Title: New Finnish Grammar
Author: Marani, Diego translated by Landry, Judith
Published by: Dedalus Ltd
Year: 2011
First published: RCS Libri S.p.A (Italy), 2000
Date reviewed: 05.12
ISBN: 978 1 903517 94 9

Quite a few people rate this book highly but I am not one of them. It’s tedious, dull, unconvincing and verging on pretentious. Trying to understand the enthusiasm, I even tried to see it as allegory but failed there too. It’s true that none of the four characters relate to each other but if that’s the point it’s terribly laboured, and the device of linking it all to the Finnish language seems gratuitously self-conscious on the part of the (linguist) Italian author. I know a little about Finland and I’d love to know what my Finnish friends would think of the book. Has it been translated into Finnish?

And a note to the translator: referring to “the Mannerheimintie”, “the Bulevardi” and so on in Helsinki street names is like saying “the Piccadilly” or “the Regent Street”. Enough said. End of rant.