Yo, Paul Ryan! Atlas Didn't Shrug, She Put Her Hand Out

[Heikki Raudaskoski]

Unfortunately, I can't say anything about the quality of Kallas
translations. What I consider her best books, the so-called "Deadly
Eros" trilogy - Barbara von Tisenhusen (1923), Reigin pappi (The
Pastor of Reigi, 1926) and Sudenmorsian (The Wolf's Bride (1928) -
are written, each in its peculiar way, in a language of pastiche
that is every bit as consciously stylized and re-created as that
of TRP in Mason&Dixon. Only that written Finnish literature did
not exist in the 18th century, so Aino Kallas bases her Finnish
language on legends and other epic oral poetry.

In translations, I would imagine that there is a danger to either
make her style prosaic, or misdo it so that it becomes affected in
a way the original texts never are. And for better or worse, these
books stand or fall by their language. In Finnish, I find these
works both fresh and archaic.


Heikki

On Fri, 28 Jan 2011, Kai Frederik Lorentzen wrote:

> On 27.01.2011 18:00, Heikki Raudaskoski wrote:
> >
> > You Kai/you guys [btw anglos: "Kai" and "guy" rhyme] got me into this...
> >
> > I did a little investigating and found out that Ayn Rand apparently
> > based her pseudonym on a Finnish writer - most probably on Aino Kallas
> > [1878-1956) who I do like.
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aino_Kallas
> > http://tinyurl.com/63odxt5
> >
> > (Again, the diphthong "Ai" in Aino is pronounced as the corresponding
> > diphthong in "Kai" and "guy".)
> >
> > "Kallas" means "bank" or "strand" in Finnish and Estonian, whereas
> > "rand" means "coast" or "strand" in Estonian...
> >
> >
> > OUCH!
> >
> >
> >
> > Heikki
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> Via the link of the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek from the wiki article I
> found out that two books
> --- "Der tötende Eros" [1929] and "Sankt Thomasnacht" [1935] --- of Aino
> Kallas got published
> in Germany. There are still four used copies of the original "Sankt
> Thomasnacht" (is this a major
> work?) to get from the biggest online bookshop, but Hamburg's public
> library does have neither
> this one nor the other. In English there's a collection of "Estonian
> Tales" titled "The White Ship"
> which is still available. Do you, Heikki, know about the quality of the
> mentioned translations?
>
> I had never heard of Aino Kallas before. Thanks for introducing her here!
>
> Kai
>