• 1 Juhani Karila, Pienen hauen pyydystys, Helsinki, Siltala, 2019. Pienen hauen pyydystys is Karila’s (...)
• 2 Juhani Karila, Summer Fishing in Lapland, Trans. Lola Rogers, London, Pushkin Press, 2023.

1Juhani Karila’s Pienen hauen pyydystys1 (2019; Summer Fishing in Lapland, 20232) is an eco-philosophical fantasy novel, which invites its audience to step into a world, both realistic and magical:

• 4 On this debate, see e.g., Kaisa Kortekallio, Reading Mutant Narratives: The Bodily Experientiality (...)
• 5 Here I use the term of appropriation to refer to transformative adaptation, in which a part of a te (...)
• 6 As noted by Hanna-Riikka Roine and Hanna Samola, Johanna Sinisalo, the Finnish author who coined th (...)
• 7 As shown by Heidi Keinonen, Finnish TV production companies have often used both genre titles, Nord (...)

3In eco-critical and posthumanist theories, there has been a lively debate on the possibilities of speculative fiction to evoke “more-than-human” modes of embodied experience and challenge the focus on human experience. According to these approaches, nonrealist literary texts can repel anthropocentric worldviews by introducing hybrid beings, which combine human-centered and posthuman perspectives and may even produce experiential, bodily change in readers through imagination.4 Juhani Karila (b. 1985) is one of the Finnish contemporary authors who has creatively adopted and appropriated5 Lapland mythology and Finno-Ugrian folklore in his fictional world-building to estrange readers from their habitual notions of human perception. Karila’s method of combining human-centered and posthuman elements in his portrayal of Northern nature resembles the technique used by Johanna Sinisalo in her novel Ennen päivänlaskua ei voi (2000, Not Before Sundown, 2003), which introduces a troll (peikko), a creature familiar from Finno-Ugrian folklore into its otherwise realistic ecology. Therefore, Karila’s speculative novel can be said to belong to the genre blend of ‘Finnish weird’ (suomi-kumma). This local brand6 or branch of the global ‘new weird’ movement draws from the cross-cultural phenomenon of magical realism. In Karila’s novel, Finnish Lapland is populated not only by non-human magical beings, but also by human agents with skills of witchcraft. In the depiction of Janatuinen’s ordeal, Karila’s humorous novel also modifies the dark, gloomy moods of Nordic detective and crime TV productions, globally known as Nordic noir.7

• 8 See also Riikka Rossi, Saija Isomaa, Sarianna Kankkunen & Elise Nykänen, “Arctic Hysteria and Other (...)
• 9 Anna Wierzbicka, Emotions across Languages and Cultures: Diversity and Universals, Cambridge, Cambr (...)
• 10 Anna Wierzbicka, “Russian Cultural Scripts: The Theory of Cultural Scripts and Its Applications.” E (...)
• 11 Daniel Chartier, “What is the Imagined North”? Ethical Principles, Arctic Arts Summit, Montréal, Im (...)
• 12 E.g. Noël Carroll, “Art and Mood. Preliminary Notes and Conjectures.” The Monist 86 (4), 2003, p. 5 (...)

4The goal of this article is to show how a culturally sensitive approach to emotions in literature can work as a methodological tool for analyzing embodied, spatially situated affects and moods in both characterization and readerly experience.8 In general, humanities scholars have emphasized the cultural dimension of emotions, which are expressed and verbalized in certain ways in certain cultures and regions. The English word emotion usually combines references to human thought, feeling, and a person’s body.9 In my analysis, I approach loneliness, solitude and sisu (that is, ‘guts’ or ‘grit’) as culture-specific emotions, which ask for translation of the whole emotional culture and cultural scripts rather than just emotion words. Cultural scripts can be defined as “representations of cultural norms which are widely held in a given society and are reflected in the language.”10 Cultural specificity and variability in emotional experience and meaning also influence the affective styles of literary genres, which are approached in this article as local and environmental. The methodological need for wider cultural contextualization also leads me to study the traces of earlier traditions and intertexts of the imagined North11 in my analysis of Karila’s novel and its moods. By ‘mood’, I refer to the reader’s embodied experience that stems from the literary work’s capacity to evoke readerly experience, which cannot be reduced to mere representation of emotion with an intentional object. The readers’ aesthetic emotions, such as amusement, estrangement or wonder, relate not only to representations of characters’ conscious emotions, but also to the all-encompassing atmosphere of the work’s storyworld and its materialities. In addition to genre appropriations, readers’ moods are guided by means of literary strategies ranging from narrative perspective and situation to a detailed, evocative description of human and non-human agents, events, objects, and spaces.12 Besides commenting on the already existing cultural models and scripts, literary narratives generate new kinds of patterns of embodied experience to engender readerly response.

• 13 Anna Wierzbicka, Emotions, op. cit., p. 26.
• 14 E.g. Raija Tarasmaa, Stubborn and Silent Finns with ‘Sisu’ in Finnish-American Literature: An Imago (...)

5As the Finnish cultural construct of sisu shows, the way people interpret their emotions in literature is dependent on their native language and its “lexical grid,” even though there might be similarities in how people feel across languages and cultures.13 The cultural construct of sisu, which is often presented in the context of Finns’ preference for solitude and silence,14 is difficult to translate. Some aspects escape verbalization altogether. Sisu is mentioned in Karila’s novel only once, in reference to the pike’s ‘guts,’ yet its (parodic) presence can be experienced as an all-encompassing mood in the work’s characterization and in its somatic ‘feel.’

• 15 Tanja Helminen, Pää- ja sivurooleissa sisu: Sisu ja sisudiskurssi Suomen kirjallisuudessa ja suomal (...)
• 16 Tanja Helminen’s recently published doctoral thesis (Pää- ja sivurooleissa sisu, op. cit.) deals wi (...)
• 17 Raija Tarasmaa, Stubborn and Silent, op. cit, p. 107.
• 18 Emilia Lahti, “Embodied Fortitude: An Introduction to the Finnish Construct of Sisu”, International (...)

6In Finnish, the etymology of sisu can be traced back to sisus, which means the internal organs (‘guts’) of a human being or non-human animals. In the word’s etymology, sisus was used as a neutral expression, which referred to a being’s inner fire or character (luonne) or mind (mieli) with its specified function in the totality of a system or living organism. The concept’s historical origin is, in part, in the word pahansisuinen (‘bad spirited’) as sisu was once used to denote a negative quality of cussedness (uppiniskainen) or a hot-headed temperament (äkkipikaisuus). Sisu has been seen as the most pristine, uncultured layer of human nature, which at times needs temperance and social control. Some individuals exhibiting the characteristics of sisu were considered ‘sinful’ or unable to adapt to communal life. In the Finnish literary tradion, male characters, in particular, have been represented as wildlings of the forest; as simple-minded country folk, who exhibit stubbornness beyond reason.15 Qualities such as perseverance, patience, diligence, tenacity, and courage, on the other hand, have defined the socially valued characteristics of sisu in the discourse of Finnishness since the 16^th century.16 The nature of sisu as the superhuman “nerve-power”17 emphasizes its embodied, material quality. As today’s cultural construct, sisu implies both mental and somatic ability to endure and act despite (extreme) adversity.18

• 19 See Fay Bound Alberti, A Bibliography of Loneliness: The History of an Emotion, Oxford, Oxford Univ (...)
• 20 Gregory J. Siegworth and Melissa Gregg, ”An Inventory of Shimmers”, in The Affect Theory Reader, Gr (...)

7In my view, felt loneliness is an emotion cluster,19 that involves both historically changing emotion norms and biologically based affects. These emotion norms and affects guide the reading process in addition to literary styles, moods, languages, and genres. The bodily, material component of loneliness, solitude, and sisu alike manifest as an increase or as a diminishment of vitality (elinvoima)20 in characterization and in the readerly experience. In the first part of my article, I will lay the groundwork for my analysis of solitude, loneliness, and sisu by studying the interconnections of gender, nature, and culture-specific emotion in Pienen hauen pyydystys. I pay special attention to the theme of a solitary self-quest in the earlier, masculine tradition modified in Karila’s novel. The affective styles of Finnish weird and Nordic noir evoke readerly moods, which are connected to Karila’s parodic recirculation of the representations of the imagined North. In the second part of my article, I will conclude my analysis with an investigation of the novel’s emphasis on the interdependence of species, which replaces the earlier imagery of solitary survival or failed human conquest in the literature of Northern settlers in Finnish Lapland. I ask how the scientific worldview of biology is juxtaposed with the world of magic in Karila’s depiction of the ingenuity of species and how the emotional effects of estrangement and wonder relate to the novel’s thought experiment: what if the mental and somatic powers of the human species would be fully harnessed for ecologic recovery?

• 22 Ibid., p. 30. “Hän aikoi valuttaa hauesta kaiken jäljellä olevan voiman, sisun ja elämänuskon niin, (...)
• 23 Ibid., p. 91. ”Näkki nylkisi hänet helposti kuin särjen.” Juhani Karila, Pienen hauen, op. cit., p. (...)

9The novel’s reference to the pike’s ‘dogged resistance’ alludes to the shared characteristics of sisu in human and non-human agents. The struggle between the fisher and the fish causes intolerable suffering in their flesh: “She intended to sap all the pike’s remaining strength, guts, and will to live, until it was driven ashore by the sheer force of apathy.”22 From the very beginning, the pike’s state of isolation in a draining pond is juxtaposed with Elina Ylijaako’s growing agony and disillusionment. During Elina’s second attempt to catch the fish, the gruesome reality hits her: a highly intelligent knacky (näkki), both dazzling and dread-inducing, has invaded the pond and decides that the fish belongs to him. While staring into the knacky’s eyes, Elina feels herself becoming nature’s prey: “He could flay her as easily as skinning a fish.”23 To save her life, Elina Ylijaako is forced to perform other, equally demanding tasks.

• 24 In the Finnish original, Juhani Karila uses the expression yksinäinen hauki, translated as ‘solitar (...)
• 25 On the limits of readers’ change as regards the portrayal of non-human suffering, see e.g. Wojciech (...)

10Not only the human catcher, but also the pike is potentially portrayed as feeling emotionally isolated, lonely, in addition to being solitary.24 The ambivalence of the text’s affective tone stems from the Finnish word yksinäinen which, in everyday language, can be used as an emotion word refering to painful experiences of social or emotional isolation as much as to a more positive or neutral disposition of aloneness (yksinolo). What is more, the word can be used to indicate an existence of an entity, which is one of a kind (yksittäinen, ainoa) or separate (erillinen) from its surroundings. The fish’s isolation, enlivened by the Finno-Ugrian notion of the nonhuman as having a soul, is projected into the character’s apathy and her sense of belonging in and estrangement from Northern nature. Karila’s novel often resorts to anthropomorphization typical of folklore by attributing human emotion and intentions to non-human entities. The anthropomorphization of the pike’s somatic experience can influence (either directly or indirectly) readers’ moods in the same way as the protagonist feels the pike’s diminishing vitality in her flesh through interspecific empathy, yet this strategy may also add to the text’s estranging effects.25

• 26 E.g., Kai Laitinen, Suomen kirjallisuuden historia, Helsinki, Otava, 1981, p. 330-331. As Karila hi (...)
• 27 The tradition of escaping into the wilderness has been seen as defining the masculinist display of (...)
• 28 Veli-Pekka Lehtola, Rajamaan identiteetti, op. cit., p. 115-116, p. 118-119 & p. 199.
• 29 Ibid., p. 110 & 112.

11In my view, Karila’s speculative fiction re-writes the solitary self-quests of earlier Lapland literature, which for a long time was categorized and placed under the catch-all rubric of the realistic “description of people” by Finnish literary historians.26 In Lapland literature, male loners often voluntarily seek solitude and self-knowledge in the wilderness.27 In the masculine portrayals of men fishing, hunting, and surviving in the Northern wilderness, the protagonists’ autonomy and perseverance – their sisu – is admired and praised as the highest quality. In this tradition, nature usually served both as an escape route for Finnish recluses who wished to run away from anxiety-inducing civilization and as an enemy, which evoked terror and helplessness in a human being. The solitary quest serves as a test of manhood, promising a reward for those who endure the hardships they encounter during their journey into the “heart of darkness.”28 For most of the wanderers, however, the self-quest turns into a lonely ordeal, leading either to resignation or death.29

• 30 The Kanteletar, Lyrics and Ballads after Oral Tradition by Elias Lönnrot, Selected and Translated b (...)
• 31 Juhani Karila, Summer Fishing, op. cit., p. 208. “Ja hän mietti, mistä oli perinyt raskasmielisyyte (...)
• 32 Fay Bound Alberti, A Bibliography of Loneliness, op.cit., p. 6.

12Sisu as a character trait is often portrayed in Karila’s novel in connection to Elina Ylijaako’s tendency to go into retreat and avoid human contact. Solitude-seeking and melancholy as character traits of Finno-Ugric peoples go far back to oral songs, in which the strange instrument made of a pike’s jawbone, kantele, plays music “moulded from sorrow.”30 Karila’s reclusive character dislikes her melancholic disposition, yet cannot change her nature: “And she wondered where she came by her melancholy, her cheerlessness, her desire for solitude. The answer was obvious – she got it from her mother.”31 It is also suggested that Elina Ylijaako’s very inheritance intensifies her capabilies of interconnecting both mentally and somatically with non-human nature. Loneliness studies usually distinguish between emotional and social isolation, as well as felt loneliness and solitude. Whereas social isolation refers to the scarcity of human company, emotional loneliness can be experienced as a lack of meaningful connection both alone and in the company of others. Contrary to loneliness, solitude means a pleasant state of being alone (in nature), which can be experienced as relaxing, healing, inspiring, and spiritually stimulating. Even painful experiences of loneliness, however, might be intentionally sought after, because they might deepen one’s sense of autonomy, self-knowledge, and creativity.32 Elina Ylijaako is repeatedly portrayed as seeking painful loneliness as if she were unintentionally and intentionally punishing herself. In his portrayal of the interdependency of human animals and other species, Karila estranges the readers from their habitual notions of human perception by foregrounding the threatening feeling of loneliness as a shared survival instinct. Paradoxically, magical creatures like raskels are portrayed as yearning for human company and affection for survival. In what follows, I will examine how readerly moods and aesthetic emotions are evoked by generating local and environmental appropriations of magical realism and Nordic noir in Karila’s novel.

• 33 Veli-Pekka Lehtola, Rajamaan identiteetti, op. cit., p. 62–63.
• 34 See e.g., Tanja Helminen, Pää- ja sivurooleissa sisu, op. cit., p. 139-140 & p. 201; Raija Tarasmaa (...)
• 35 Juhani Karila, Summer Fishing, op. cit., p. 273. Lola Rogers has translated the Finnish gender-neut (...)
• 36 Nordic noir has been approached as both a localized brand and an affective style, which travels ove (...)
• 37 Maggie Ann Bowers, Magic(al) Realism, New York: Routledge, 2004, p. 25.

13The idea of the North as a place of magic and terrific nature lives in Karila’s image of the wild north as a place that does not comply with Southern law and order.33 Besides presenting the contrast between the emotional North and the rational South, the novel parodically builds on the cultural scripts of the independent Finnish woman, whose sisu becomes the asset of Northern men in the moment when they become discouraged or lack determination.34 Sergent Janatuinen is sent to Lapland, because her partner in the police department, Gunnarsson, has lost his nerve and shot himself in the leg to avoid continuing his job in the North. The men of the village consider a female detective a freak of nature and call Janatuinen kovanaama (literally ‘hardface’).35 As a hardened city-dweller, Janatuinen feels estranged from nature, yet gradually becomes mesmerized by the Northern wildlife. The emphasis on Janatuinen’s self-determinate agency and the minimalist portrayal of her emotions creates an impression of sisu similar to Elina Ylijaako’s character. This kind of expressionlessness is typical of the female detectives of Nordic noir.36 The matter-of-fact style also reflects the affective tone of magical realism, which introduces supernatural features as natural elements of the storyworld.37

• 38 Hanna-Riikka Roine and Hanna Samola, “Johanna Sinisalo and the New Weird”, op. cit., p. 186. Heidi (...)
• 39 See Liisa Kaski, Myyttiset eläimet – tarua ja totta eläinten mahdista, SKS, Helsinki, 2019, p. 10-1 (...)

14The unknown ecology of Lapland is prone to evoke not only amusement or readerly estrangement, but also wonder – the prototypic emotional effect of speculative fiction. Besides the murder mystery plot, the readers’ intrigue is closely tied with the secrets of Northern people and nature, portrayed in Karila’s novel by evoking pantheistic beliefs typical of Lapland and Finno-Ugrian mythology. The two-dimensionality of Karila’s ecological space is typical of the storyworlds of Finnish weird as a subgenre of magical realism. As a definition, Finnish weird is a hybrid genre that blurs boundaries between fantasy, science fiction, and realism by gradually introducing more magical elements into a realistically portrayed setting.38 In Finno-Karelian mythology, the pike itself is considered a shaman’s spirit helper, which resides in the netherworld (alinen) and carries the sick to the land of the dead, Tuonela. The pike is a source of both sickness and life-providing fire.39 The pond mentioned at the beginning of the novel serves as a portal, a “dark opening” into another dimension like the imaginary border of Eastern Lapland marks an entrance into the restricted area of Lapland wilderness.

• 40 Farah Mendlehson, “Introduction: Reading Science Fiction”, in The Cambridge Companion to Science Fi (...)
• 41 In Germanic and Northern folklore, peijooni also refers to a troll-like creature.
• 42 Juhani Karila, Summer Fishing, op. cit., p. 118. “Hän oli nähnyt, mitä ihmiset kykenivät tekemään t (...)

15The thought experiment, the question of ‘what if,’ which defines speculative thought experiments,40 crystallizes in the deadly curse, which binds the fish and the human together and underlines the ecological message of Karila’s work: the celebration of the diversity of life and the environmental emotions of grief and guilt due to its loss and destruction. Accordingly, the thought experiment of Karila’s novel relates to the possibilities of recovery of the ‘species’ the novel introduces to its reader. By combining the gloomy mood of Nordic noir with the humorously presented pantheistic world of folklore, Karila offers an alternative, estranging space for readers to work with their environmental grief and release tension through laughter. The presence of non-human ghosts such as peijooni, the spirit of a deceased prey animal, 41 epitomizes human guilt, which haunts the local population because of epidemic diseases and deceased species. In addition to Finnish weird as a localized branch of magical realism, the conventions of Nordic noir are evident in Karila’s presentation of bestiality inherent in human nature as the novel exposes the villagers’ disputes and crimes against humanity: “[Janatuinen] had seen what people are capable of doing to each other. […] And she had learned what she was capable of doing to people. That might be what astonished her most of all. So why shouldn’t a thing like this exist? A raskel.”42

• 43 Emilia Lahti, “Embodied Fortitude”, op. cit., p. 63.
• 44 Juhani Karila, Summer Fishing, op. cit., p. 27. “Miten paljon helpompaa olisi ollut nukkua turpeen (...)

16As a culture-spesific emotion, sisu is harnessed in Karila’s novel to render the independent attitudes of the female characters and their somatic ‘feels’ shared with non-human species. Like the pike and other non-human animals in Northern folklore, also the non-human creatures in Karila’s novel show characteristics of survival, sisu. In an ideal state, sisu makes possible short-term access to stored-up energy reserves in times of extreme discomfort, so that one can act even when things look hopeless. Rather than treating sisu as a cognitive or conscious power of thought used for achieving long-time goals, sisu can be perceived as a process of finding energy in the moment by drawing upon the dormant powers needed for survival.43 Whereas raskels respond to environmental change by transforming into domesticated, human-like animals, the cussed knacky retaliates for its losses by destroying the farmers’ tractors and wrapping fishers in their own nets. Pienen hauen pyydystys shows Elina Ylijaako’s sisu in her reluctance to give in the curse, even though “it would be so much easier to sleep under the cold bog.”44 In the novel, sisu can be interpreted as a persistent instinct and a will to live, even amidst the most horrific suffering. In this sense, Elina Ylijaako‘s dogged resistance also shows flexibility, which is typical of sisu as a latent somatic strength and resilience rather than as a form of impaired thinking or human hubris.

• 46 Ibid., p. 323. “Miksi teiän pittää saaha tappaa kaikki.” Juhani Karila, Pienen hauen, op. cit., p.  (...)

18The recovery of species is suggested in the portrayal of Slabber Olli’s resurrection and his regained appetite, which emphasizes the consummation of other life forms as a resource of vital energy rather than intentional bestiality. Slabber Olli’s ability to build up new energy reserves, his sisu, may be interpreted as the recovery of Northern forests due to new forms of co-operation. Furthermore, after his rebound, Slabber Olli saves the pike’s life against human wishes thus following the knacky’s lead: “Why do you people have to kill everything?”46, the giant of the forests asks and carries the fish to the river where it is given back its freedom. The interdepency of plant and animal species is highlighted in the concurrent recovery of both non-human and human agents.