Novel
Janne Kubik
Not translated into English
Elmer Diktonius · 1932
Synopsis
The life of a working-class boy in Finland during the first third of the century, cut in blocks like a print. We follow him from childhood to the civil war, where he wears the red armband, then from defeat to the other side: we find him again as a supporter of the Lapua movement, a strikebreaker, and involved in the alcohol trade of the Prohibition years. Between the blocks, the author comes in to comment on his narrative and to say where he has what he tells from.
Context
It appeared in 1932 under the subtitle “a woodcut in words”. It is counted among the great experiments in expressionist prose in the Swedish language, for its rough, new language. The cover of the original edition showed a can of spirits, an image charged in the very year that prohibition had just been lifted. The author himself produced the Finnish version in 1946, under the title Janne Kuutio. With his short stories of the following years, it makes up what is regarded as his best prose.
Who it is for
A short novel, in Swedish, interspersed with comments by the author; one needs to know what the civil war of 1918 was and what the Lapua movement was.
Prizes and reception
Probably his best-known book, and one of the peaks of Swedish-language prose in Finland.