This research will be focused on the discussion of the construction and uses of digital space and environment in two novels by famous Finnish author Johanna Sinisalo published in 2001 (her first publication) and 2016 (novel which got Prometheus Prize for the Best Science Fiction Novel in 2017) accordingly. The novels represent a difficult generic mixture of what literary theorists would call science fiction, postapocalypsis, environmental novel, urban fiction and antiutopian fiction.
Abstract: My research will be focused on the discussion of the construction and uses of digital space and environment in two novels by famous Finnish author Johanna Sinisalo published in 2001 (her first publication) and 2016 (novel which got Prometheus Prize for the Best Science Fiction Novel in 2017) accordingly. The novels represent a difficult generic mixture of what literary theorists would call science fiction, postapocalypsis, environmental novel, urban fiction and antiutopian fiction.
Keywords: Johanna Sinisalo; digital self, woman’s writing, digital space, postapocalyptic space
It is important to start with an argument that the author herself defines own contribution to the contemporary literary process as “Finnish weird tales”. The roots of the concept (or the name) can be found in the history of classical science fiction publications, as for example, in the case of the first tales by Ray Bradbury published by a famous American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine “Weird tales” (1923-2014). Sinisalo herself defines “Finnish weird” as a hybrid form of Finnish traditions, Finnish environment (both – city and rural), urban society, digital and computing society, blend of national myths and reality. My analysis will be focused on the novels “Ennen päivänlaskua ei voi”/Before the Sunrise is Not Allowed or the Troll (2001) and “Auringon ydin”/”The Core of the Sun” (2016). Novels represent different aspects of what Sinisalo calls ‘urban fantasy’ in which are thrown all char-acters and which is transformed by/through their direct or indirect actions and interrelations with it. Both novels are using digital environment as a source for knowledge producing, the means of power relations and organization of power. In order to give a possibly detalized analysis of the means of digital space and other expressions of digi-tality, I will divide my today’s talk in three major parts. The first part will be devoted to the questions of conceptualization of digital and digitality, as well as theoretization of a concept of individuality and subjectivity in the (un)real environment. The second part is about the main narrative lines in the novels, and the final part is devoted to the comparative analysis of the uses of digital environment and spaces in both texts. It is important to note in the beginning that thematically these novels can be compared hardly to each other because the first (Ennen paivan-laskua) tells about the common, everyday life in contemporary Finnish urban space (the region of the city of Tam-pere) while “Auringon Ydin” provides a spatially almost undistinguishable environment of a very close past (the action in the novel takes place in the beginning of 2017, for the real publication of the book this is close future) somewhere in urban and rural Finland. About the precise spatiality of the novel is very hard to argue since almost the only sign that the action is happening in Finland is that the characters are naming their ‘production’ (I will focus on it a little bit later) in Finnish and are not willing to use its English equivalents.
1. On digitization/digitalization.
In order to conceptualize both terms and to find possible distinction, it is important to explain the roots of the terms and their conceptual dichotomization relating to such concepts as reality, real environment and production of truth. The first question the arises here is what is truth and how it can be related to digitality and novels by Sinisalo. In simple words ‘truth’ is a “statement about the way the world actually is”. (Pardi 2015) It is something we ‘naturally’ comprehend with everyday, something we continuously define and distinguish in the outer (and inner) space. More comprehensive is the definition of truth as a relation between the “thing and the intellect” proposed by Thomas Aquinas (1224/6-1274) in “Disputed Questions of Truth (De Veritate)” (). He considered several definitions and more useful for our today’s talk is the distinction between the notion of truth as being (or ontological truth) and the truth of the intellect (“logical truth”). (Wippel 1989: 295-326). The second type of truth is understood as an ade-quation of mind and reality. This type of truth is able to “enjoy [things] complete and total being outside the mind, that is, outside its consideration” (Wippel 1989: 296). Here it is necessary to emphasize the unreliable nature of truth that is functioning outside the human mind, or in other words, appears to be dependent on the choices individual makes and their diverse nature. The concept of truth, therefore, functions as something [only] partly related to the human mind as an independent ‘source’ of providing the truth, rather it is more the contexts that are defining it. Another philosopher that could help in understanding the principles of construction of digital and real environment in nowadays and, later in my talk, in the texts by Sinisalo is very well-known Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) who developed his own conception of truth that was a mixture of Aristotelian, Aquinas and general Enlightenment’s ideas about the ‘core’ of it. As William Henry Walsh (1913-1986) states that Hume discovered the “false nature of truth” (Walsh 1971: 99). It consists not only of the strict and straight definitions of reality by mind, but “Truth consists of agreement or disagreement either to the real relations of ideas, or to real existence and mat-ter of fact” (Walsh 1971: 99). His idea is that the choices made by individual are not connected to the reason of choice, rather they are showing that human’s “passions, volitions and actions [are] original facts and realities, complete in themselves” (Walsh 1971: 99). Again, here we see that the choices made by human are not defined by him/herself – they are functioning as a result of a choice that was made once and leads to the new (already unrelated) realities and truths of an individual. Digital environment provides a kind of an ideal model in which on individual truth-based choices: a) always lead to a concrete result (if speaking about technologies itself and thinking about tapping the buttons on a keyboard, for example) or b) are evaluated by the digital environment itself (as in social media, individual-oriented news feeds, social platforms providing “pages you may like”). According to Hume, “truth is of two kinds, consisting either in the discovery of the proportions of ideas, considered as such, or in the conformity of our ideas of objects to their real existence” (Hume, Sect X. Of Curiosity, or the Love of Truth, 1739). Nowadays his notion got a new impulse and is widely used among theorists in digital studies, cyberspace, virtual gaming and gaming communities. For them (Pepperel, 2003; Schreibman 2004) the main difference between digitality and reality lays in the (re)formulation of the concept of truth which is encapsulated both inside the particular actions of an in-dividual as a decision-maker (real object) and her/his ability to transfer own personality to the virtual environment. In the selected novels this transference will be actualized through the construction of knowledge and its later re-production via (or even, because of) the possibilities that virtual environment could (“Before the sunrise”) or can-not provide (“The core..”). Digitality, thus, is a specific state of mind and actions that can function (and actually are functioning) as a straight correspondence between the un/real existence.
2. Some words about the plot of the novels…
The novel “Before the Sunrise is not Allowed” was firstly introduced in the end of 2000 and was a first novel by Johanna Sinisalo. Shortly after publication the book got the most prominent literary award in Finland – Finladia and was translated into more than 20 languages afterwards. In the generic sense the novel is defined by the author her-self as an ‘urban fantasy which is transformed by the interconnection between the human and the digital subject” (materials gathered during my interview with the author in the end of November, 2017). However, if we go more deeper into literary theory, it could be said that the text unites at least three generic features or generic forms – magical realism (the very mysticized story takes place in the real urban environment of nowadays capital of Fin-land Helsinki), science-fiction (the main protagonist – journalist Angel meets on his way the creature from the Finnish woods – Hillman (in Finnish – Hissi which in the old Finnish can be translated also as “Evil” or “Harm” who is behaving as if he would be ‘a proper citizen” (Sinisalo 2000, 3), elements of electric literature (all knowledge that Angel is getting about the creature comes from the seemingly official websites (as, for example, _____) and the choices that are made by the journalist are in a close relation to what the Internet said to him). The novel tells about the difficult relationships between the journalist Angel, his new finding – Hillman Hissi, and the immigrant from the undefined East – Palomita. She is the first one who discovers the presence of Hillman inside the apartment. Hissi is firstly introduced as “a beast who is licking the water from the toilet and is looking as a small cat” (Sinisalo 2000, 3). As far as the digital spaces are beginning to interact or just appearing as a type of action (like uses of search en-gines by the journalist), post-human condition or manifestation comes into light. Thus, the virtual environment helps to reveal the “virtual” nature of the creature and simultaneously to proclaim its existence via providing a truthful data about the typical spaces of inhabitance for the Hillman. The resources that are used to create an ‘aura’ of the truth are digital encyclopedias, digitalized ‘places of habitat’ for the creatures (a sort of Bestiaries online as puisto.fi, elaintarha.fi), and digitalized witnesses from bystanders of the existence of Hillmans in Finnish woods in the beginning of 21st century. The mixture of digital and real spaces goes throughout the novel and the creature be-comes more and more ‘humanized’ via the endless one-sided conversations. There is a strict dichotomy between the real and virtual knowledge about the Hillman – if in reality he is someone who just “catches fish with his paws, as bears do, and there is no purpose to doubt it. Rabits. Birds. [..] They often eat carrion if they want and find. [..]” (Sinisalo 2000: 10-11) The real environment also produces the knowledge about their physical, real ancestors. According to the narrative, they are on the one hand, monkeys and hominids, on the other – Hillmans and lemurs from the South-East Asia. (Sinisalo, 2000, 10-12) I argue that this connection of the Hillmans to the particular geographical region can be analyzed in terms of an increasing numbers of immigrants from the South-East Asia in Finland in the first decade of 21st century. In the next part of my talk, I will concentrate on the production of othered and alien identity using the digital environment. There the notion of truth is revealed not only as defined by Hume – as pro-duction of an ideas of truth and later use of them in the real contexts, rather it encapsulates the knowledge about an idealized Finnish national past (Hillmans coming from the Finnish woods) and enriches it with some manifesta-tions of ‘danger’ that of course is rooted in the unknown and far East.
The second novel for today’s discussion is an antiutopian text “Auringon ydin” (“The Core of the Sun”) (2016). The book tells the story of two sisters who are living in Finland that has survived ideological transformation and created a new type of relationships that are based mainly on gender differences and roles. The ruling order in a country is called “the politics of Domestication” and its main expression is the invention of a strict societal order in which community is divided into three major parts by their sex and gender. The first (and most privileged one) is the group of “Masko-male” who are representing an ideal of what in critical masculinity studies would be called heg-emonic masculinity – they are holding all economic power in their hands and totally controlling not women as such but their particular behaving. According to it in the early childhood they are divided into two categories – A) of Eloi and B) Morloks. Here it is important to note that the names have a very interesting etymology that represents again a mixture of Finnish and English classical science-fiction novels. Of course, the roots are taken from H.G.Wells’ (1866-1946) novel “Time Machine” (1895) where they appear as a continuation of an ideas of Gottfried Herder and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe who use this notion in order to explain the ‘primitive’ and ‘barbarian’ represent-atives of different tribes living in the Balkan region. In Wells’ understanding morlocks were fictional species that are more technologically advanced than Eloi who, on the other hand, are responsible for saving the world from the technological chaos morlocks could rise. Morlocks in a classical reading are also the humanoid species, descended from humans, a low-class machine operators. Eloi are classified by Wells as big-eyed, elflike beings who wear fey garments, eat only fruits, and sleep in stone halls leaved by the previous generation. They are representing the last generation on Earth according to Wells. After his book there were many thematic and generic responses to the clas-sification of species, however, the novel by Sinisalo develops its own argument of seeing this division between ‘hu-man species’ in which among other digital space is involved. For Sinisalo the division between morlocks and eloi is also imposed by the Finnsih language itself. So, in Finnish the word “elo” and related substantive “eloja” can be translated just as “life/existence/also: bread in old Finnish and “creatures” accordingly. Here it is possible to notice a particular cognitive circle that provide Sinisalo’s novels – from semi-mythological Hillman (the creature of the na-tional past) to the socially constructed and controlled female-creature. In the novel this distinction is represented by women who are less or more suitable for the so called ‘coupling market” for which both types are prepared from the age of five. The aim of the ‘coupling market’ is to control population growth and to realize the politics of do-mestication. Morlocks (or neutral women/neutrowomen) in Sinisalo’s novel are defined as: “the race of female’s gen-der, which are left outside the coupling market because of their physical limitations (for example infertility). Morlocks are disappearing part of the society, and the only positive contribution they can provide for the community in general is limited to the completing of simple tasks as an additional labour force” (Sinisalo 2017: 45). Here I would like to note that defining women as an additional labour force gives a purpose to think about the changing socio-political context of Finland in 20th century – from rural-oriented and traditional country it has transformed to the highly industrialized place with an important impact of technologies. Giving women characters the ‘voice’ of an additional power, the author seemingly leads towards critical understanding of an ambiguous functioning of women in the society where they for a long time were perceived as ‘green power’ or somebody sitting at home and waiting for different types of crisis in the country so that men could ‘trust’ their work of high responsibility to the ‘resting’ (or in Sinisalo’s words, ‘do-mesticated’) part of the society. Instead, eloi are representing what we could call the result of an impact of mass-market – they always are wearing a complex makeup, high heels, loves to wear ‘women’s colours’ and are educated only for work at home. As their characterization appears in the book: “Elois (or femiwomen) designate the subrace of women, who are an active participants of the coupling market and who are characterized by the providing of a multisided welfare (services) for their male partners” (Sinisalo 2017: 30). Coming back to my central argument of the paper – how the digital space is being used in this novel, it is possible to say that the transformed (or, in Sinisalo’s words, “Finnsih weird”) community there is seemingly no place/space for technological innovations since the community is not only performing the politics of domestication but also lives through the specific politics of inter-pretation of human behavior called “esistocracy” (esistokrātija), digital environment, however, provides to the main character of the novel – unreal eloi or hiding morlock Vanna/Vera – the possibility to discover the outer space outside the eisistocracy. It is important to note here that also the political order is having its roots in the Finnsh language and can be translated as “no-cracy” or ‘no-society’, ‘society of (saying) no”) (ei- no, eisisto – no-society). Computers, mobile phones and television is brought outside the country of a ‘coupling market’ and, what is interes-ting, neighbour Estonia is seen by the Finns as a dream country particularly because of the technological advances it has in contradiciton to the country of domestication. What can be seen as a uniting line between the selected novels is that the concept of truth and truthful knowledge is being performed by the state-based informational sources. Thus, for example, the notions of distinguishing between the members of community to different (sub)races are written in the “Vocabulary of the Modern Finnish Language” that in itself brings to thinking about the normativi-zation of knowledge and its close relation to power. In the end, I want to discuss the meaning of the name of the novel. The core of the sun is a specific (again!) spice of chili pepper that is used in Finland instead of drugs that could affect the mind and (therefore) lead to the critique of a particular political and social order in a country. The main protagonist, being herself both morlock and eloi, is acting as a degustator of the different species of chili that is supposed to react within the body in the same way as drugs do. The core of the sun is a pecifically strong spice that is able to “pull the consciousness outside and make it possible to see your own body from a side” (Sinisalo 2017: 230). My suggestion here is that the real environment is becoming a source for virtualization besides the interaction from the technological side which makes the novel quite a unique example of how the real knowledge could intertwin or even replace the virtual one.
Literature
1. Aidnik, Martin. The Perpetual Becoming of Humanity: Bauman, Bloch and the Question of Humanism. History of the Human Sciences. SAGE, 2017. – 104-124 pgs.
2. Androutsopoulus, Jannis. Networked Multimigualism: Some Language Practices on Facebook and Their Implications. International Journal of Bilingualism. 2015. – 185-205 pgs.
3. Beinsteiner, Andreas. Cyborg Agency: the Technological Self-Production of the Post-Human and the Anti-Hermeneutic Trajectory. Theses Eleven. SAGE, 2019. – 113-133 pgs
4. Braidotti, Rosi. The Posthuman. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013.
5. Gaile, Inga. Stikli. Rīga: Dienas grāmata, 2016.
6. Oren, Soffer. Liquid Language? On the Personalization of Discourse in the Digital era. New Media and Society, 2012. – 1092-1110 pgs.
7. Sinisalo, Johanna. Auringon ydin. Helsinki: Teos, 2014.
Frequently asked questions
What is the main topic of this research document?
The research focuses on the construction and use of digital space and environment in two novels by Finnish author Johanna Sinisalo: "Ennen päivänlaskua ei voi" (2001) and "Auringon ydin" (2016).
What are the key words associated with this research?
The keywords include Johanna Sinisalo, digital self, woman’s writing, digital space, and postapocalyptic space.
How does Johanna Sinisalo define her literary contribution?
Sinisalo defines her contribution as "Finnish weird tales," a hybrid form blending Finnish traditions, environment, urban society, digital society, national myths, and reality.
What are the two novels being analyzed and what are the core themes in them?
The two novels are "Ennen päivänlaskua ei voi" (Before the Sunrise is Not Allowed or the Troll) (2001) and "Auringon ydin" (The Core of the Sun) (2016). The core themes are around digital environment as a source for knowledge, power relations, and organization of power.
What are the main narrative lines in the novels?
"Ennen päivänlaskua ei voi" tells the story of journalist Angel's encounter with a creature from Finnish woods, Hissi, and immigrant Palomita. "Auringon ydin" is a dystopian novel set in a Finland transformed by gender-based societal roles, where sisters live under "the politics of Domestication."
How is digitality defined in the context of the research?
Digitality is conceptualized as a specific state of mind and actions that function as a correspondence between un/real existence. It is related to the production and reproduction of knowledge via virtual environments.
What are some of the philosophical concepts explored in the research?
The research touches upon concepts of truth, reality, and individuality in relation to digital and real environments, referencing philosophers like Thomas Aquinas and David Hume.
What is the significance of "Morlocks" and "Eloi" in "Auringon ydin"?
Morlocks and Eloi are names that represent a gender-based division where Morlocks represent women with physical limitations and Eloi represent women that are active participants of the coupling market. These are both references to H.G. Wells' "Time Machine".
What role does the Finnish language play in "Auringon ydin"?
The Finnish language plays a role in defining social structures and political order through the use of specific words and their interpretations, such as "elo," "eloja," and "esistocracy."
What is "the core of the sun" in "Auringon ydin"?
"The core of the sun" is a specific type of chili pepper used in Finland as an alternative to drugs, capable of altering consciousness and enabling critique of the social and political order.
What is "esistocracy"?
The ruling political order in a country. It can be translated as “no-cracy” or ‘no-society’, ‘society of (saying) no” (ei- no, eisisto – no-society).
- Arbeit zitieren
- Marija Semjonova-Reinholde (Autor:in), 2022, Searching for Woman’s Face in the Age of Perestroika. The Uses of Digital Spaces in Johanna Sinisalo’s Novels (2001 and 2016), München, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/1269858
