All night lj: Finland, Finland, Finland

[mrissa]

Not surprisingly, some of you have asked Finland-related questions. One of you wanted to know why Väinämöinen and Ilmarinen were so interesting. Frankly, they're not. Väinämöinen especially is not the reason I became so enamored of the Kalevala. I think he's kind of a jerk. He's the mode of "hero" that means "main character," not "admirable person" in any way. There's sort of the Rumpelstiltskin thing going: the bad character is bad for wanting to have what the "hero" promised her. I like Ilmarinen a bit better than Väinämöinen, since he's a smith-hero, and there's some affinity there with Edward, my engineer-hero.

So there were a couple of things that caught me about the Kalevala that weren't Väinämöinen or Ilmarinen. One is that some of the passages are very funny indeed, and in a dry way that hits me just right. (I was reiterating on the phone to Daniel a few minutes ago that it's not that my chosen Minneapolis subculture is objectively better than my equivalent San Francisco subculture, it's that it's more suited to me personally. This is a bit like that.) Another is that there are all sorts of loose ends hanging around, many of them to do with women. I have the sense that Lönnrot did not see them as loose ends ("She's turned into a fish, what more do you want?"), but some of the male characters aren't even done when they've been killed by being chopped into teeny bloody pieces, so being a trout for awhile does not look to me like much of a crimp in a girl's style.

(My most-often-triggered Kalevala gripe is about people who want to treat the Kalevala as though it was hanging around whole cloth in Folk Tradition and was merely transcribed by Elias Lönnrot. Nonsense. Lönnrot drew on folk traditions like crazy, to be sure, but he pruned and ordered and edited and commented all over the place. He was, in fact, its author.)

Anyway. The loose bits of the Kalevala snag pretty easily for me. It is crafty. It is filled with magical stuff made by people. The magical stuff isn't just delivered from afar or passed out by spirits. It's forged and sung and painted and all sorts of things. And not in a grandiose work of art sense, where only the author's chosen types of humanity survive and thrive and people make a big stink about how artistic they are. There are magic fishing nets and cooking pots and metal women and who-knows-whats. And I kind of like that kind of magic stuff. It pokes good places in my brain.

(I have hit the punch-drunk stage of The Tired, again. ksumnersmith nearly made me aspirate tortilla by noting that on the drive down to the clinic, one arm could be markgritter's pokin' arm. I also feel cruddy, but I don't care as much as I did half an hour ago.)

Also, not entirely related, I really love "Finlandia." It cracks me up or chokes me up or sometimes both, depending on my mood: "But other lands have sunlight too, and clover, And skies are ev'rywhere as blue as mine." Yah, like that.

Comments

[mkille.livejournal.com]

I bought a "Finlandia" CD as part of the "music for during labor" purchase set. I knew it wasn't something Laura would end up listening to, but it was soothing for me to have it among the choices.

At least, I think that's when I got it. Around that time, anyway.

(I also once wrote a hymn set to that).

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I have no idea what I would want to give birth to. However, I have more than 9 months to think of it at the absolute minimum, so at least it doesn't have to go on today's list.

[timprov.livejournal.com]

I would suggest sticking to a baby. No need to be too creative.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

grumblemumbleoppressingme

[mkille.livejournal.com]

You know that *somewhere* out there is a devoted pet owner who won't be satisfied with run-of-the-mill cloning, but will want biotech to figure out a way they can gestate and bear Fluffy or Fido Jr. themselves...

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

::choke::

Hee.

[dendrophilous.livejournal.com]

I love that version of the hymn. It's in the UU hymnal but we hardly ever sang it.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It is my kind of nationalism, if it's any kind.

[brooksmoses]

It's in the United Methodist hymnal, too. I think our church sang it most sunday-next-to-July-4th sundays; at least, I remember singing it a few times in that context.

I always loved it too.

[sraun]

Finlandia has words?!?! Would you happen to have a pointer?

Do you have a Kalevala recommendation? I've never read it, and you're making it sound really interesting! That and Peer Gynt - it sounds like the leading male in each is not exactly a hero.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

This (http://www.lyricsdownload.com/dar-williams-finlandia-lyrics.html), while it says it refers to a Dar Williams version, seems to be the same one the Indigo Girls, Peter, Paul, & Mary, and everybody else uses.

I love my Frances Peabody Magoun Kalevala translation. It clings to the weird, and so do I. Some cling to the meter, but the weird is more important to me.

[orangemike.livejournal.com]

I keep meaning to read the Esperanto translation thereof. Anybody know if it's any good?

[brooksmoses]

It looks the same as the one in the hymnal I know, too, though I thought there were more verses. I'll check when I get home.

(One Sunday, we got to the end of a three-verse hymn and the organist kept playing for the nonexistent next verse. After she realized what had happened and stopped, someone in the congregation made a loud quip about us being good United Methodists and always singing all four verses. This is probably related to why I think there should be more.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

You know how you can tell a Lutheran at a showing of Star Wars? Whenever they say, "May the Force be with you," the Lutheran murmurs, "And also with you."

[sraun]

I wonder if I've just stumbled into a defaults problem. The only Finlandia I know is the Sibelius orchestal piece. Is it at all related to the hymn?

I'll have to look up your favorite translation - I can't read poetry (the meter never works right in my head!), but I can listen to it. Maybe I should find an English Book-on-CD version. Thanks!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes. The Sibelius piece was made into a song/hymn because that's what Scandos do.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah, that's definitely an issue for me. But I also crack up, as I said, amidst the hopeful tearing up, because it's so darn Scando, the reflexive diplomacy. "Well, yah, and your way is nice, too, I'm sure."

More on this in a bit, I think.