My final text about Harry Potter

The past weekend I finished the last Harry Potter. Don't worry, there are no spoilers in this text.. there is some background information about Voldemort, which should not be hugely important for the plot. However, if you want to stay spoiler-free, please don't continue.

After reading the books I started thinking what set this one apart from other fantasy-series. I'm not a huge fan (I don't think I'm a fan at all, though they were good books), but I did see something worth noticing in how Voldemort was characterized in the books, as opposed to many other Big Evils in other stories (starting from Lord of the Rings and going all the way to other books of the genre from Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell to Buffy the Vampire Slayer (of which, I dare say, I am a fan of).

The Thing that really touched me was the origin and characterization of Voldemort. He was not a god, he hadn't done anything extraordinary to get where he was. Even though he was expectationally powerful wizard - and some of it was probably thanks to good genes - he still didn't do anything that anyone else couldn't have. The spells he cast, the reputation he got and the minions he had -- hard work and sacrifice, all of it! He stayed awake during classes in Hogswarts (studied there from his 10th year to his 17th), "networked" with other individuals and secured connections thru his friendships. Of course Voldemort was a psycho, but basically, anyone could have done it.

And this is what I find great. During the series, Voldemort (a name he took himself because his own name was basically very mundane) is seen searching for objects, studying, making traps, trusting people, giving responsibility, punishing failures, manipulating, suffering information deprivation... he's not just sitting on his throne and gloating as his master scheme unfolds. He keeps busy. He delegates. Many times we see him acting and thinking like your normal company CEO. Of course, instead of running international company he's leading a crusade against society... but basically, isn't that pretty much the same thing?

And this is what I love about the books. Voldemort had the same education as everyone else. There was no secret knowledge or selling souls or such like. The whole Harry Potter-story could easily have been told in slashdot-posts; evil CEO, bad program (Sony rootkit, maybe?), department heads and PR, young hackers noticing and exploiting a weakness in the code (HD-DVDs); trying to silence them with lawsuits, pushing forward with the program (DRM in legal mp3-substitutes). Punishments. Some company figureheads get sacrificed, but most don't. Life goes on.

Sliders - creating alternative realities

Few days ago I had the opportunity to see the pilot to scif-series Sliders, from 1995. In the show punch of people "slide" from world to world trying to find a way back home. The plot of the pilot was - to make long story short - about four people who are stranded on an alternative timeline, where Soviet Union had won the Cold War.

For the record, I happen to like alternative timelines, the "what if"-scenarios. But I didn't like this one. A fast plot summary;

The sliders arrive to the new world, thinking they are home and separate. The first is in hurry and shouts a taxi; the second one decides to call home and the rest two (the inventor and his teacher) start to talk about physics in the park where they landed. Then each notices that something is wrong;

• The telephone box doesn't have a coin slot and the operator wants to know if the slider has calling privileges, and thus wants to know her id-number. The operator further mentions that the box is operated by PT&T (People's Telephone & Telegraph).
  
• The taxi driver speaks Russian and not English.
  
• There's a statue of Lenin in the park, instead of Lincoln.
  

The plot starts to develop as the taxi drives through a toll booth, and the slider pays his trip with a dollar he had in his wallet. This promptly gets him to jail.

Meanwhile the three sliders walk around seeing police beating, arresting and even shooting citizens. They stop to buy a sausage from a stand and pay with a dollar. The sausage seller mistakes the sliders into revolutionaries and reminds them not to waive the dollars around; apparently they are used by the resistance as a code. The official new dollars are printed with red ink and have Khrushchev's picture in the middle.
At this point police takes interest in the three sliders and the sausage seller helps them away into revolutionaries hide-out. Once there they see a broadcast from People's Court; apparently the show is entertaining in nature and has a smiling host. During the case witnesses are sworn in with the traditional oath, which ends in "...and help me God". One of the cases handled is that of the fourth slider, who is sentenced to Alaskan gulag for 15 years.

The revolutionaries explain how the world has come to this; how losing the Korean War started a set of events which spread communism to the rest of the world, leaving USA economically separated from the other countries. In the end even USA fell, and thus they are now living in the The Socialist States of America.

The revolutionaries help to free the fourth slider. After farewells the sliders depart the world.

* * *

I found the episode to be fairly painful to watch. The changes were for shock value and not at all consistent; the telephone box wasn't operated by coins but the city (San Fransisco) had toll booths; the court used vows that mentioned God; the difference between streets were the police acted like thugs and the devoted people who saluted voluntarily when the national anthem played and so on.

I have noticed similar problems with several stories; the writers often just replace some things (such as statues) and names (AT&T => PT&T) without considering how the changes affect the larger dynamic of the world. Writing a story is not just about character interaction (while that was pretty painful as well) but about surroundings, particularly in a show that is devoted to alternative timelines.

I don't know why I'm so disappointed. Maybe because the articles I read promised a show with large following and it had nine stars out of ten; maybe because once you see a story that has done it RIGHT you can't help but compare the rest to that one (for example some episodes of Stargate SG-1, Star Trek DS9, X-Men, Buffy.. the comicbook Exiles is all about alternative outcomes of other comics...) .

Changes in the blog

§1. The writer of Town of Ponte Corvo noted how my blog would need some colour. I started looking into the possibility and was surprised how much Google had developed the Blogger-template engine since I had last looked at it (about year ago, when I tried to make The Gulag-blog (now in deep hibernation, with all the illustrations broken links) all pretty. It used to be hard work and involved reading through the Blogger-template code and making alternations.
Now it was much easier; the only thing I had to modify in the template were the header-wilth, which didn't click with the new at all well. Even the sidebar - which had to be modified by editing template - can now be worked with using Java(?)-tools. Very easy, very simple.

§2. I checked the tags I have been making the past few weeks. I had been adding new tags like they were last day on sale, which is not very smart - too detailed tags will never get more than two entries in them, and are therefore useless. They are now sorted by categories (TV, Internet, philosophy) that are so wide they should get several entries. "Guest of the Third Reich" is exemption I made in hope that if ever finish it, readers that are solely interested in that should find it easier to check out. In the following weeks I hope to go through my posts from the last two years and tag them as well (only about 70 to go!), hopefully giving them some more value.

§3. I also added links to few (very good) blogs by my associates in the sidepanel. They are all worth looking, provided you are interested of my blog, which might be too strong of an assumption.

What do you think?

Sunset

Taken around 23:00 at my balcony about a week ago. You can't stay up too late - after 2:00 the sun starts to rise up again..

On another topic: Picasa, a service by Google seems to have a rather embarrassing bug; while Blogger and Picasa are both owned by the same company, I can't actually add pictures I have loaded to Picasa to Blogger -- but pictures I load to Blogger are shown as folders in Picasa, and can therefore be shown. To get this picture to you, I had to load it to Picasa here and to Blogger separately here.
Maybe I'm just doing something wrong, but I doubt it.

Kari Suomalainen

-Kuinka toiset jaksaa ja viitsii?
-Why do they bother? Where do they find the energy?
[The paper reads: "Massacre At Algeria" and "Indonesia Mobilizes"]

Kari Suomalainen (1920-1999) was a political cartoonist for the prestigious Helsingin Sanomat 1950-1991. He affected very strongly on the way different political parties were seen in Finland, and was an important opinion former.
Soviet Union tried to silence him several times as he poked on politically raw things.

His humour was based in stereotypes and making what seemed high and mighty into something small and ordinary; showing president Kekkonen (usually deciphered as a demi-god) as a normal (if demanding) man, the parties as avatars instead of people who got changed every four years and observing news through a small and old-fashioned village somewhere far from everywhere. Local news from Helsinki were often observed by two "men of the streets", who had been unable to fit back into civilian life after Continuation War, and had so become urban tramps. Sometimes he inserted himself into the commentary, as a small black wearing man wearing a ridiculous hat.

He continued on the paper long after his retirement age, and quit only after being forced to do so after several pictures that were too far out of line with paper's policy.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, when Finland was starting a new era in it's history without pressure from East, Kari critized very strongly on the decision to open doors to immigrants and war refugees, Somalis in particular (he drew them in a fashion that left little doubt of his opinions concerning blacks in general and Somalis in particular).

Kari continued publishing his pictures in local papers, but he was getting old which showed in his hand and in the jokes; the pictures weren't as funny as they used to. His views on subjects got more old-fashioned, to the point of bigotry. The avatars to which he based his humour on started to look old-fashioned, even antic (the tramps, the village stuck in the rural -40s). Those he tried to update ended up looking cluttered and forced (the political parties).

Kari's moral stance was firmly set on the early 50s, which shows ever more unfavorably as the decades went by. From there, he saw the country chance from a war-wrecked nation with GDP of average Third World country into one of the richest in the world.

-More important than riches is the quality of life, clean air, unpolluted water and beautiful scenery.
-If it's all right, I'll take that in money.




-You can no longer travel safely in this city.




-Hey guys, who was the one who first proposed consumer-protection law which says that bad promises are punishable by law?
[From left: Vennamo [?] who proposed the law and then the parties; Social Democrats, Rural Party (later Centre-Party, later Finnish Centre), Communists (later Left Alliance), Liberal Democrats (later dead), Swedish Party, Coalition (moderate right) and a cop carrying a box marked "Election promises". The size of the parties is relative to their (historical, exgenerated) power in the parliament. ]

I own several collections of Kari's work. Half the fun in them is seeing how the seeds of today (like the Green Party) slowly enter into the picture and how Kari tries to make fun of them, sometimes good naturedly, but often grumpily. And then the retrospect fun on his argument about "modern music" on 60s; Bach is still as popular now as he was centuries ago, but who will remember Beatles in the 1990s?

But after all is said and done, Kari was a person who was a master of his craft. After him, Helsingin Sanomat has been unable to secure a person to fill his place whose work is worth reading.

What is real?

Many TV-series (particularly scifi-series, which are very dear to me) have an episode where the hero has to question what's real and what's not. In the more extreme cases, the hero starts to have flashes where he or she is actually locked in a mental institution, and everything that has thus far happened in the show has been a figment of imagination. This is strengthened by people in the institution knowing about the series chronology, about vampires (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) or aliens (Smallville).

In Smallville Clark Kent finds himself in a such a situation. He is shocked to find that Jor-El is infact a brand of soap, and Oliver Queen (a.k.a. Green Arrow) is the name of the hospital worker administrating his medicine.
Buffy in turn finds out she has been in the mental institution for six years - since the series started - and both her mother and her father are expecting her to come out of it. All that has happened in Sunnydale is just dreams in a sick woman's mind. It makes it even worse that the series questions itself: "sick girl who's in mental ward or super-girl who battles vampires - which sounds more insane?" to paraphrase from memory.

This annoys me on three levels; first it ridicules fans who have invested time to the series chronology. It highlights the built-in ridiculousness of the more absurd parts of the series mythology (hero's super strength, origin story, being centre of the world). Also, for stories to work we have to believe in them, believe in the rules of the world; these is-the-hero-insane stories beg the question is that time well placed.

On second level, the stories don't end well. The mental ward is often thought to be in "our" reality, where there are no Kryptonians or vampires. It is inherently more "real" than anything in the series itself. After you introduce the ward, you also have to explain why the ward was just the figment of the hero's imagination. Otherwise we get to the "it was just all a dream" scenario, the most effect way to lose interest of the watcher.

In Smallville, Martian Manhunter explained how the ward was infact a psychic attack by hostile force, who tried to overtake Clark's mind by showing him that he was mad.
In Buffy, just the opposite is done; at the ward Buffy's mother explains how the friends in Sunnydale are not friends at all but traps that keep her comatose in the real world. The episode ends with Buffy asking forgiveness from her friends - and then cut to the ward where the doctor diagnoses Buffy comatose and we are shown parents weeping. It wasn't a trick, or an attack.

On third, and less popular culture-level these episodes beg the question about life itself. If we interpret the world solely by our senses, and our senses are processed trough our brain - how can a person decide if she or he is hallucinating? A person tells you that you are hallucinating - do you trust the person? Or if two different things claim that the other isn't real - how can you make an educated choice between the two?

This isn't just about me pondering TV-series. I have a friend who sees hallucinations. Doing pretty well with them too, as I gather. Takes medication for it. When my grandmother gets sick, she regresses one year at a time back to her childhood. Mother is going to get me soon. Who are you? Why are you here Uncle? Back from America? When her body gets better, her mind gets better as well, and again she knows who I am..
And while I don't have anything of that magnitude, I do get blackouts when I rise or make sudden moves, during which my ability to see or keep my balance greatly diminishes. They take up to 30 seconds and when my mind clears it always hits me how much on the mercy of few wirings I am. My whole world - literally - is hosted inside a lump of meat. And the distinction is so hard to make; am I living in the world or is the world living in me?

[ To talk about am-I-crazy scenarios, here is a good wiki-link about it taken to it's extreme; Tommy Westphall.

The mental ward or it's variation has also been used in Star Trek: TNG, Star Trek: DS9, Lost, Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis and Charmed. ]

Guest of the Third Reich: Mare nostrum: Villa am Meere

Before I go any farther, I should probably note that back when the book was written German was teached for children at schools from the age of 9 (this was replaced by English in the seventies). Mr. Paavolainen doesn't therefore deem it necessary to translate everything into Finnish. I don't speak German - at all - and my Swedish could be much better, so if the reader of this blog understands what some of the non-translated words mean, please don't hesitate to write.

Review.
Foreword.
Mare Nostrum 1: New Horisons.

Dichterhaus was founded by Nordische Gesellschaft but taken over by Reichsschrifttumskammer, Reich's Chamber of Literature in 1935. This brought changes to the modus operandi; while it used to be just a summer camp to bring writers together from different parts of the world, it now has "official programs" led by "determined staff". While there is no outright propaganda, the German writers are card-carrying members of national socialists.

Of the other people living in Dichterhaus, Sweden's representative Sven Stolpe was known to have a brilliant mind and "radical swings". He had studied in Germany, married a German as well as speaking the language fluently. Trough the newspaper Young Sweden he was one of the most important opinion-leaders of his generation. Paavolainen himself was quite stricken by the author: Stolpe was the kind of man who only exists in fiction; world-traveller, modernist and liberal, honest to the causes he championed and a great sportsman even as one of his lungs was non-functional after medical operation. Of all the writers in the house, he was the only one who openly criticized the Third Reich.
From the text you get the impression that the German government hoped to convert Stolpe to the cause. After all, his background and ties made him a terrific candidate. Alas,

When reaching the Third Reich, Stolpe had a surprise to us: he had come directly from England, where he had gotten an oxfordian awakening. "It is the greatest moment of my life", he repeatedly says.

He didn't stay long. He soon after departed to show his oxford-book to an old friend in Norway, and while travelling there his lung started acting up again and he could not return.

The Norwegian in the house was Doctor Eyvind Mehle, who had gotten his degree in Germany.

He was both the most popular person in Dichterhaus and its enfant terrible. Nobody could believe that this man [...] was the oldest person in the house - 41 years. Mehle was as black fascist as they came and one of Norway's Nasjonalsamling's leading personalities. He was [...] a newspapersman, who had visited both Stalin, Mussolini and Hitler, interviewed them all and forged strong ties to all European fascist-organisations. Wonderful and funny man who could not be taken seriously - for example when he lists who are going to be shot after the Norwegian fascists grab the power!

Paavolainen's room mate was Erik Bertelsen:

Bertelsen is so nice and good-hearted and un-revolutionary, that one has to wonder how one such as him can earn his living writing in our days.. he is not shocked by Nazism nor by Bolshevism. [...] He is only interested in his books [...] about old Danish memories.

About his fellow Finn, Göran Stenius.. the translation is hard and relies much on knowing the popular culture of the 30s (I don't). Apparently he had some interest toward Fascism, but because of language-movement (Stenius' native language was Swedish) was sidetracked and belonged to some fringe-group.

Stenius came to Germany well-versed in national socialism. Rising his hand up in greeting comes easily to him. Because of this I'm greatly interested to see how his moods swing.

But after everything is said and done, Paavolainen believes that he is level-headed, as is Mehle, and does not go all metaphysical and romantic as the Germans do.

Of the Germans..

My greatest interest was naturally toward the three national socialist authors - and how different they were!
[...] Rupert Rupp from Saars was only 28 years old. [...] Saars' suffering and humiliation during the French occupation were the main focus of Rupp's poetry. [...] Rupp has taken part in the fighting even as a youth in the ranks of Schlageter. This is why he has naïvely and with all his heart embraced the Nazi-ideology as only soldier-youth born in the south can. [...] No great originality could be found in Rupp's poems. The poems tended to become mystical [...], but the deeply felt pain and aching were very common to the young generation to whom Nazism meant salvation and the spring of new strength and innovation.

Another German, Friz Helke;

At the age of 30 Helke had gained his station by fighting. [...]During inflation he had worked as a businessman, started then studying at night [...] and at at the same time took part in political fights as a leader of youth-chapter in Stahlheim. [...]He quit [...] when he noticed that freemasonry had taken root in the chapter and joined national socialists in 1929 taking to Hitler all the 25 children in his care. Today Helke has a very influential position in the Hitler-Jugend [...] headquarters; he is the auditor for literature suitable for Hitler-Jugend(!), Referent im Kulturamt der Reichsjugendführung and his rank in Hitler-Jugend is Bannführer im Stabe! [...] According to Sven Stolpe his purpose is to "show millions of young Germans primitive pictures of national and military heroes and systemically force the youths to think that heroism is only possible in the military".
[...]Helke has written surprisingly many books for children during the past few years. [...] They only have one aim: to rise national socialists.

The third German, Ottfield von Finckenstein

I think it as a great personal victory that I was able to secure the friendship of this extraordinary man. [...]Sensitive, well-raised, good and wise man, who emits a strangely calming presence to all those near him. [...] Finckenstein is a marvellous example of what happens when old aristocrat has the ability to worship life and the straight-lined, non-compromising thinking of national socialistic ideology. [...] Stolpe's oxfordianism looks cold and calculating compared to Finckenstein's [...] radiating joy of life.
[...] When talking about Hitler, he has no reservations. "One must learn to believe, that even on our days can such genius be born." With Germans - even with Fincenstein - it is impossible to discuss... one just has to listen and wonder.

Paavolainen remarks how closed the German culture was. The national socialism was only interested in building its own view of the world, disregarding everything that happened abroad. He remarks that Doctor Domes didn't even know the name of Lawrence (of whose books at least two were banned in Germany). This made the German books so dry; Finckenstein was the only one who wrote lively books - and he had spent much time abroad.

Guest of the Third Reich: Mare nostrum: New horisons

Review.
Foreword.

This chapter is a short introduction on the writer and how he came to be at Travelmünden at the 14th day of August. The German-Scandinavian Dichterhaus, writerhouse had been opened late that year, and thus Finland's Writer-Alliance [?] had had troubles to find someone to go; the vacations were already over. Because of troubles, the writer arrived day late and missed the Olympics at Berlin.

I'm tired. I sit on my luggage on a dark and empty terrace. Silent longing everywhere. Again I ponder the question that has been troubling me the whole sea voyage, on railway thru Denmark, on train ferry over windy sea between Gjedser and Warnemünden: why this trip? What do you think you'll find?

The writer hopes to find something new. Too many years he has been trying to write about his trip to London four year previous, to write down the many projects that had haunted him for years. But he had never succeeded. The Finnish political landscape was in heavy movement; the failed coup d'etat of the fascists in 1932 had depressed him and he no longer felt like writing.

And still I knew that in the world something was happening, something that people back home understood completely wrong. We saw the world like thru an old window; greenish, blurry and distorted. Revolutions right and revolutions left.. but back home everybody was shouting: old, tried traditions are the way to go! The most descriptive thing: the clergy changed from defenders to attackers! Confusion over terms. Ignorance, pathetic good-will, [...?], doing small movements in the middle of steely, determined, bi-polarizing world...

In the end the writer is let in to the house. Everybody else is in Berlin, watching the Olympics. The next day he met them; the director (Doctor Fred Domes) and hostess (Madam Lisa Hayn) of Dichterhaus, two German writers (Rubert Rupp and Count Ottfried von Finckenstein), a Norwegian (Doctor Eyvind Mehle), a Swede (Doctor Sven Stolpe) and another Finn (Master Göran Stenius). Each of them was important to the writer, opening to him new horizons.

The weeks at Dicherhaus gave the writer new strength. Again he felt like he knew where he was, and how to to hold the pen.

Guest of the Third Reich, foreword

After doing the review here, the fancy to write about the book itself came over me. I'll go one chapter at a time, doing a short summary/shortened translation as I find interesting. You may try to affect my work by cheering on or shouting critique.
Anyway, it seems to me that no one has done similar thing in the Internet previously, neither in Finnish nor English, so I have the honour of being the first. University students will be reading these texts for the Easy Street for years to come!

LEGEND. As usual, the text in italics is from the book. If not otherwise marked, it is direct translation.
[...] means that I have cut something I deem unnecessary off.
Text inside [bracelets] means that I have summarized longer text into the hard core.
[?] means that I am somewhat unsure of the translation, as the writer refers to words or cultural things that have in the passing 70 years gone out of use. I'm not so dedicated to this project to start hunting for meaning of names of old popular culture etc, even if I do try to translate the words to the proper English equivalents.

THE FOREWORD OF THE FIRST EDITION
To all the readers of my book and criticizers I would like to quote André Gide's words: don't try to understand me too fast.

I know fully well how daring it is to write a book of this sort. I know I'm poking a beehive of conflicting opinions. In Finland they have only discussed national socialism in newspapers and magazines. At one side it has been admired without being understood what it's actually about. On the other it has been beaten as far as the journalists sticks carry. At third it has been tried to be silenced to death.

[The book is not an extensive nor even narrow view into national socialism. The writer has tried to avoid using sources. Nearly all quotes the writer has seen himself or heard on the street. Everything in the book is based on the writer's opinions and are therefore subjective.]

I have tried to collect a picture what is the national socialistic Welterlebniss, world view. Therefore I think my book is foremost an extensive raport, and that's why the subtitle of the book is "rhapsody"[?].

[Many will wonder why this book has been written. I can only answer that I have always been solely interested by present, and national socialism is just that. ]

I would not wonder if the people on political right would take the book as a commercial for anti-Christian values and the people on left as Nazi propaganda. In a way both would be right. [Both would also be wrong. [?]] I just want to prove that it would be as grave mistake to take the Third Reich as a caretaker of the values of forefathers as it would be to call it cradle of new barbarism.
[The book is one-sided, as I was a guest and saw only what they let me to see.] I will not judge concentration camps nor the persecution of Jews as neither were shown to me. But I can say that the German culture is not dead even if Lion Feuchtwanger has been exiled.
To keep it short; you should not throw the baby with the bathwater, even if the water is dirty and possibly even bloody.

[Also I had been writing another book for the previous seven years, before the trip.] Because of this I have dedicated much space for the new vital [?] and simplified human type, anti-Christianity and the changes in gender-moral. [These three will be the guiding stars of my new book, and to research them the guesting at the Third Reich gave me valuable material.]

The book concentrates on the Nürnberg rally of 1936. I suppose that the one thing people will be most divided over will be if it was necessary to describe the event in such detail. Personally I feel it to be paramount. I often became desperate when reading Finnish papers in Germany. I often thought that people in Finland didn't realize what was happening in the world presently. We are closing fast on time that might very well be the most important event in European history. It would be deadly mistake to solve problems by playing them down [?]. We have to dare to think apocalyptically.
Currently Germany is guiding the destiny of Europe. Literally; Germany is the heart of Europe. It is completely irrelevant if these beats that shake the continent are because of new vitality or -as many claim- the effects of camphor injection. The important part is; the heart of Europe is beating strongly. Horribly strongly.

Tuusula, Onnela, 19.11.1936.

Meditating in car

I have always loved the feeling of being on the road when midnight is drawing close. Getting back home from somewhere far away, after long day. There is something wonderful in the way you are going somewhere and still sitting; a friend is behind the wheel and you know that just by sitting, you are doing something. The lights appear and vanish and you can hear the sounds of the road under you.

And radio plays, and as the midnight closes, you hear less and less of Britney Spears and the Boy Band of the Week, and more and more of the classics and the songs with staying power. The songs you remember having heard previously, but of which names you can’t quite recall. Idly you think that maybe tomorrow you will do some research and find out the song... only to forget till the next time you are on the road.. The annoying hosts of day time have all gone, and the ones speaking are middle-aged and melancholy.

And you are on the road. Going somewhere. And you don’t even really ever want to get there, because as uncomfortable as the seats are during day, just at that instant there is nothing where you would rather be. All the worries, troubles and aspirations are somewhere far away. There is just you and the sounds of radio.. and a driver, somewhere far away..

[ These thoughts occupy my time just before I go to sleep ]

Guest of the Third Reich, translation of an original review

In the blog Town of Ponte Corvo the writer asked me to write a summary of the book Guest of the Third Reich, written by Olavi Paavolainen in the mid-30s. I have not read the book, so the task would be impossible to do. However, I can translate an article on the subject, which hopefully does the same thing.

This was written for Helsingin Sanomat back when the book was originally published in 1936, by Lauri Viljanen. The newspaper has the review online. I shortened some parts where he starts talking too closely about Paavolainen's masterful use of words (he actually sometimes disregarded content in favour of style at parts) and on one occasion actually stops the review in middle to mention he has visited the place himself. Anyway, onwards;

OLAVI PAAVOLAINEN: GUEST OF THE THIRD REICH

”The distancing of youngsters, even children, from their parents and transforming them into crowds as well as the poor, even disrespectful status of women by Scandinavian standards are phenomenons to which the author's modern training in psychological observation fixates in warning.” - Lauri Viljanen, Helsingin Sanomat 13.12.1936

Olavi Paavolainen, that restless "seeker of the modern world" has just visited in the bygone Fall "the Third Reich". According the official language he was even "guest of the leader"on several occasions, for example during the Nürnberg Rally. [...] As earlier, he remarks on bowing to "the times and lives" and his travels on the soils of the "Third Reich" has strengthened his conviction that Today's Germany is part of the living present of Europe. As we know his prejudice-free, shyless [...] way of writing, we may be sure that "Guest of the Third Reich" is a book whose writer has something special to say.

[The trip starts from the] "German-Scandinavian writer-home" [...] in Travemünden. [...] In the first part of the book Paavolainen presents lively portraits [...] of this scening surrounding. [...] The name of this part's - named Mare nostrum, "our sea" - weightiest chapter is, however, the one that handles so-called "northern idea" in modern Germany's world-view. I think that Paavolainen has written in very trustworthy and critically apt way this "intentional myth" which has gotten its most famous airing in Alfred Rosenberg's world-view book. [...]

More passionate [...] changes the writer's wording in the strange part "Human god". I dare say that the glimpses into the soul of Hitler's realm are revelatory in a way. The description of the Nürnberg Rally wakes in a cool Scandinavian mind the image of ecstatic ritual, and Paavolainen will not hesitate saying; "national socialism is the first religion given birth by Europe". The new lifefeeling's self-confident, decidedly unchristian tendency did not go unsaid in the previous part's chapter "In Bachen Marienkirche" [...]. To this connects heavily the chapter "Blue temple", a portrait of the religious psyche of political leaders - a shocking painting of new Babylon in the middle of old civilized world.

The writing of Paavolainen is curiously so rich in this part that the reviewer has no chance of deep margin thoughts in this part. But I have become confident that he is closer to truth than our cool thought processes might initially lead us to believe. We shall wager that Hitler's best weapon against the dull grey of Weimar Republic was the mystically grand presentation which so touches the German heart.

On his best Paavolainen is in the last part, "Toward Germanic Sparta", where he analyses the new human type being born in Hitler's Germany. Paavolainen has a sharp, seeing eye towards everyday facts of life, which seems insignificant but end up being important. He emphasises the part that the young generation has had in the founding of "the Third Reich", [mentioning] youths who are very self-assured about the condition of their bodies. One of the few words of admiration without restriction he gives are for so-called "work-service", which has brought together social classes and has even made work into some sort of ceremony. The distancing of youngsters, even children, from their parents and transforming them into crowds as well as the poor, even disrespectful status of women by Scandinavian standards are phenomenons to which the author's modern training in psychological observation fixates in warning.

I will not hesitate to say that "Guest of the Third Reich" is a rather monumental accomplishment from the author [...]. I suppose Hitler's Germany opens to us as an actual physical place, which causes uneasiness and curiosity, only after reading this travelling report.

What blogs do you read?

I promised myself that as I don't really have any other commitments I would at least practice my writing by writing five texts per week, either to Blogger or to some other thing.
Last week I did four; the previous three blog-entries plus a review for comics-page. I don't know if I have mentioned this earlier but I aim to improve myself to the point where people actually pay to publish my texts. Not because of the money but for the knowledge that I'm actually good enough in something that people pay to get it.

I know I don't have that many readers (two, three?) and only one person who actually comments without prompting (thanks Vlad, you're a true friend) but yeah, that's my goal.
Anyway, I know the entries about problems I have had have been rather boring, and I thank your patience if you have actually read them thru.


So, I have been using Google Reader. It's the first RSS-reader I have ever used, and without knowing anything of the alternative ways to home on the subject, it beats checking the webpages one by one hands down. If you read this and don't use RSS-reader, check this one. It will change your life. Trust me.

Anyway, what blogs do I have on the reader? Currently I have 16 blogs. Some of them update very slowly (ergo, I wouldn't bother to check the webpage because chances would be good that there wouldn't be anything new there) but that doesn't cause any problems with this piece of code.

Anyway, what I do have on my Reader are;

5G - a blog about technology. The bloggers are Helsingin Sanomat-newspaper's tech-journalists.

Beaucoup Kevin - a blog about comics. Honestly, there was a time I didn't like this blog at all. Too many photos of "me-with-my-friends-with-funny-texts" but those have gone. Also; new layout and amusing old comics-panels.

Blog@Newsarama - A blog about comics/nerd-news. Rather funny and sometimes very enlightening.

Boing Boing. Eh, you know Boing Boing. One of the most read blogs in the world. Tech, tech-politics, nifty things and other such stuff.

Dave in Suomi. Only added this little while ago. Don't really have anything to say about this one yet, expect it gives outsider's perspective to familiar things, which is always welcome.

Dave's Longbox - a guy reviews old comics with very hilarious phrases, which makes you remember why comics are awesome in other ways than just because of plot. This blog has made me appreciate "so bad it's good" comics and "radness" factors, which earlier escaped me entirely. Thanks Dave.

Finland for Thought - American talks about the Finnish system and Finnish news. Outsider perspective plus life philosophy which is quite far apart from mine. Again, helps keep perspective and keeps things on my radar that I wouldn't otherwise. You know about the thing about reading only things that please you? That's excellent way to round up in cocoon and miss some important things.

Jyrki Kasvi - My representative in the Parliament. Green but has brains. While this is off topic, I'm often annoyed by people who complain but don't offer solutions. This one has his feet on the ground and actually understands modern technology. Alas, this is so rare I have to mention it..

Katuoja - Finnish comics/meta-blog kept by my...associates.. and which is very well written. Wish I were half this good.

Life in Silico - Exellent when it (1) updates and (2) doesn't talk about coding. And I'm not saying this because I count Vlad as my friend, and not just of the internet-variety.

Paleo-Future -A blog about past visions of the future. Very charming. Like everything else made in the past decades, even futures age and grow old. It's amusing, charming and somehow so innocent.

Peter David - Book/comics/telly/what-else author. Has sometimes pieces of information on the site that fall under "good to know" category.

Rajatapauksia - a blog by culture reporter of Helsingin Sanomat. Fantasy and scifi as seen in comics, games, novels, music etc.

Retromania - a blog by reporter of Helsingin Sanomat. About past futures.

Teräsmies elää - a Finnish blog about Superman. Updates seldom, but when it does it is very good. The texts handle like engineer's blueprints, which is very amusing.

The Beat - Comics news site, which updates (1) too often and (2) with information I don't need. On feed because sometimes it hits gold.

Town of Ponte Corvo - blog about the politics of Israel, mainly. I disagree with the author regularly but he writes and argues well, which is something that's always welcome.

No links because writing this on laptop and adding them is a nuisance. Hope you can manage without. If I have readers, might they do similar listing? It's always nice to know what other people read..