Aleksis Kivi - "the greatest Finnish novel of all time", the classic among the classics in Finnish literature.

Aleksis Kivi, The Brothers Seven. A Tale. Trans. by Douglas Robinson, Zeta Books, 2017. [1870.]

Seitsemän veljestä (The Brothers Seven), the 1870 Finnish novel by Aleksis Kivi (1834-1872), is one of the most (in)famously unknown classics of world literature—unknown not only because so few people in the world can read Finnish, but also because the novel is so incredibly difficult to translate, the Mount Everest of translating from Finnish. It is difficult to translate not only because it blends a saturation in Homer, Shakespeare, Dante, Cervantes, and the Bible with a brilliantly stylized form of local dialect, but because it is wild, grotesque, carnivalistic, and laugh-out-loud funny on every page. It has been translated 58 times into 34 languages—but somehow the translations always seem to fall short of their flamboyant original.

Douglas Robinson’s new translation is a bold attempt to remedy that. He aims to make Kivi as rhythmic, as alliterative, as brash, as grotesque, and as funny in English as he is in Finnish. Since Kivi deliberately used an archaic Finnish, but used it playfully—and since Kivi was steeped in Shakespeare, to the point of memorizing whole plays—Robinson translates him into a playful Shakespearean register. As he notes in his Preface, this makes the translation a bit difficult to read—but the original is difficult for Finns to read as well, and the Finnish readers who love Kivi (and that is most of them) read him with pleasure despite the words they don’t know, because his prose is so intensely alive.

This is a novel about seven brothers living in rural Finland in the mid nineteenth century. It is quite unlike any other book I have ever read.

There is an earthy, bawdy humour to some of the brothers' behaviour but they can also be violent and difficult. Sometimes the writing is comic, sometimes it is Homeric and feels almost mythic in scope, such as an account of a battle with forty bulls. You get the sense of all kind of deep things going on here - I often found mysefl thinking of the Kalevala (the great Finnish epic which inspired the music of Sibelius), and I enjoyed the deep sense of the beauty, mystery and strangeness of the Finnish landscape - and the Finns.

This is a rich and multi layered novel which reveals different things at subsequent re-readings. I like this kind of thing; others don't. I'm also fascinated by the other-ness of Finland and the self sufficiency of its people. There isn't much of a plot - not a tight linear one, anyway. If you like a more "straightforward" story, and if you haven't much interest in Finland, you may not care for it much. I wouldn't say it is a "difficult" novel - no more so than most novels over a century old. There are some archaisms, and some historical references which may be obscure to many. But if you are alive to the richly textured nuance and the landscape, the myths, and the history, then you will find much here to enjoy - as I did.

It's also one of the most widely read books in Finland, so if you know any Finns, or have an interest in going there, you will want to read this book to get some insights into the people, the land and the history. - Monty Milne 

review at amazon.com

Seven Brothers, Aspasia Books, 2005.

Along with The Kalevala, Aleksis Kivi's Seven Brothers is Finland's most celebrated literary treasure. The crowning accomplishment of Finland's first literary genius, Seven Brothers remains "the greatest Finnish novel of all time", the classic among the classics in Finnish literature. 

Published in 1870, in the author's 36th year and two years before his untimely death, Seven Brothers laid the foundation for what Kai Laitinen later called "The Great Tradition in Finnish Prose". This tradition is characterized by realism, humor, respect for the common people, and depiction of nature as both friend and foe. 

Received at the time of publication by uncomprehending arbiters of literary taste, who still delighted in romantic approaches to literature, Seven Brothers fared poorly in early reviews. Posterity, however, has resurrected the reputation of Aleksis Kivi, and critics, scholars, and readers at large continue to praise the virtues of this trail-blazing, exceedingly rich novel.

Richard Impola's superb English translation captures the brothers' rustic milieu and the exceptional dynamics of Kivi's creative style and artistic conception.

Aleksis Kivi's Seven Brothers is a unique classic of 19th century Finnish literature, a work that has remained an unrivalled favourite among Finnish readers for almost 150 years. At the time of its publication the work was initially seen as an allegory of the birth of the Finnish nation and its path from ignorance to civilisation. More recently it has been understood to be one of the great melting pots of European literature, as the story of a group of illiterate brothers in the Finnish countryside borrows, modifies and reshapes a wide variety of classical and Renaissance literature. First published in 1870, Seven Brothers was the first novel written in Finnish. Almost singlehandedly the novel created the literary Finnish language. Stylistically Seven Brothers explores a wide variety of narrative styles, the prose at times parodying the language of the Bible and at others employing poetry and dialogue. Today the world of the novel, its characters, events, stories, songs and poems, permeates every layer of Finnish culture. AUTHOR: Aleksis Kivi (born Aleksis Stenvall,18341872) is widely considered the father of the Finnish novel. Kivi also wrote poetry and plays which are now considered classic works but it is for Seven Brothers that he will always be remembered.

Douglas Robinson, Aleksis Kivi and/as World Literature

Aleksis Kivi (born Aleksis Stenvall, 1834–1872) is widely considered the father of the Finnish novel. Kivi also wrote poetry and plays which are now considered classic works, but Seven Brothers (‘Seitseman veljesta,’ 1870) is his seminal work and without a doubt the classic of Finnish literature; indeed it was the first full-scale novel ever published in Finnish. Although it is written in the spirit of realism, the novel demonstrates through the brothers the extent to which the world of myth and legend was very real and palpable, and fundamentally rooted in the Finnish mindset of the day.