Reader Thoughts and Opinions 
Popular Music from Vittula by Mikael Niemi, Seven Stories Press 2003, 237 pages.
As I’m not in the mood to offer anything similar to a formal review, I will direct you to the one and only Chartroose’s blog post on this book that will regale you with sample passages, great anecdotes and enthusiastic praise. [click HERE.] Here, I will offer up thoughts and odd tidbits of things that caught my attention. Warning: long and random.
First, I did enjoy this VERY MUCH. I’m giving it my highly tasty FOUR PIE rating. I especially liked the feel of the cover. Thick paper, slick and weighty.
Second, I ask a question: Do coming of age books typically lack plot? Just curious, because this book got me thinking about Catcher in the Rye – in that if you asked me what that book was about, I could only say I’ve read it but don’t remember anything about it except that it’s one of those books everybody knows about. And it was written by Holden Caulfield. or was that the main character’s name? no, yea. Anyway. Crap, now I have to go look it up or I will be sitting here thinking you think I’m an idiot. OK – JD Salinger wrote it; Holden Caulfied is the ‘anti-hero’ – gotta love Wiki!!
I don’t think Popular Music is much like Catcher in the Rye. But then again, it could easily be described as being of the bildungsroman category. The list includes A Separate Peace – which DOES have a plot. It is just hard to tell you what happens in this Vittula novel other than LOTS happen! You will love the narrator in Popular Music, a boy growing up in the northern tippy-top part of Sweden which might as well be Finland or Russia. From the very first event in the book – which is an eye opener that will have you say OhMiGOD out loud and as far as I could tell, didn’t have anything to do with anything in the novel.
Well, except that it does set the stage, I suppose, for why he wants to tell his story. Which, if you’ve followed me here, isn’t much of A story – it’s a collection of stories. From the first meeting of his pal Niila on the playground when they are about 5 years old and continuing through a whole string of events involving family, school, life, and shared passion for language and music, the narrator shares the beauty and the pain of growing up. About half way through, I had to look again at the cover and back page to check if this was a collection of short stories that are obviously well-connected or… No, it says right on the front “A NOVEL.”
I thought this was fun; I wrote down a reference to my current profession:
“As always, the intoxication brought about the most astonishing personality changes. The Korpilombolo boy’s face had lit up like a sun and he started telling obscene jokes about substitute teachers.”
And here’s one that references my college degree:
“… all the occasions they’d been cheated, all the cruel teachers and greedy company directors, all the times they’d been blacklisted, all the laborers who’d gone to Russia to help Stalin and been shot for their pains, all the damn ‘efficiency consultants’ at work, all the sadists at the hostels they’d stayed in as kids, all those who’d drunk themselves to death, …, all the tears, all the wounds, all the pains and humiliations that had afflicted our long-suffering family on their arduous trek through this vale of tears.
(I wrote down words and passages – I’ll save for Wednesday.)
I agree with Chartroose that this Niemi guy can WRITE! and I love that this was first written in Swedish! and skillfully translated into English by Mr Laurie Thompson – who lives in Wales, by the way, so we even have some non-Americanness to get over – but NOT MUCH! The language is wonderful.
What I like most about reading books set in other countries, books like this that just share stories about regular day to day living, is how universal the themes are – - people are all the same.
I won this from Chartroose, so I will return the favor and offer it to a lucky winner (US/Canada only please). However, rather than leave me a boring comment of “I would love to win this” please offer me a crazy stunt you pulled as a child and somehow survived! Mine is when I was playing with candles and almost caught the front drapes on fire. It was many years later when my mom saw the burn spots and sprayed candle wax on the curtains – no such luck for expiration of any statute of limitations. I was no longer guilty but just as in trouble. Winner by random draw late Monday May 25.
ollyn nidis lav* !!!!
* All ya need is love. 
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks, first published 1990, 256 pages
In the Woods by Tana French, Penguin Books 2007, 429 pages. An Edgar Award Winner (Best First Novel by an American Author)
by Garth Stein, HarperCollins 2008, 321 pages.
!!!!!!
or maybe he is…)
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