TAN: Best sellers

[Lachlan Mackenzie]

Hi, I read New Finnish Grammar last month. I always write a brief personal reaction to every book I read, and this is what I wrote:
As I was browsing through the fiction section of a bookshop in Dublin, the title of this book leapt off the shelf at me: it was not misclassified but is a novel by an Italian who works as a 'senior linguist' for the European Union. It is set first in Trieste and then in Helsinki during the Second World War and has a simple but brilliant plot. The text consists of three interwoven 'voices': the notebooks of a badly wounded man who has become totally amnesic and aphasic as a result of his injuries; the commentary of his Finnish physician, who assumes on the basis of a name (Sampo Karjalainen) sewn into his jacket that the man must be Finnish and has him sent to Finland; and the three letters from the only woman with whom he spends any time. Sampo's notes are concerned with the impossibility of attaining an identity and of fully getting inside a language. His two names resonate with Finland's national epic the Kalevala and with Karelia, which was occupied by the Soviet Union at the time described in the novel. The novelist and his translator have faced (and actually dodged) the problem of writing literature through the words of an aphasic; the reader needs a heavy dose of suspension of disbelief to take this seriously. Sampo learns his Finnish from a pastor of the Lutheran Church; yet this Italian author has him conducting mass and reading from a breviary. Despite the objections that may be raised, I can see why this book was hailed in Italy as a masterpiece when it appeared in 2000.

All the best,
Lachlan Mackenzie



Prof. J. Lachlan Mackenzie
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> Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2011 21:22:49 +0000
> From: v.evans at bangor.ac.uk
> To: mark at polymathix.com
> CC: funknet at mailman.rice.edu
> Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] TAN: Best sellers
> 
> Hi Mark,
> 
> "But that's England, after all, where intellectual pursuits, even 
> avocational ones, are not stigmatized."
> 
> Unfortunately England (I think you mean The United Kingdom, btw) is not 
> all intelligence and forgiveness.  We have just turned our back on the 
> rest of Europe, and apparently isolated ourselves from the EU  (see 
> today's Guardian:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/).
> 
> With saddest wishes,
> 
> Vyv
> 
> Professor/Yr Athro Vyv Evans
> Professor of Linguistics/Athro mewn Ieithyddiaeth
> www.vyvevans.net
> 
> Head of School/Pennaeth yr Ysgol
> School of Linguistics & English Language/
> Ysgol Ieithyddiaeth a Iaith Saesneg
> Bangor University/Prifysgol Bangor
> www.bangor.ac.uk/linguistics
> 
> Deputy Head of College (Research)/
> Dirprwy Bennaeth y Coleg (Ymchwil)
> College of Arts and Humanities/
> Coleg y Celfyddydau a'r Dyniaethau
> Bangor University/Prifysgol Bangor
> 
> General Editor of 'Language & Cognition'
> A Mouton de Gruyter journal
> www.languageandcognition.net
> 
> 
> 
> Mark Line wrote:
> > Probably.
> >
> > But that's England, after all, where intellectual pursuits, even avocational ones, are not stigmatized. The 10th best-selling book is _Quantum Universe_ according to that same list.
> >
> > By comparison, this week's bestsellers in USA Today (a.k.a. The Purveyor of American Culture) are mostly youth pulp, as nearly as I can tell. I'm sure they're popular among most adult Americans since they're likely Flesch-tested to 6th grade or so. 
> >
> > Isaacson's bio of Steve Jobs is #5 -- something you can leave lying around on your coffee table while you're showing off your new iPhone 4S (and its dead battery).
> >
> > Still, I guess I might want to hire Diego Marani's publicist.........
> >
> > -- Mark
> >
> >
> >
> > On Dec 11, 2011, at 14:56 , Daniel Riaño wrote:
> >
> >   
> >> According to The Guardian's This Week
> >> Bestsellers<http://www.guardianbookshop.co.uk/BerteShopWeb/home.do>,
> >> Diego Marani's "New Finnish Grammar" is this week 3rd best selling book in
> >> England. This is something of a record, isn't it?
> >>     
> >
> >   
> 
> -- 
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