If one is to put labels on Mikael Niemi’s authorship – something that should strictly never be done on good literature – it must be geography and history. The town he writes about is Pajala in Norrbotten, straight enough with some detours to other places. When he writes about, he comes and gang; Niemi ties the present and the past together, both in this latest novel, and in the previous one, “Koke bjørn”, in which the priest Læstadius had a central role. The book became a bestseller both in Sweden and here in Norway. There, too, lay a mystery that was slowly unraveled. Mysteries in the past On a dark November day, an excavator driver finds human remains in a bog in northern Sweden. Who is this? And what has happened? This is the beginning of “Stein i silke”. The title has a very specific meaning that I cannot reveal without saying too much. It also plays on a fundamental theme in the book; here is hard versus soft, poor versus rich, ugly versus beautiful. ON HOME TRACK: An old photo of Mikael Niemi in Pajala in northern Sweden, on the border with Finland. This is where the author grew up. Photo: Odd Syse / news And it will be ugly, when neighbors and relatives are pitted against each other. From the present day, the readers are thrown one hundred and eighteen years in time, to the quarrel between the brothers Wilhelm and Eino Vanhakoski. The first inherits the farm from his parents, the second must make do as best he can as a householder, or crofter. He owns nothing but his own labour. Fortunately, Eino has beautiful Saara with her on her life’s journey, the girl that Wilhelm was also after. She said yes to the poor but cheerful brother, and it was probably the one time in her life Eino was lucky. Solid on strike But there is more that will divide the brothers. The drama in the novel builds around a strike in the 1930s. The poor farmers are offered to clear their respective sections of forest for a new road through the municipality. The salary is barely enough to live on. In the end, the workers go on strike together in protest against the landowners and the road board. Mikael Niemi writes with great precision about brutal poverty, but he also writes well about the landowners’ fear of communism. He argues for different views without creating doubt about where his heart is. With “Stein i silke”, he brings out an important side of recent history. When the text jumps back and forth, Mikael Niemi also shows how we are always affected by those who have gone before. Events in the present have consequences for the future. Niemi insists that man is not alone, but a link in a long, historical thread. What you do here and now is important for the community and for those who come after us. I like that the author does not give us an easy, closed ending. I also appreciated the meticulous depiction of physical work, of traveling couples, forest and water. Disturbing fantasy element On the other hand, I am not convinced that the magical elements he introduces strengthen the narrative. Siw, one of the descendants of the brothers, is psychic and can see when someone is going to die. Maybe Niemi wants to emphasize that people from the north have traditionally had close ties to natural mythology and supernatural forces. For me, it is rather stigmatizing. The conflict between the brothers is not original either. Reich Wilhelm is hurt throughout the book. It weakens the literary, although the message becomes clear. Sparkling scenes Having said that: Mikael Niemi is an experienced storyteller who sometimes writes scenes so vibrantly visual that they could have gone straight to the film. In an epilogue, he thanks two authors who have written about the strike. Both are included in the book under their own names. Otherwise, the novel is fiction, despite the fact that he takes it from actual events and circumstances in Wesle Pajala in the interwar period. “Stein i silke” is a novel about social differences, about workers’ struggle, hope for the future and about families that fell apart from each other. Niemi gives an unadulterated and instructive picture of a time that is not too far from our own. news reports Photo: Forlaget Oktober Title: «Stein i silke» Author: Mikael Niemi Original title: «Sten i siden» Translator: Erik Krogstad Number of pages: 491 Published: 2024 Publisher: Forlaget Oktober ISBN: 9788249527564
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“Stein i silke” by Mikael Niemi – Reviews and recommendations
