New Finnish Grammar (Dedalus Europe 2011 Dedalus Europe 2011) [Paperback]

This book won't teach you actual Finnish grammar. If you know that, then all is fine. Instead, New Finnish Grammar takes you into a world where language, words and lack thereof means everything. I hope no review of this book will talk much about the actual story - the story may seem simple, but following it as it develops and unfolds is what gives the book it's character. Sometimes, it is as if the main character's destiny is determined by his previous choices and him refusing to make new decisions. This really adds to the suspense and is probably one of the reasons why I finished the book in two sittings!

Language may be important in the book, in the actual story, but it is also crucial for the book itself. Marani's skilled in creating a language that feels fresh and new - somehow it develops with the characters. Adding to that, Judith Landry's translation is just beautiful.

With 187 pages and a story that is relatively easy to follow, this book is approachable and could be treated as a quick and simple read. At least that's what I thought until I had finished it - now I find my mind returning to it to discover new gems and appreciate new parts of the story. Marani has created a novel that expands, not only as you read it but after as well.

Even if you found this book looking for an actual grammar book, I recommend it. It might not teach you Finnish, but it can surely awaken your fascination for language and how is affects us all. I look forward to finding out what else Marani has written.

This is a curate's egg of a book. Some aspects are beautifully done and highly poised. Other parts are highly unsuccessful.

The main character's sense of total loss - stemming from being unable to recall who he is, or what has happened in his life - is heartfelt and impactive. The decision to send him for recuperation in Helsinki is logical, and the reader expects a decent storyline as a result.

However, problems then emerge. Too many conversations are not conversations at all - they are awkward means of imparting pseudo-academic information to the reader. As a result everything quickly feels stilted, as if any sense of a realistic or emotional story has been forgotten, so that the author can expand endlessly on the Finnish language. Less would be much more, here. The main character disappears into the `research', emotion is sacrificed and never returns. This book should be poignant and moving, but it is not.

Ultimately, this strikes the reader as an exercise in explaining the origins and importance of language to the Finnish people. The story, characters, narrative arc and other basics of fiction are simply shoehorned into the exercise. In short, a book by an academic about an academic subject, forced into a fiction structure. As such, it suffers for it. For example, the priest is going slowly mad, but he is going mad in a particular way - one where he routinely provides five-page explanations of a Finnish myth and how it shaped the language. Because, you know, that's how madness usually manifests itself, isn't it? Some of this would be acceptable or even welcome; lots of it just seems false and laboured.

Overall, too much academic notes and not enough fiction; the balance is all wrong and both aspects suffer as a consequence.

What a disappointment. Having read some of the reviews on this page, and having a background in linguistics and an interest in the Finnish language, I bought this book and looked forward to discovering some interesting insights into the language, only to find the author, whatever his academic achievements and fascination with Finnish, had written a lot of tosh about the language and, well, a lot of tosh generally.

Take this as an example of general tosh: "..Finland is what remains of something else:take away the Slavs, the Scandinavians,the Orthodox,the Catholics,the sea salt,the birch forests,scrape off a few thousand tons of granite and what you are left with is Finland. If you were once Finnish, at some point or other you will find all this within you,because all this is not stored in your memory,it cannot be mislaid. It is in your blood,your guts." This isn't 'poetic' - I can imagine some third rate Nazi propagandist writing this sort of nonsense about the Aryan homeland back in the 1940s. Unfortunately the book is riddled with passages like this.

Here's an example of linguistic tosh:"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." Is this guy really a linguist working for the EU? If he is I'm joining UKIP.

Let's take the first part of the latter passage; it sounds as if there are fifteen cases which decline "endlessly". Well,you can't have declensions of cases because cases don't decline. Nouns in Finnish (and some other parts of speech) have declensions, or rather a declension, for, unlike say Latin or Russian, there is only one basic declension, and in Finnish the declension has fifteen cases (eg talo - house, talon - of the house, taloon - to the house, talossa - in/at the house etc etc - ok, I'm ignoring some variations depending on the root forms of words). So I'm not sure what it is that's "endless". Later the 'hero' of the book says: "I was beginning to be able to express myself.....I would learn the words already declined, a different one for each case, and when I didn't know how to put them together I made do with saying them at random..". If anyone can explain to me what "the words already declined, a different one for each case" means I'll send him or her my copy of the book for free. And the chap needn't have worried about saying the words at random. That's cool. They'd be like moons, man, circling a planet; just let the nearest one to the verb be the subject, dya know what I mean eh?

As for the "moons around a planet", the "straight line" versus the "circle", and the untrue and patently absurd "whichever one (word) is nearest the verb becomes the subject",well all I can say is whatever this writer is smoking I wish he could get me some of it. Take this fairly ordinary Finnish sentence: Minulle sattui viime viikolla kauhea juttu. Which translated gives: To-me happened last week terrible thing (A terrible thing happened to me last week). The subject is of course 'juttu' which is not the word nearest the verb 'sattui', and would you believe it, it's in that elusive old nominative case!

But then perhaps it's unfair to single out these examples of tosh; as one of the characters in Billy Bunter books would have opined:'the toshfulness of the whole book is terrific.'

The story begins with this chap, who has lost his memory and all power of language, being cared for by a doctor who believes this patient is Finnish and so starts to teach him the language. Remember, the patient has no language so the doctor cannot translate the meanings of Finnish words for him; he just points to objects, pictures of objects and so on. That is not my interpretation of his method, it's stated explicitly in the book. Yet after a very short time (weeks) the doctor addresses him thus before he packs him off to Finland: "The time has come for you to face this journey. You must not be afraid. Basically,this journey is a return. Here you are living in a sort of limbo,a no-man's land,your life is in abeyance. Do you understand me?" The poor chap recalls: "I nodded, even though I had barely grasped the meaning of what he said."

One is then entitled to ask how he later managed to record this language which he didn't understand. Well the author explains this rather neatly. When this chap didn't understand things, the words sort of seeped into his brain and he learned them by heart,so that later,as his knowledge of Finnish improved,he understood them. Well, we've all done this haven't we? Remember that waiter who gabbled something incomprehensible to you when you were abroad on holiday in Greece? You just learned all the sounds he made by heart and then understood,a few years later after you'd done a bit of Greek in an evening class where the teacher just pointed at objects and pictures,that the waiter was telling you that he was on a gap-year before going to Uni to study engineering,and so was in a sort of limbo just then,a no-man's land,his life was in abeyance - and by the way the moussaka was off. Easy wasn't it?

And while I'm at it and feeling somewhat 'picky' what about the translator (with 1st class honours in languages from Oxford) or perhaps the editor? One of them was responsible for this infelicity: "As suddenly as he had began to talk...." As he had BEGAN ?? Two seconds after reading that I had FLANG the book across the room. Billy Bunter books are better than this twaddle, and that's saying something.