Tytti’s recommendation of Compartment No. 6 > Likes and Comments
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This looks intriguing. Added it to the list. Thanks!
It's not autobiographical but the author herself took the same train around the same time the novel is set. And some people like her style, while some don't, so... Well, it's different.
There are some others I also know but, alas, they haven't been translated (as far as I know), like for example this one (my not-very-well-written review in English):
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
(The "leader" of that train: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eino_Rahja.
He was later sentenced to death in the USSR but died of tuberculosis before it was carried out.)
Wow! I'll have to look for that to be translated soon I hope. I do have one book on the list though about Lenin's train ride.
Lenin on the Train: The Journey that Changed the Course of History
It won't be, very few Finnish books are ever translated, and these are not "great literature" and generally not really thought to be of interest for non-Finns. But I am thinking of reading his other book about the great grain train some day, too, they travelled over 4000 km to Siberia and back, and that took over five weeks. Out of the 223 train carts that left Omsk, only 127 arrived to Finland, the rest had been lost for various reasons, for example the railway engine couldn't pull all the carts over the Ural Mountains. The grain they brought didn't solve the problem with food shortages but helped the situation little in the Red controlled areas. Other trains were also sent later but they never managed to come back. It should be an interesting story, too.
Mika Waltari also wrote two books about the train trips he took to Istanbul (from Helsinki) in 1929 as a young student and then again in 1947 (after he had already written his most famous novel which would become an international bestseller) but I doubt they have been translated, either. There might be some other books I know of but I don't remember them now...
Thanks for the info. The Egyptian looks like a must read. It has been translated.
Yeah, unfortunately the English version is abridged and also translated from Swedish (or was it German?), not straight from Finnish. But for many it's a book they read more than once and find new things from it.
Oh, that's a tragedy. I am glad more and more books are being translated. Just over a decade ago, many of the books I now have in English I had to translate myself from the Spanish. I think we are in an explosion of translations, and this is just the beginning.
That may be true in the Anglophone world but elsewhere it has been quite common for a long time. For example many Finnish books have been translated into other (European) languages but not into English. For example I own or have read books written in almost 30 different languages.
I agree. Being on an East-West axis, European culture is much more widespread among countries than here in the Americas.
I don't think it's a geopraphical matter but a linguistic one (or maybe it has something to do with the world view and/or attitude) because the situation is more or less the same in UK and Australia, as well (but probably not as bad in Latin America). And I have also books from Latin America, Asia and even Africa, though it's difficult to find books from the smaller Asian countries and from Africa, but of course some are also writing in the colonial language, which makes them easier to translate.
I have many from Latin America and Europe. There are many translations available. That's a good thing anywhere.
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Vicky
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Mar 16, 2018 07:55AM
This looks intriguing. Added it to the list. Thanks!
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It's not autobiographical but the author herself took the same train around the same time the novel is set. And some people like her style, while some don't, so... Well, it's different. There are some others I also know but, alas, they haven't been translated (as far as I know), like for example this one (my not-very-well-written review in English):
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
(The "leader" of that train: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eino_Rahja.
He was later sentenced to death in the USSR but died of tuberculosis before it was carried out.)
Wow! I'll have to look for that to be translated soon I hope. I do have one book on the list though about Lenin's train ride. Lenin on the Train: The Journey that Changed the Course of History
It won't be, very few Finnish books are ever translated, and these are not "great literature" and generally not really thought to be of interest for non-Finns. But I am thinking of reading his other book about the great grain train some day, too, they travelled over 4000 km to Siberia and back, and that took over five weeks. Out of the 223 train carts that left Omsk, only 127 arrived to Finland, the rest had been lost for various reasons, for example the railway engine couldn't pull all the carts over the Ural Mountains. The grain they brought didn't solve the problem with food shortages but helped the situation little in the Red controlled areas. Other trains were also sent later but they never managed to come back. It should be an interesting story, too.Mika Waltari also wrote two books about the train trips he took to Istanbul (from Helsinki) in 1929 as a young student and then again in 1947 (after he had already written his most famous novel which would become an international bestseller) but I doubt they have been translated, either. There might be some other books I know of but I don't remember them now...
Thanks for the info. The Egyptian looks like a must read. It has been translated.
Yeah, unfortunately the English version is abridged and also translated from Swedish (or was it German?), not straight from Finnish. But for many it's a book they read more than once and find new things from it.
Oh, that's a tragedy. I am glad more and more books are being translated. Just over a decade ago, many of the books I now have in English I had to translate myself from the Spanish. I think we are in an explosion of translations, and this is just the beginning.
That may be true in the Anglophone world but elsewhere it has been quite common for a long time. For example many Finnish books have been translated into other (European) languages but not into English. For example I own or have read books written in almost 30 different languages.
I agree. Being on an East-West axis, European culture is much more widespread among countries than here in the Americas.
I don't think it's a geopraphical matter but a linguistic one (or maybe it has something to do with the world view and/or attitude) because the situation is more or less the same in UK and Australia, as well (but probably not as bad in Latin America). And I have also books from Latin America, Asia and even Africa, though it's difficult to find books from the smaller Asian countries and from Africa, but of course some are also writing in the colonial language, which makes them easier to translate.
I have many from Latin America and Europe. There are many translations available. That's a good thing anywhere.