Avain 4/2010

A B S T R A C T S
Modernism, Everyday Life, and Kolme vuorokautta
The novel Kolme vuorokautta by Sinikka Kallio-Visapää appeared in 1948. This was
almost ten years before the breakthrough of modernist prose in Finnish literature is
thought to have occurred. The novel can be read as an early pioneer of modernist
prose, one that also challenges the understanding of post-war modernism. Kolme vuorokautta
exhibits a number of modernist characteristics, including metafictionality and
a striving towards an autonomic aesthetics. On the other hand, the characters and the
plot of Kolme vuorokautta conflict with modernist aesthetics.
The most interesting aspect of Kolme vuorokautta involves the problematic of
everyday life and art. In the novel, very strictly depicted everyday life plays a major part.
Yet art, which has nothing to do with everyday life, is presented as the most significant
thing in the lives of the characters in the novel. Kolme vuorokautta aims to give the
impression of autonomy as an artwork. It has a small circle of characters and most of
them have no history – and even the music played by pianist Sylvia refers to an autonomic
aesthetics. Kolme vuorokautta also borrows its structure from music – the novel’s
structure is compared to a fugue. Although the structure appears to be fragmented, the
plot actually remains important to the novel. In the figure of Sylvia, the novel presents
the question of the possibility of being a woman, an artist, and a mother at the same
time. This is a question that has often been ignored in later modernist Finnish prose.
Jasmine Westerlund
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