The Great Finnish Epic

The Kalevala by Elias Lönnrot
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was expecting something else. TBH, I didn't much care for it, and it wasn't a fun read. It was, however, interesting and informative in a bunch of ways, which is why I gave it a 3. But I'm honestly surprised at how many people gave this a 5. We must be reading for very different purposes.

There are a lot of passages and sections that are clever and surprising and meaningful, interesting for its use of language, for the clever writing that one finds in the original. There's a vitality and an immediacy in the language that is very compelling. And as far as I can see, the English translation is fine, both readable and clear. In addition to these virtues, I liked getting a feel for past centuries in Finland and the land around there. It was interesting to read about people skiing or taking sleighs or going places by boat, people using saunas, tending flocks, making beer, hunting in the woods, fishing in rivers, fixing meals, and having big weddings. Snow and ice and slush and weather are all big in these stories, and it creates a picture in my head of old Finland.

The stories suggest a lot of things about the people and how they see their place in the world, and some of that is positive but a lot is negative: serfs and servants, for example, are pretty low and aren't given a thought. Women aren't much better off, even in wealthier homes. They get wooed, if they're lucky, but then get put to work as soon as they're married. Other women just get abducted, tossed in Lemminkäinen's sleigh, and carried off to live in his house. Old women were more likely than not to be referred to as hags. People to the north, with their witches using their power against the Finns, are feared and reviled, though sometimes their women are attractive enough to become wives. And pretty much all foreigners are disliked.

The stories read like mythology, with powerful characters who can work magic, like forging anything you can imagine, or winning a battle with a song, even bringing people back from the dead. And like so many stories of the gods, they get away with very bad behavior. Nobody shows much of a conscience in any of the stories. Some of this sounds more like tall tales, and I wonder if bits of the Kalevala aren't behind some of Paul Bunyan or Babe the Blue Ox. (I should google it.) But it's confusing like those kinds of stories, too; these powerful men ("wanton" Lemminkäinen, the smith Ilarinen, Väinämöinen, and others) can at times do almost anything they think of, wielding strange magics, especially using song, or can get the gods to do things for them, like changing the weather, but at other times they're vulnerable and afraid of things just like regular mortals and have to run and hide from their enemies. Their magic sometimes deserts them, it seems.

The biggest disappointment for me was finding very little that was heroic here. I like the fantasy feel of witches and magic, but I expected, knowing that Tolkien was inspired by this, to find heroic leaders of men doing great things. I thought I would see a version of Tolkien's elves. Instead, it's a lot more like Greek myth, with a lot of bad behavior--theft, abduction, assault, child abuse, murder, neglect, and senseless violence--that just can't be justified or excused. These are bad guys. I don't want to know them. I mean, I get it: folktales and myths just come to us that way. Nobody vets these things. Nobody really is the author of them. But it was, as I say, not what I expected.

I don't know how many people could pick this up and read it just for fun, just as a story, like at the beach or on the plane. Some, probably. But the people who would read something like this to see what it's about, to learn something about literary history, is probably quite a bit larger. I know a few readers like that, especially among my teacher friends, and they might have a go at it. For those curious people, I offer a tentative recommendation.

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