“All about the tangible survival”
“Melancholy escapes no one in the Raattamaa Viséns family chronicle”
“To call Pia Mariana Raattamaa Viséns Where flows a river through the Saivomoutka village novel, with its freedoms and fantasies, feels not quite right. Rather, it is a terrestrial, almost sociological redogörande family chronicle. Self she calls it simply ”a story about a place”.”
“Saivomoutka is located far up in Norrbotten in the Mouniälven, which is a tributary to the Torne river and forms the natural border against Finland. Came here in the mid-1800s, Juhani Raattamaa wandering with another young man, who wanted to create a better future. They cleared and opened up the land for a new village, wrote to the king and got the ground and the forest around that kronomark.”
“They built a common pörte, put the potatoes and a little barley on myrängarna, hunted, fished and sold the skins and wood, in order to get money to kronoskatten.”
“Soon came the women through the woods with a few cows. Juhani became also a preacher and one of Lars Levi Laestadius top employees.”
“the Chronicle of the family Raattamaa, divided in the crucial year, follow Juhanis the son of Israel’s family, his children’s upbringing in the village. They own the reindeer, but are not sami, talking tornedal Finnish but lives in Sweden. But the location by the river is their home.”
“And this being, through the dark, cold winter nights, short cheering smältvattensvårar and myggiga short dygnsljusa summers gets into a story, mainly about the manual labor and hand versatility, of the necessary material survival. Focus and empathy is usually on Israel’s talented wife Maija, who gives birth to all eight children at home, milking the cows, picking cloudberries and cranberries, bake and take out of the game, siken and harrarna and it management so important renköttet. “
“When Maija becomes a widow, already at fifty, she gets up extra cash with a large laundry which she washes in ice-cold river. She kardar and spin yarn, weave rugs and knit, she takes on to clear the intestines at the renslakten and forces the daughters to help. “
“All the kids brought up strictly to arbetsduglighet.”
“The something summary krönikeformen allows little room for interpersonal dramas, or individual dreams. It also feels as if the author has taken great consideration that it is their own she portrayed, which makes the ever-fascinating story a bit förnumstig sometimes. It is far to Sara lidman’s whistles.”
“But no one can escape the strong melancholy that is found in this chronicle, in fact the passage of time and the obeveklighet. The modern development of the village, where people obtain cars and build two-storey house is flipped too soon to settlement. And Maijas children, who early on began to tear at the forest, in the mine, in the expansion of roads and the northern water power forced almost all move south to get a job.”
“Maija sell their two cows, the first in 1976, 81 years old. Her three unmarried sons, returning aged to childhood home in the quieter village where the school closed down and the deal. They hit myrängarna, clearing in the forest and await retirement on the Ams-contribution and sickness allowance. When they are gone, it is just Maijas daughters and grandchildren make a sommarbesök.”
“Where flows a river through the Saivomoutka village”
“Pia, Mariana Raattamaa Visén”
“Albert Bonniers förlag”