My Friend Natalia by Laura Lindstedt

Published in Finland in 2019; published in translation by W.W. Norton & Co./Liveright Publishing on March 23, 2021

My Friend Natalia is a novel of therapy, told from the perspective of an unnamed therapist whose gender is never explicitly identified (I’ll call the therapist “she” for the sake of convenience). Natalia is the therapist’s patient. Her name probably isn’t Natalia; she encouraged the therapist to tell her story so the therapist is apparently preserving confidentiality when she says “Let’s call her Natalia.” As the title suggests, the therapist comes close to crossing professional boundaries, although it’s not entirely clear that she really regards Natalia as a friend. She does, however, allow Natalia to masturbate on her office couch during one of the therapy sessions, which is a pretty friendly thing to do. Natalia makes clear that she has a sexual attraction to her therapist, but it isn’t unusual for Natalia to feel a sexual attraction to the people in her life.

Natalia is pursuing therapy to address her obsession with sex. It’s all she ever thinks about. Sex is interesting, so Natalia’s stories about her sex life are interesting. They aren’t particularly titillating, so My Friend Natalia doesn’t work as porn, notwithstanding two impressive sketches of a penis and vagina that Natalia creates for her therapist. Nor are they particularly enlightening, as I doubt that Natalia’s personal experiences can be generalized in a productive way. The therapist draws conclusions — “Natalia went through both men and words as a way of masking her own vulnerability” — that might be more insightful than Natalia’s stories of sexuality unbound.

The therapy sessions are based on story-telling exercises, in which Natalia must invent stories that incorporate key words provided by the therapist. Natalia is loquacious. Her stories cover the chosen words like spilled water, flowing along multiple paths, seemingly at random, one element giving birth to a tangent that flows seamlessly into another. Natalia begins a story with a pornographic comic that she encountered in her childhood, then veers into a lecture on Sartre’s view of women as holes, discusses cinematic technique, and relates memories of her father peeling potatoes before she explains how her discovery of a woman’s buried body turned out to be something quite different .She discusses feminism. She ponders whether it is better to be a head without a body or a body without a head (she chooses the latter because a head can’t masturbate).

Laura Lindstedt’s prose is graceful and imaginative. I enjoyed her description of an erection as “a plea for the waiting to end.” Still, I think it likely that the novel’s meaning eluded me. A fair amount of attention is paid to a work of art hanging on the therapist’s wall called “Ear-Mouth,” a work that once belonged to Natalia’s grandmother. It disturbs her to see it on the therapist’s wall. It disturbs the therapist that Natalia perches an alarm clock on her belly during the sessions, keeping her own track of time. What does any of that mean? I don’t have a clue. Some of the story’s moments are sufficiently bizarre that they amuse, but I imagine there is more to the story than amusement. The ending sort of trails away. As is generally true of talk therapy, no obvious self-awareness ensues, although Natalia claims to have changed. Perhaps my inability to give My Friend Natalia more than a middling recommendation is my fault, but I can only bring what I have to the table, and what I have is confusion.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

The Core of the Sun by Johanna Sinisalo

First published in Finland in 2013; published in translation by Grove Press/Black Cat on January 5, 2016

The Core of the Sun mixes two themes, both involving a repressive Finnish government in an alternate Finland. The first theme addresses the limitation of individual freedom in the guise of promoting the social good (as the American government did during Prohibition). The second addresses the control of women by a male-dominated society. The result is an interesting, although occasionally heavy-handed, story that sometimes has a dated feel.

Government surveillance in this version of Finland is ubiquitous. Modern technologies like smartphones, available in decadent western countries, are outlawed in Finland. The government refuses health care to people who are judged to have lived unwholesome lives. Girls receive a limited education. They may not refuse an offer of marriage unless the suitor is a criminal or physically violent. This law protects the constitutional right of males to enjoy regular sexual activity and has a calming effect on society. Thus does female subjugation (restyled as “domestication”) promote social order.

The government “gender tests” children to specify their final gender. Then the government changes the child’s name and decides which girls can breed, selecting for traits that the government deems ideal (submissiveness, a desire to please, a youthful appearance, etc.), a process that serves as a form of genetic engineering. Social and cultural norms also shape approved female behavior, as do husbands who follow manuals that explain how to train a wife.

The testing and name change happened to Vanna (formerly Vera) shortly after her mother moved to Finland in the 1950s. Vanna was classified as a “femiwoman” or “eloi” (a name taken from H.G. Wells), but only because she sensed that she should play with the doll instead of her first choice, the fire truck. Vanna should probably be classified as a “neuterwoman” or “morlock,” a classification given to women who are excluded from the mating market. Pretending to be eloi when a woman is really a morlock constitutes the crime of gender fraud. On the other hand, Vanna’s sister Manna (formerly Mira) is a true eloi. Manna has been missing for some time, providing the story with an undercurrent of mystery.

If that background had been written in 1985, when Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale appeared, it would have seemed fresh and relevant. Now the premise seems derivative and comes a few decades too late to be taken seriously as a commentary upon gender oppression. The gender theme of The Core of the Sun might appeal to fans of dystopian fiction who are lingering in the past, but it won’t do much for readers who expect an innovative genre to be … innovative.

Fortunately, the second theme, and the story set against that background, is interesting, although very strange. Finland shuns “decadent democracies” that allow people to make their own health choices in favor of maximizing the power of the Health Authority. Cayenne peppers and other sources of capsaicin are illegal in Finland, along with alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis. The Health Authority classifies capsaicin as a nerve toxin and doesn’t want its citizens to develop a tolerance and seek hotter and hotter peppers. My brief internet research suggests that capsaicin raises endorphin levels and helps relieve the symptoms of opiate withdrawal, but outlawing jalapenos seems a little silly. It is, however, an interesting allegory for drug policies that limit the right to make choices about what drugs to take.

In 2016, Vanna is a capsaicin addict. Her friend Jare Valkinen (a “masco,” or masculine male) is a dealer. As an aggressive morlock disguised as a passive eloi, Vanna is in a position to feed her habit by helping Jare sell his peppers. Part of the plot centers on Vanna’s illicit activities. Another part focuses on the absence of Manna from Vanna’s life for reasons Vanna reveals in a series of letters that she writes but never sends. Another focuses on Gaian philosophy, which in this version of Finland has become focused on chili peppers (substituting Brother Chili for Mother Earth). Gaians are devoted to “bringing fire back to the people” – fire being chili peppers.

Some of the story is told from Jare’s point of view. The evolution of his thinking – his gravitation toward “decadence” as defined by the Finnish government -- is one of the book’s highlights.

I think The Core of the Sun is best read as a tribute to hot sauce. Abstract thinkers might view the story as a protest against governments that promote blandness because they know that bland people don’t ask much of their government. In the end, the manner by which Vanna discovers Manna’s fate is a bit silly, but it is true to the story, which demands a considerable suspension of disbelief from readers who doubt the power of the pepper. For all its flaws, however, I enjoyed the novel’s offbeat nature. I’m not sure it works as a cautionary tale, but it works as entertainment. Readers looking for more conventional dystopian fiction, however, might want to look elsewhere.

RECOMMENDED

The Bodyguard by Leena Lehtolainen

First published in Finland in 2009; published by AmazonCrossing on December 9, 2014

Finnish bodyguard Hilja Ilveskero threatens to resign in protest if her client buys a fur coat made of lynx (an animal with which she had a childhood affinity). The client quite properly responds by firing Hilja. Soon thereafter, the client is killed in Moscow and Hilja, back in Finland, spends the next couple of chapters telling the reader "I couldn't remember what happened that night" and "I wish I could remember what happened that night."

Unfortunately, Hilja can recall her childhood, the uncle who raised her, and their pet lynx. Hilja devotes countless pages to those memories, the lynx in particular. They act as a drag on a plot that would be slow-moving even without the flashbacks. Eventually she tells us about the defining moment in her childhood. It is predictable and trite, as is a plot that revolves around the missing hours in a life during which a murder was committed.

Later Hilja is hired by a politician and begins to unravel the mystery of her former client's death. The first reveal, an information dump from an interrogated character, is more tedious than surprising. The rest of the convoluted novel leads to a final reveal that is both dull and contrived.

Throughout the novel, Hilja tells us what's on the news and the content of her dreams and what she had for breakfast and many other things that are of absolutely no interest. I'm all for setting a scene and creating a realistic background but it's possible to do that in a way that engages the reader. Leena Lehtolainen hasn't learned that trick. Lehtolainen's writing style is serviceable but uninspired. Characters tend to be caricatures while descriptions are too dependent upon clichés. The implications of Finland's dependence on Russian energy is the novel's best theme but that isn't enough to carry a thriller.

Hilja spends a good bit of the book lusting after and fantasizing about and bedding a guy while worrying that he's trying to kill her. I've heard of desperate, but seriously? This leads to cheesy sentences like "Finally he read my mind, grabbed my shoulders, and pulled me to him, smelling like a man should. His lips were hungry, his tongue searching his way into my mouth." I'm still wondering what a man with a searching tongue is supposed to smell like -- Armani Gio or axle grease? By the end, The Bodyguard just smelled cheesy.

NOT RECOMMENDED

The Rabbit Back Literature Society by Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen

Published in Finland in 2006. Published in translation in Great Britain in 2013. Published by St. Martin's Press/Thomas Dunne Books on January 20, 2015

Where do writers get their ideas? The Rabbit Back Literature Society provides an amusing answer to the oft-asked question, although in the end it is not an answer that would apply to any writer expect the Society's members -- or, if the answer boils down to "from their imaginations," the answer is obvious. Fortunately, the story that explores that question is far from obvious.

Ella Milana is a literary researcher who wrote her thesis on the mythical aspects of Laura White's children's books. While pondering how to get her career back on track, Ella is working as substitute teacher of Finnish literature in Rabbit Back, the town in which the revered Laura White lives. White determines membership in the Rabbit Back Literature Society, which has not accepted a new member in three decades. At least, not until Ella joins.

The Society's members are the novel's key characters. They most important of them are Marrti Winter, who finds liberation in gluttony; Ingrid Katz, who doubles as the town's librarian; and Aura Jokinen, the housewife who writes sci-fi.

The initial "drama" in this amusing novel stems from Ella's attempt to get to the bottom of a student essay that describes a version of Crime and Punishment in which Raskolnikov commits his murder with piano wire rather than an axe and is shot dead at the end. Ella finds that the content of other library books has changed. The plot twists after attends a party where "the Laura White incident" occurs, which leads to the bulk of the story.

Membership in the Society involves a commitment to play The Game. It is meant to be a source of inspiration for the writers but is more often a source of torment. The Game gives the story its framework and leads to revelations about a dark secret harbored by the Society's members. Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen plays with the form of a murder mystery as Ella works to uncover the Society's secrets. Her inquiries eventually force her to decide whether to betray the Society by revealing a fact that would shock the literary world -- although the revelation must be reinterpreted by the novel's end.

Ella many theories of life (for example, "all people have an inborn need to make their personalities and ideas known to the world, but as a rule no one is interested in what is going on in anyone else's head") add weight to this amusing novel. In addition to propounding her own theories, Ella learns some vital truths as she plays The Game. The greatest truth is that "we all dress ourselves in stories." We shock ourselves with truths when we are stripped naked of our comfortable inventions. The novel can be read as a primer for writers -- Laura White teaches the Society members the tricks of the trade and Jääskeläinen shares them with the reader -- but it is more deeply a story about the many aspects of human nature and the need to guard against our personal disintegration.

In addition to playing with the form of a mystery novel, Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen less successfully adds elements of a supernatural fantasy novel to the plot. I think the mutating library books are intended to symbolize the shifting nature of reality or our attempt to construct our own realities, but the books, together with a phantom and dogs and bees that harass Winter, a miraculous event in White's young life, and the miraculous nature of her disappearance, just didn't work for me. Ella's efforts to construct the "real" Laura White by playing The Game, on the other hand, provides some clever insights into the ambiguous difference between our stories and our reality. The novel's resolution doesn't resolve every plotline neatly, but it does engage the reader's imagination, which is probably the point.

RECOMMENDED

The Ice Cream Man by Katri Lipson

Published in Finland in 2012; published in translation by AmazonCrossing on October 7, 2014

The Ice Cream Man won the European Prize for Literature. I assume it is a stunning novel that simply went over my head since I often found myself trying to understand it. Nearly every character seems to be living someone else's life. The novel is a brief generational saga of sorts, beginning shortly after World War II and continuing until shortly after Jan Palach, a Czech student, set fire to himself in 1969 as an act of political protest. That act motivates a character in the novel named Jan Vorszda to buy a jerry can ... but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The novel begins with a director filming a movie called The Ice Cream Man. He has no script. He tells the actors almost nothing except the names, ages, and nationalities (Czech) of the characters they will be playing. The movie is largely improvised as it is filmed. To an extent, the novel has the same feel, but I assume that is deliberate. Part of the novel's early intrigue is the difficulty of separating what happens in the movie from what "really" happens while sorting out the "true" lives of the actors from the fictional roles they play.

The lead actor and actress take a furtive journey together, pretending to be a married couple. A bridge is blown up, Germans are everywhere, and the travelers are forced to take a room in a boarding house. The man goes away and something eventful happens to him that requires him to be portrayed by another actor. Whether the characters are living their real lives or their shadow lives, whether there is a meaningful difference between the two, is a question they discuss but do not resolve.

The story that the director films is, he claims, so common that people identify with it, particularly women who see themselves as the woman in the film. One such woman is, according to the director, part of a "shadow theater." Whether the woman is a shadow of a character in the film or whether the film is a shadow of real life is never quite clear. Thus we have actors playing the roles of characters who are playing invented roles, and in one case an actor being replaced by a different actor, raising all sorts of identity questions that would probably be profound and meaningful if I understood the point.

Later (and abruptly) the story shifts to a young man named Jan whose mother once took him to see The Ice Cream Man, a movie that he barely recalls and that relates to his father in a way he does not understand (although the reader does, eventually). The student is self-absorbed, rude, and dull. He's apparently a political dissident although he's more of a nothing. He eventually makes his way to Sweden where he becomes the plaything of a group of young women who like the fact that he's from Prague. Jan Vorszda evidently identifies with Jan Palach in another of the novel's many confusions of identity. His daughter completes the circle by visiting Poland, where she pretends to be the woman whose former apartment she is occupying.

The accolades for this prize-winning story call it "playful and charming." I thought it was puzzling and obscure. It isn't dull and it has the virtue of brevity. The prose is commendable. The Ice Cream Man might appeal to a more intellectually gifted reader. I just didn't get it.

NOT RECOMMENDED