Novel
Tehtaan varjossa
Not translated into English
Toivo Pekkanen · 1932
Synopsis
In Kotka, in the aftermath of the civil war, Samuel Oino's father is dead, and the large family has slipped from poverty into destitution; the eldest must support it, while the mother keeps house. He joins the mechanical workshop of the factory, which is like a society in miniature. Awkward and solitary, he becomes the butt of his comrades, but does not let himself be crushed: he reads, and seeks for his life a meaning higher than the place that has been assigned to him.
Context
The author's second novel, after a collection of 1927 and a first novel of 1930, it was his breakthrough. It is partly autobiographical: Samuel Oino, awkward and studious, is regarded as his double. The depiction is realistic but dispassionate, and the author, moderate and thoughtful, was listened to across classes. In 1953, a book of memories told of the childhood that precedes this novel. Rauni Mollberg made a four-part television film of it in 1969.
Who it is for
A novel of formation, in Finnish. One must accept a grave, angular style, without effects, which is that of its subject.
Prizes and reception
The book that made known the country's first working-class writer to live by his pen, and the first to show the working class from the inside.