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Juhani Peltonen (1941 - 1998) |
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Finnish novelist, playwright and poet, who depicted mythological, larger-than-life -characters with affection, humour and psychological understanding. Among Juhani Peltonen's best known figures is Elmo, a super athlete, who falls on 100 meters run, but wins the race, and makes a new world record. The author's melancholic view of the world is lightened by absurdity and themes of romantic love and longing. "Olen yksin. Tällä alalla (I'm alone. In this line of work Juhani Peltonen was born in Tuusula, the son of Jorma Angervo
Peltonen, a salaried employee, and Kerttu Maria (Taivola) Peltonen, a.
clerk. During summer holidays from the school learned seafaring as a
ship's boy (1956-59) -
his uncle had been a
seaman before he became an agronomist. At home Peltonen shared his room
with his grandmother, and listened with her radio plays in the
evenings. Because Peltonen could not discern red and green, he had to forget his plans to become a seaman. He read works by Gogol, Dostoevsky, Kafka, Camus, and published his first columns at the school magazine. He said in 1988: "I'm always taking Chekhov or Dostoyevsky down from the shelves and reading their old, familiar, beloved words." ('The comi-tragedist' by Erkka Lehtola, in Books from Finland, 2/1988) Peltonen graduated from the secondary school in Kerava in 1961, and after serving in the Navy, he entered the University of Helsinki, where he studied literature and art history from 1962 to 1965. He also contributed to the student magazine Ylioppilaslehti. With the translator Juhani Koskinen and the poet Pentti Saaritsa he formed the "Hermetic Gang". At the cafe of the university, they occasionally sat with the Marxist philosopher Pertti Lindfors. Peltonen's first serious literary efforts, a novel and radio play, came back with rejection slips. In 1965 he married Tuula Anneli Nykänen, a sales manager. They had two children. After winning novel series in J.H. Erkko's writing
competition, Peltonen made his debut as a poet at the age of 23 with
the collection Ihmisiät
(1964), published by Otava. From the same years he devoted himself entirely to writing. He
typed away every weekday from nine in the morning to three in the
afternoon. While in Copenhagen, where Peltonen went after receiving a travel
stipend
from the Union of Finnish Writers, he briefly shared an apartment with
the cinephile critic Peter von Bagh, the Executive Director of the
Finnish Film Archive. When Peltonen visited Rome, he saw there Bernardo Bertolucci's film Novecento
(1976, Twentieth Century) in cinema. He regarded the polemics against
the film as the most certain sign that it was an ingenius work of art. (Kirjailijan koti: Esseitä ja puheenvuoroja by Arto Virtanen, 2006, p. 238) The most famous short story in Peltonen's second book, Vedenalainen melodia (1965) is 'Orjien kasvattaja,' which was anthologized in Uuden proosan parhaita (1969, edited by Pekka Tarkka) and has been translated into English as 'The Slave Breeder' in The Dedalus Book of Finnish Fantasy
(2005, edited by Johanna Sinisalo, translated by David Hackston). This Kafkaesque horror
story tells of a Werner Reiss, who abandons bourgeois life
and retreats into his castle. He becomes a master of slaves,
whom he transforms into grotesque beings. Eventually his sadistic reign ends: like Doctor Moreau,
he is destroyed by one of his own creations. "Onko "Orjien kasvattaja"
kauhukirjallisuutta? Se on fantasiaa ja sen näkemys on vahvasti
groteski, ja lisäksi sen kuvissa on pelottavaa voimaa . . . Ehkä se
kuuluu laajempaan oudon ("weird") kirjallisuuden lajityyppiin, josta
kauhukirjallisuus on vain osa." (Kuoleman usvaa ja pimeyttä: suomalaisen kauhukirjallisuuden historia by Juri Nummelin, 2020, p. 204) Oudot minät (1966) presented Peltonen as a subtle aesthetician. His other side came out in the collection Felix Navitan etu- ja takaraivo (1967), and introduced him as a successor of Lauri Viita in the use of wordplays. "Elokellarin vokabulaarissa / on mitä hän mukanaan kantoi / Siellä työntää mystistä itua / sen hitunen se" Many of the poems had first appeared in the student newspaper Ylioppilaslehti. The fruitful combination of silent observations and witty insights continued in Kesken asumisen (1968) and Pitkää, omalaatuista rykimistä, (1974). Peltonen's later collections, Välimatkakirja (1984) and Näköisveistos ruumiskirstusta (1987), were again more serious. "And the cuckoo cries hundreds of times before the sun Peltonen's first novel, Salomo ja Ursula (1967) gained an immediate success. "The exuberance, which Peltonen offers with his text, must be praised: only a bold writer can be so generous," wrote Pekka Suhonen. ('Asunnottomat ja puheliaat' by Pekka Suhonen, in Parnasso, V/1968) The novel was inspired by a newspaper article, which told about a young couple, who had difficulties in finding accommodation for them and their child to be born. Salomo meets Ursula in a park -
she
is eating a pear and asks her, do you know what is "Otto tenet mappam,
madidam mappam tenet Otto." Ursula has no Latin palindromes to make an
impression. Through the story she acts as stooge for Salomo. They spent
time in restaurant, railway station and after
they are thrown out from Salomo's small room, in a ghostly church.
Finally the young couple
finds a place to live between railway tracks. Salomo, who plays piano,
can't stand the noise. Ursula becomes pregnant. Like in a Shakespeare's
play, the story ends tragically. Salomo is killed after being hit by a
lorry
and Ursula commits suicide in a public toilet by a razor blade.Peltonen's surrealistic
love story of modern day Romeo and Julia was adapted into a television
film and widely read over two decades at schools. Valaan merkkejä (1973), which marked Peltonen's
move from Otava to WSOY publishing company, is an ambitious
surrealistic novel. The protagonist,
Joona Hemmermain, dreams about a neglected manor house, flower shop,
and whaling
ship, but he lives under the harsh reality of the tycoon Mundixon. He
is an Orwellian Big Brother, who has a special lead pointed chrome boot
to kick his subordinates whenever he fancies it. At the
end Joona kills Mundixon by biting his throat and escapes to freedom
with his family by climbing up a rope
into the sky. In the 1960s and 1970s Peltonen wrote several works for Yleisradio Oy, the national public broadcasting company, among them the radio plays Elmo, urheilija (1978) and Elmo - muu maailma (1978). Lars Svedberg, who had cooperated with Peltonen in the radio drama Kohti maailman sydäntä, directed these productions. The texts were later enlarged into a novel, titled simply Elmo (1978). The English translation of the play received an honorary prize at a cultural festival in Montreux in 1979. It has been argued that in Finland literature à theme sportif was connected with Juha Väätäinen's two gold medals in the Olympic Games of 1972 and Lasse Virén's four gold medals in the Olympic Games of 1972 and 1976. The latest edition of Elmo was published in 2011. "The most accurate characterization of the novel Elmo
is that is perhaps a burlesque satire of the outworn and politically
problematic nationalistic metaphors in circulation in Finnish public
life in general." ('Nature Boys, Supermen, Fanatics: Perspectives on Finnishness in Three Sports Novels' by Henrik Meinander, in Sport, Literature, Society: Cultural Historical Studies, edited by Alexis Tadié, J.A. Mangan and Supriya Chaudhuri, 2014, pp. 104-106) Originally, in an unfinished manunscript, the
protagonist was
a
master guitar player, not an athlete. With this book Peltonen made his
breakthrough as the forefront satirist in Finland. The dialogue imitated
the
nationalistic language of sports commentators (especially that of Raimo
"Höyry" Häyrinen and Paavo Noponen). Especially sports fanatics
adopted Elmo as their hero, quite contrary to the purposes of the
author, whose work opposed all forms of national chauvinism. One
internationally successful Finnish
decathlonist, Petri Keskitalo, was even nicknamed "Elmo." Peltonen's multi-talented super-athlete, member of the athletic club Kainalniemen Hiki (Armpitpeninsula Sweat), is interested in church architecture and growing of apples. He is an unbeatable single-man football team, and he plays card during a marathon, but wins all the competitions. A pacifist, Elmo doesn't want that sports achievements are celebrated by military music, he prefers Järnefelt's 'Berceuse.' (Traditionally, every time a Finnish athlete won a gold medal in a major international sports event, 'March of The Pori Regiment' was played in radio or television.) Finally, after being disappointed in love, Elmo disappears into the space, becoming an UFO. The character chrystallized some of Peltonen's central themes, his fascination with eastern mysticism and surrealism, nostalgia, loneliness, and unhappy love. In the 1980s Peltonen wrote columns for the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat.
He travelled several times in the Soviet Union, attracted by his own
version of religion, which he called orthodox mysticism. He was also
interested in Latin American and Spanish poetry. Several of his novels
and short stories reflected the ideas of Magic Realism. Stereotyped religious views were dealt in Iloisin suru (1986), in which Peltonen continued his religious meditations. The story portrayed a deputy Lutheran minister, Sauli Rekelä, whose wife and daughter have left him. The only joy in the gloomy life of Rekelä is his relationship with his 11-year old son Aleksi. In Jumalan kuopus (1980) life is a dream, novel a fiction, and God is a fascist. Peltonen considered that his books, Välimatkakirja, a collection of poems, Iloisin suru, a novel about a deputy parson, and Näköisveiston ruumiskirstusta, formed a kind of trilogy about loneliness. Peltonen's travel stories, which he published in Helsingin Sanomat
between 1974 and 1990, were collected in Matkoilla (2005). An
outsider like his fictional characters, Peltonen occasionally wrote of himself in the third person -
he is P., Ivan Jormanovitš Malopoljev, Koito Susirenka, know-how-mies,
and Matkamies Maan. After several tragicomic attempts to visit
Chekhov's estate in Melikhovo, Peltonen eventually managed to see the
place with the help of Kalevi Sorsa, Finland's Prime Minister. Peltonen
become acquainted with him in 1963 in Paris, where Sorsa at that time
worked for the Unesco. With Pekka Suhonen, he translated H.W. Janson's acclaimed survey History of Art (1962) into Finnish under the title Suuri taidehistoria (1965). Much of his life Peltonen lived in Korso, in a house called "Villa
Orrela." In the late 1970s he was forced to leave his home and his dear
Chekhovian apple orchard due to construction work, which totally changed the
idyllic area. Orrela was pulled down, and the loss of the orchard was a
deep blow to the author. He even tried to appeal to Kalevi Sorsa, but
the Prime Minister could not help. Peltonen settled with his family in
Loppi. He bought a school house, "Heikkilä's old school," where
he began small scale sheep farming. In the new surroundings, he wrote
two darkly hilarious collections of poems, several radio plays, three
novels, and four collections of stories. Peltonen died in Loppi, on
February 27, 1998. Kuolemansairauteen rinnastettava syli-ikävä (1991) was Peltonen's final novel, set in the war years 1808-09, which led to Finland's
annexation to the Russian Empire and end of the Swedish rule. A group
of prisoners is taken to Russia. Captain Värnhjelm leaves his nostalgic
farewells to his country, wife Ottiliana and daughters Catharina and
Sofia. He discusses with the feverish Major af Åkerlille about death on
the way to a small village on the banks of the river Volga. There af
Åkerlille meets the youngest daughter of a prince, Marfusa. She tells
that she don't believe in God – God is bitter, disappointed and lonely.
"Me too," answers af Åkerlille. Pensasaidan takana (1993), a radio play, was based on a short story published in Puisto jouluksi (1990). The central characters are two old people (in the radio adaptation the actors Pentti Siimes and Elina Pohjanpää, a real life couple), who began to plan a life together. For further reading: 'Nature Boys, Supermen, Fanatics: Perspectives on Finnishness in Three Sports Novels' by Henrik Meinander, in Sport, Literature, Society: Cultural Historical Studies, edited by Alexis Tadié, J.A. Mangan and Supriya Chaudhuri (2014); 'Juhani Peltonen ja "vedenalaiset" maailmat' by Irma Perttula, in Groteski suomalaisessa kirjallisuudessa (2010); 'Poem of Our Land,' in A Way to Measure Time, ed. by Bo Carpelan (1992); 'Juhani Peltonen,' in Miten kirjani ovat syntyneet 3, edited by Ritva Haavikko (1991); 'Juhani Peltonen,' in Suomalaisia nykykirjailijoita by Pekka Tarkka (1989); 'The comi-tragedist' by Erkka Lehtola, in Books from Finland (2/1988) Selected works:
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