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Abstract
This article examines the dynamics between confessional poetry and celebrity by focusing on I Look Out Over Stalin's Head (1969), a lyrical collection written by Pentti Saarikoski, the most prominent literary celebrity in Finland in the 1960s. The collection is highly self-conscious of the conventions of confessional writing as well as of Saarikoski's reputation as an alcoholic and a radical left-wing provocateur. Moreover, Saarikoski's celebrity status contributes to blurring the border between the speaker and the public persona of the writer. The collection can be characterised as a work of confessional performance. Based on recurrent elements in Saarikoski's media appearances and in his confessional works the article argues that the writer's public persona was performatively produced and that I Look Out Over Stalin's Head was part of this performance. Applying Judith Butler's ideas of performativity and subversiveness, the article analyses the speaker's performance as an alcoholic and a communist in the context of Finnish celebrity culture and the cultural politics of the late 1960s. In conclusion, the article argues that although Saarikoski was an active negotiator regarding his public persona, his relationship to the media as well as to his readers fell on the border between agency and exploitation.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Funding
This work was supported by the Kone Foundation [grant number 33-2855].
Notes
[1] For the interconnection between celebrity culture and the boom of confessional writing in Finland in the 1960s and the 1970s, see also Hollsten; Karkama 259–61; Makkonen 111; & Viikari 163. Naturally, confessional writing in Finland was popular during that time for other reasons as well. For instance, in the 1970s second wave feminism played an important role.
[2] For the rise of the Finnish celebrity culture in the 1960s, see Saarenmaa.
[3] Modernism was a latecomer to Finnish-language literature; the period of high modernism in Finnish-language literature is the 1950s. In the 1920s and the 1930s a few authors experimented with modernist writing, but the policy of the young nation (Finland gained independence in 1917) emphasised a nationalistic culture, and modernism, which had an international and revolutionary stamp, was not favoured. However, after World War II Finnish culture became more open to international influences. As a result, modernist poetics gained an established position in the 1950s. The history of Swedish-language literature in Finland is quite different; modernism appeared for the first time in 1916 with Edith Södergran's (1892–1923) first collection, and the modernist diction was relatively soon canonised.
[4] Unfortunately, only two extracts of Stalin have been translated into English; they are published in Poems 1958–1980 (1983), a selection of Saarikoski's poetry edited and translated from Finnish by Anselm Hollo. Therefore, if not otherwise indicated, the quotes are from the original Finnish volume translated by me. Similarly, the translations of the quotes from all the other primary sources in Finnish are mine.
[5] For ‘travelling concept’, see Bal.
[6] For the different meanings of ‘performativity’, see, e.g., Loxley. The usage of the term can be divided into two main lines. Firstly, it is a term that can be traced back to J. L. Austen's speech act theory and has been further developed by, for instance, Jacques Derrida and Judith Butler. Secondly, it is used in performance theory as a derivative of the noun performance.
[7] The authentic diary has been edited and published posthumously in 1999 by Saarikoski's biographer Pekka Tarkka. A comparison between the original diary published in the volume Diaries of a Drinker (Juomarin päiväkirjat) and the lyrical sequence published in Stalin shows that Saarikoski edited his diary only little before publication. It has a few additions and some deletions — for instance, the dates have been deleted — but to a large extent the published poem and the diary are identical.
[8] For the conventions of confessional writing, see, e.g., Gregory, ‘Confessing’ 34.
[9] Saarikoski's life has been thoroughly documented by researchers as well as by his family members. Pekka Tarkka's biography in two volumes, Pentti Saarikoski: The Years 1937–1963 (Pentti Saarikoski: Vuodet 1937–1963) and Pentti Saarikoski II: The Years 1964–1983 (Pentti Saarikoski II:Vuodet 1964–1983), is the most accurate of the biographies.
[10] According to Gérard Genette (1, 5), paratexts are ‘accompanying productions’ that surround and extend the text within or outside the book. More accurately, he calls the paratexts within a book peritext and the paratexts outside the book epitext.
[11] Significantly, the paratextual framework changes over the course of time. Contemporary readers of Stalin were familiar with details of Saarikoski's private life on the basis of interviews and other media appearances. At present, media texts from the late 1960s are available mostly in archives and libraries. However, present-day readers have access to an abundance of biographical material published after Saarikoski's death, such as biographies, Saarikoski's diaries, and the memoirs of family members.
[12] For the theme of truth and authenticity in the conventional readings of confessional writing, see, e.g., Gill, ‘Your Story’ 74.
[13] For Saarikoski's reputation, see, e.g., Hosiaisluoma 332; Riikonen 86; & Tarkka, Pentti Saarikoski 167–74.
[14] The speaker's matter-of-fact account of his drinking corresponds to Saarikoski's own attitude to drinking. In summer 1967 he began to drink according a certain daily schedule (Tarkka, Pentti Saarikoski 171).
[15] For a detailed account of Salama's trial, see, e.g., Tarkka, Salama 160–7.
[16] In Finland, the years from 1919 to 1932 were a period of prohibition. The Spirit Acts of 1932 repealed the prohibition and established the state monopoly Alko to produce and sell alcohol beverages as well as to control the consumption of alcohol. From 1943 to 1957 Alko practised a customer control policy called buyer surveillance. The citizens had personal liquor cards, and when they wanted to buy alcoholic beverages the seller first stamped the card and checked how much alcohol the customer had recently bought. If the purchases were too excessive, the customer was referred to a control officer, who had authority from the police to track alcohol abusers (see, e.g., Kuusi 391–2).
[17] The most heated debates concerned the selling and serving of alcohol in the countryside, the possibility of selling medium strength beer in grocery shops, and the age limits for buying alcohol (Kuusi 392).
[18] ‘Now I look exactly [like] Guevara’, Saarikoski wrote in his diary in September 1968 (Diaries of a Drinker, 280). For pictures of Saarikoski from the autumn of 1968, see Tarkka, Pentti Saarikoski.
[19] Oudeis, meaning nobody, is the name with which Odysseus deceived the Cyclops Polyphenus. Odysseus was an important character for Saarikoski from early on. He identified with Odysseus in the diary he wrote in his youth (Riikonen 86–7). He has translated James Joyce's Ulysses into Finnish as well as Homer's Odyssey. The translation of Ulysses was published in 1964 and that of Odyssey in 1972.
[20] For Saarikoski's political activism, see, e.g., Tarkka, Pentti Saarikoski 39–77, 178–9, 239–43.
[21] Guevara is mentioned several times in Stalin. The speaker, for example, reads his memories (90). For the quotation on Guevara's writing, see Saarikoski, Diaries of a Drinker 335.
[22] What were called popular front governments were formed by the centre and left-wing parties in 1966–1971.
[23] The house Saarikoski hired when he wrote the second part of Stalin in the summer of 1968 was the former residence of a communist politician (Saarikoski, The Poems So Far 364).
[24] For Saarikoski's public appearances as well as his health problems caused by the abundant use of alcohol in 1967–1968, see Tarkka, Pentti Saarikoski 167–78, 213–30.
[25] For Saarikoski's years in Sweden, see Tarkka, Pentti Saarikoski 353–647.