die. This realization causes the shiny marbles she was looking at in a shop window to fade. Soon, she realizes that she can make them shine again through willpower.
“I did not believe the darkness, I said, it is not true; and soon it was indeed not true; it paled and lifted like a night-mist. And the marble glowed before me, lovely as ever.”
First published in Tähtivaeltaja magazine issue 2/2002; translated by J. Robert Tupasela.
Afterword: When the Viewer Vanishes
by Leena Krohn
I lightheartedly promised to explain the foundations of my aesthetics without thinking at any great length about what is my very own that could be called aesthetics. Now I am forced to think about it. The foundations of my possible aesthetics—like those of all aesthetics—lie, of course, somewhere quite different from aesthetics itself. They lie in human consciousnesses and language, with all the associated indefiniteness.
It is my belief that we do not live in reality, but in metareality. The first virtual world, the simulated Pretend-land, is inherent in us. It is the human consciousness, spun by our own brains, which is shared by everyone belonging to this species. Thus it can be called a shared dream, as indeed I have done.
The social metareality of Homo sapiens does not have much to do with objective, let alone absolute, truth; the former is the subject of study, but we know nothing of the latter. But those shared dreams form the foundation of all the elements of society—religions, law, science, the arts and even market economics.
Civilisations are not based on the intellect and rational thought to nearly the extent we wish to believe. In fact, the opposite is the case. The human world is built up of strange connections, logically impossible constructions: conjoined facts and fancies, double helices of the concrete and the illusory.