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Recently I read an old Finnish book called Kuolleet Omenapuut (Dead Apple Trees) by Joel Lehtonen. It's a collection of short stories set in 1917-1918 Finland, published in 1918. It introduced a very varied cast of characters from all social classes; rich, poor, intelligent, dumb, benevolent, belligerent. The mood varied wildly from brief, fleeting moments of happiness to absolute grief and despair and it ultimately mixed into something you could call "Finnish". One of the more central characters, Aapeli Muttinen waxes philosophically about how luck and happiness do not last and everything is bound to die in the end, even when he's generally quite happy and a sort of jovial fellow, at least in Finnish terms. The book peaks in the description of the Finnish civil war that happened at that time and the author clearly tries to come to terms what the hell happened, by having Muttinen there in the midst of it, shotgun in hand, cowering in snow and trying to make sense of it all. In the end pretty much all the characters that had any interesting or admirable traits are either dead, insane or have left Finland forever and all that is left is a greedy shortsighted idiot determined to get rich. The book is almost a hundred years old but it's pretty much Finland condensed. Anyway that's my review of a classic piece of Finnish literature. Also the book had an appendix of reviews of the book that were written in December 1918. One of them referred to the civil war as "that problem we had last spring" which was pretty funny. Also also, if you meet a Finnish person that refers to the civil war as the freedom war, run and never look back.
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Oct 1, 2015 13:26
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| # ¿ Nov 15, 2025 21:45 |
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Mightaswell posted:this thread makes me want to move to Finland sounds rad as hell Do you like suicidal depression and not seeing the sun for half a year and drinking bad beer that tastes like piss and bad vodka that tastes like disinfectant? Why aren't you already here?
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Oct 6, 2015 03:32
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Hogge Wild posted:your mom's reputation has reached far Voted 5
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Oct 30, 2015 20:25
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Checks out, I'm on stage 3 right now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqoKizBhmyA
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Mar 5, 2016 16:38
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