Antic Absurdity

Page 27 November–December 2008 anTic abSurdiTy Jeff Bursey The Parson’s WiDoW Marja-Liisa Vartio Translated by Aili Flint and Austin Flint Dalkey Archive Press http://www.dalkeyarchive.com 256 pages; paper, $13.95 This is the first English-language appearance of what is considered Marja-Liisa Vartio’s finest novel, which originally appeared in Finnish in 1969.Though I can’t speak to the quality of the translation, I can say that the English reads smoothly, never blandly. Reading The Parson’s Widow brought up echoes of David Mamet in his prime with its use of repetition as a rhetorical device, but this may say more about the translators than about Vartio. She conveys with exactness the social mores of a rural setting represented less and less frequently in Western literature in the last century (the powerful, and odd, fiction of T. F. Powys, who also concentrated on the harshness and the meanness of a small community’s inhabitants , is a notable exception). Beyond the connections forward and back, then, and across languages, Vartio added to the tradition of writing on village life by speaking in a modern voice, and the novel has been highly regarded since its publication. The plot is insubstantial. Others things are more important, and these are brought out by speech.Adele is the widow of Birger, and therefore has a certain status in the village. She talks to her servant, Alma, and occasionally to her son and members of her dead husband’s family who live near her home, about her past, her perceptions, and her dead husband. Alma talks to, or is talked at by, everyone, whether or not she wishes to. (Late in the novel there occurs this passage : “By afternoon, Alma had forgotten the whole thing, or at least she no longer talked about it.”At this point, a reader will doubt that that qualification will hold true.) The recollection of the parsonage burning down occurs at the beginning. During the fire the parson rescues his stuffed bird collection rather than the church records, to the scandal of everyone except his wife, who is interested in the linens. We don’t see this directly. Indeed, throughout there is very little direct action. When something does occur in front of our eyes, it involves Alma, and is often brutal. Instead of presenting a sequence of physical actions, Vartio gives us character studies via a spiraling conversation about events, deluging the reader with points of view, dialogue, and variations on familiar stories. When Alma attempts to tell Holger, Adele’s brother-in-law, something from her life, at Adele’s request, it is aggressively appropriated by the parson’s widow. “My sister, she was the first one to see, she looked out the window, she was sitting behind the table and talking with Mother. She had dropped by for a visit home, she was already married then, but she did come by to see Mother every day. It was afternoon, like this, and home was still a home for both of us, but when that woman came...” “Stick to the story. Go on with what happened when you saw them coming.” “Sister looks out the window…” “You said that already. Let me tell. ‘Who are these people?’ says your sister. And you go to the window and say ‘Who are they?’And you answer: ‘Who else but them, that woman, she’s coming now, and the mistress of the Rämälä farm, and third, your brother.’ And you got all upset. Go on.” In this typical passage, stories get boxed within stories while illustrating the master-servant dynamic as a form of narrative colonialism. Vartio is acute about power relationships. One of her main interests is the ambiguity behind any word, gesture, or deed. Holger is husband of Teodolinda, one of the parson’s sisters, and is a lecherous man seemingly at the mercy of his wife, who keeps him in the basement.Areader largely has only his version of how he’s treated to go by, and must decide if what he’s saying is true. WhenAdele’s story concerning the division of property after her husband’s death is...