Novel
The Manila Rope
Manillaköysi
Veijo Meri · 1957
Synopsis
During the Continuation War, the soldier Joose Keppilä finds a fine coil of manila rope on a road at the front, which he wants to take home to his wife to hang the washing on. To smuggle it through, his comrades wind it under his clothes, tight around his chest, and he takes the leave train. The rope squeezes, breath runs short, and meanwhile the men on leave tell each other war stories, each more absurd than the last, such as that of an adjutant facing a madman perched on the roof of an asylum.
Context
Published in 1957, the novel puts the madness of war before heroism, in an unrelenting black humour. It was soon translated in a large part of Europe: into French as early as 1962, by Claude Sylvian and Mirja Bolgar, then into German, Dutch, Spanish, Russian, Polish, and into English in 1967, by John McGahern and Annikki Laaksi. Veli-Matti Saikkonen made a television film of it in 1976 for Finnish public broadcasting.
Who it is for
A short novel, in Finnish, readable in French; nothing to know in advance, and one never knows whether to laugh at it.
Prizes and reception
One of the best-known Finnish novels abroad, translated into seventeen languages; it made its author's international reputation.