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Popular Music from Vittula A Novel Mikael Niemi Laurie Thompson Books

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Popular Music from Vittula A Novel Mikael Niemi Laurie Thompson Books

POPULAR MUSIC FROM VITTULA is, quite simply, a terrific book! As a coming of age story, Mikael Niemi's novel often brought to mind another book from Scandinavia titled simply, BEATLES, by Lars Saabye Christensen, which I also loved. Originally published in Swedish, I am quite confident that PMfV lost nothing in its excellent translation into English by Laurie Thompson. The book is full of humor and all the special poignancy that comes with tales of childhood and the tortured rituals of adolescence. There is even a chapter on the air rifle wars amongst the not-really-so-violent-or-evil teenage 'gangs' of Pajala, a town located inside the Arctic circle in the northernmost reaches of Sweden near the Finnish border. The BB gun story also brought to mind, naturally, Jean Shepherd's classic story (into classic film), "A Christmas Story." There are other wonderful, funny stories about relatives, weddings and funerals, and various local "characters." I got a good chuckle in reading about what things are 'manly,' as well as comments on "the most dangerous thing of all," according to the father of Matti (the book's narrator), which "was reading books ... Lunatic asylums were overflowing with folk who'd been reading too much."

Perhaps, however, it was the Beatles connection that made the book stand out for me. Because, like the Christensen book, the storyline also portrays four young boys who are electrified by their discovery of rock music and depicts, often in howlingly funny scenes, how mesmerized they are by their first exposure to the Beatles, in the form of the 45 rpm single, "Rock 'n' Roll Music." Matti, the book's narrator, soon forms a musical alliance with his friends Niila, Erkki and Holgeri that will catapult them into local notoriety and a new popularity with girls - a time they will always remember.

A more personal connection for me between the Niemi and Christensen books is found in the references to Radio Luxembourg, often the only link between remote areas of the world and popular music. As a young man in the US Army, I was stationed on a mountain top in northern Turkey in 1963-64, and one of the greatest pleasures for me and my comrades was to sneak a listen to the top tunes on Radio Luxembourg, when we should have been practicing our spycraft of electronic eavesdropping. In fact, I first heard the Beatles on Radio Luxembourg, not long before their first two Parlophone LPs made it to the local PX. Having grown up on Elvis (also mentioned in the Niemi book - Matti's sister had "Jailhouse Rock"), Ricky Nelson and other American pop, we didn't at first quite know what to make of the Beatles, but quickly decided we liked them. A year later, I was a hanger-on with a GI cover band in Germany, who played many of the Beatles tunes as part of their repertoire. In fact, when The Panics' lead singer was injured for a brief time, I got my own chance to be a "rock-n-roll star" for a few shining moments of my youth. (It's all in my own book, SOLDIER BOY.) So maybe that's why I was so caught up in Matti's story that had many of the same ingredients as mine - small towns, sex, drinking, rock & roll. The fact that the story was set in the most remote region of northern Sweden, inside the ARCTIC CIRCLE, for cripes sake, didn't seem to matter. This was just a great story! There, I'm back where I started. I'm so very glad I read Popular Music in Vittula, and plan to tell other folks about it at every opportunity. - Tim Bazzett, author of the memoirs SOLDIER BOY and BOOKLOVER


Tags : Amazon.com: Popular Music from Vittula: A Novel (9781583225233): Mikael Niemi, Laurie Thompson: Books,Mikael Niemi, Laurie Thompson,Popular Music from Vittula: A Novel,Seven Stories Press,1583225234,Literary,Fiction,Fiction Literary,Fiction-Literary,GENERAL,General Adult,Literary Collections European General,Sweden,United States,Western Europe

Popular Music from Vittula A Novel Mikael Niemi Laurie Thompson Books Reviews

Thanks
Too clean, but touches on reality.
Book is beautifully written but I am not sure I know what is going on. Nor do I care. However, the language is marvellous.
This was a really interesting book. I enjoyed the dark humor and thought it was really great. An understanding of Scandinavian culture is also helpful when reading this book.
Bought this book for my daughter, and according to her, she loves it.
I was thrilled with this set of coming of age stories. Niemi had me hooked from the get-go. Little boys seem to be the same across the globe, ha!
Niemi's novel delivers a literary breath of fresh air. The opening pages made me laugh out loud with a scene I will never forget. While the novel covers memories of a young boy from Vittula in short chapters, there is no linear narrative drive. Rather, the novel is a series of vignettes that together form a portrait of a young boy growing up in a remote part of the world. Some chapters are much more successful than others, but the chapters that succeed are incredibly successful and memorable, far surpassing the efforts of most novels written today if one is looking for true innovation, imagination and humor. Parts are a bit crude, but so are parts of being human. In this case, Niemi includes the good, the bad and the ugly. The writing is lush and amusing, creating wildly funny images that will remain in the reader's mind for a long while. This novel is for those who appreciate experimental writing, are bored with formulaic novels, and enjoy magical realism.
POPULAR MUSIC FROM VITTULA is, quite simply, a terrific book! As a coming of age story, Mikael Niemi's novel often brought to mind another book from Scandinavia titled simply, BEATLES, by Lars Saabye Christensen, which I also loved. Originally published in Swedish, I am quite confident that PMfV lost nothing in its excellent translation into English by Laurie Thompson. The book is full of humor and all the special poignancy that comes with tales of childhood and the tortured rituals of adolescence. There is even a chapter on the air rifle wars amongst the not-really-so-violent-or-evil teenage 'gangs' of Pajala, a town located inside the Arctic circle in the northernmost reaches of Sweden near the Finnish border. The BB gun story also brought to mind, naturally, Jean Shepherd's classic story (into classic film), "A Christmas Story." There are other wonderful, funny stories about relatives, weddings and funerals, and various local "characters." I got a good chuckle in reading about what things are 'manly,' as well as comments on "the most dangerous thing of all," according to the father of Matti (the book's narrator), which "was reading books ... Lunatic asylums were overflowing with folk who'd been reading too much."

Perhaps, however, it was the Beatles connection that made the book stand out for me. Because, like the Christensen book, the storyline also portrays four young boys who are electrified by their discovery of rock music and depicts, often in howlingly funny scenes, how mesmerized they are by their first exposure to the Beatles, in the form of the 45 rpm single, "Rock 'n' Roll Music." Matti, the book's narrator, soon forms a musical alliance with his friends Niila, Erkki and Holgeri that will catapult them into local notoriety and a new popularity with girls - a time they will always remember.

A more personal connection for me between the Niemi and Christensen books is found in the references to Radio Luxembourg, often the only link between remote areas of the world and popular music. As a young man in the US Army, I was stationed on a mountain top in northern Turkey in 1963-64, and one of the greatest pleasures for me and my comrades was to sneak a listen to the top tunes on Radio Luxembourg, when we should have been practicing our spycraft of electronic eavesdropping. In fact, I first heard the Beatles on Radio Luxembourg, not long before their first two Parlophone LPs made it to the local PX. Having grown up on Elvis (also mentioned in the Niemi book - Matti's sister had "Jailhouse Rock"), Ricky Nelson and other American pop, we didn't at first quite know what to make of the Beatles, but quickly decided we liked them. A year later, I was a hanger-on with a GI cover band in Germany, who played many of the Beatles tunes as part of their repertoire. In fact, when The Panics' lead singer was injured for a brief time, I got my own chance to be a "rock-n-roll star" for a few shining moments of my youth. (It's all in my own book, SOLDIER BOY.) So maybe that's why I was so caught up in Matti's story that had many of the same ingredients as mine - small towns, sex, drinking, rock & roll. The fact that the story was set in the most remote region of northern Sweden, inside the ARCTIC CIRCLE, for cripes sake, didn't seem to matter. This was just a great story! There, I'm back where I started. I'm so very glad I read Popular Music in Vittula, and plan to tell other folks about it at every opportunity. - Tim Bazzett, author of the memoirs SOLDIER BOY and BOOKLOVER