Comment|Culture journalist Jussi Lehmusvesi found his favorite among this year’s audiobooks.
Today many great books have been published this year, some of them humorous. The funniest is Norwegian Nina Lykken We’re not here to have fun (Gummerus, 2024), which tells the story of a male writer in his sixties struggling with harassment accusations.
Sanna Manninen the Finnish book also works perfectly Antti Virmavirtan read as an audiobook version.
The book the starting point is delicious: Knut A. Pettersen is a fading author star who wrote his only bestseller “Famous Book” years before, who has received an invitation to the panel of the Lillehammer Literature Festival as a substitute.
What makes the discussion event organized with the theme “Infidelity in life and literature” hot is that a young female writer also participates, who has accused Pettersen of sexual harassment in her work.
Pettersen himself remembers things in a different way than a woman and sacrifices himself perfectly:
In her book, the woman writes, in short, that Knut A. Pettersen himself – why hadn’t he added the social security number and blood group right away – had brought her a beer, after which they had danced and then Knut A. Pettersen had dragged her to the corner, and there Knut A. Pettersen had rubbed his stiffened cock against her crotch and squirmed her rear, and he’d barely managed to pull away about the situation.
In the book, Knut is a gregarious, horny older male writer, and the narrator is a timid young female writer who has just become a member of the Norwegian Writers’ Union and who trembles in awe when she meets all her role models and idols.
Bitter a man it is especially irritating that the woman he named “Real author” has used pseudonyms even for her own children, but her name is printed in the book in its entirety.
“It’s like I don’t have feelings. Just as if I were a cardboard figure, a clown, someone to whom you can do anything without punishment”, mutters the writer living inside his own head.
The main character in addition to the joyful analysis of the situation in Tukala, Lykke’s book contains relevant observations about the cultural circles in Norway that are in vain. He knows them (also) up to the upper level: earlier Increased risk with his novel (2021) Lykke won the prestigious Brage literature award.
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If Tervo were to write a similar text, he would drown in endless questions.
Finnish way the novel compares smoothly Jari Tervon to the humor department. It’s a bit like The story of my family would have been connected Haddock and thrown into the mix by Fredrik Backman A man who loved order -the empathy of the novel. Also Tervon Brake sock is similar, apt humor biting into the world of thoughts of a lonely man.
It’s a bit scary, but I’ll say it anyway: despite the similar humor, Tervo couldn’t have written Lykke’s latest novel. The Norwegian author does not condemn his main character at any point in the book, but the true nature of the events remains open throughout the work.
If Tervo were to write a similar text, he would drown in endless questions from journalists and social media influencers.
As:
Which part of your work depicts real events?
Does your work draw its main character directly from you, or does he perhaps remind you of another Finnish writer?
What is your motive to clean up the scumbags of male writers, and did they happen in Mukkula or Kustavi?
Mixed:
What do you think of your colleague Mika Waltaria about the recent revelation about?
The happiness turning into Tervo would also put the reader in a new, ungrateful position: when pondering questions like the previous one, the funny book would be wasted, and the laughter would get stuck in the throat.
No still don’t get it wrong.
I am not of the opinion that “nothing can be said”.
You can say anything, but saying this would have consequences for Tervo.