An interesting SS quote

[tss]

I can imagine what the criticisms are since the translator has a written two pages on thedialects he has used for the Swedish version.

Apparently the translator did relatively good job but the publisher decided that some parts of the book should be rewritten and modified the text without the author's permission. This happened to the first print, I don't know whether the problems have been corrected with later reprints.

The character Rokka for instance, his lines I sometimes need to read three or four times just to get a general idea of what he is saying. I imagine that the original Finnish is similar in complexity.

Well, yes and no. Finnish has a lot of dialects (two main "branches" that both divide into lots of small dialects). One of the Linna's strenghts was that he mastered different dialects well enough that he could put each character to talk the correct dialect of his place of origin. The dialects are close enough so a Finn can easily understand them (except for some special words) but far enough that they can be distinguished (almost) as easily.

And if you want to know about complex dialects, you could try to understand Swedish that is talked near Borgå. I don't understand a word of it but those who do say that it is quite close to 15th century Danish...

So, in most places Linna didn't have to explicitly tell who was speaking, as the dialect gave it right away. Hietanen spoke Turku, Rokka spoke Karelia, Mäkilä spoke Pohjanmaa, etc. It is very difficult to translate this kind of dialect to other languages.

BTW. The scene where Rokka destroys a Soviet column by himself happened also in reality. During the Spring battles of Perkjärvi (April '42) a Finnish corporal Viljam Pylkäs (who served in the same platoon as Linna) killed 82 Soviets in ten minutes with his Suomi-SMG, stopping a company-strenght flanking maneuver singlehandedly. He would probably have received a Mannerheim's Cross for this if he had had any respect to military discipline. It's interesting that the number of kills was downplayed in the book, to 64 IIRC.

- Tommi

[RMC]

My edition is fgrom 1986 but there is no indication that the translation was ever revised. My copy is from Werner Söderström OY. Original price when I got it, 138 markaa.