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environments – and the sense of space – sensitivity for the space – that he develops over the
years. Carpelan tries to free himself from systems of abstract concepts and instead
approaches an outlook on life and a language that starts from the relationship to the
environment that is closest to hand. In the light of this thesis the epithets “poet of the
room /space” (Bror Rönnholm) and “dream architect” (Horace Engdahl) seem apt for
Carpelan’s distinctive character as a poet.
What the emphasis on space in Carpelan’s writings brings to the fore is the question of
whether the descriptions of surroundings in literature often have several functions and
meanings other than to serve as a background for an actual event. What Carpelan’s
method of describing and accentuating surroundings also brings to the fore is whether the
descriptions of the environment in, for example, literature, photography and film affect us
more than we believe?
The boundary between the invisible and the visible appear in all the chapters in the
thesis and emerges as a clear and central theme in Carpelan’s writings. In Carpelan’s
writings, reality is concrete and simple, but at the same time invisible and intangible.
Reality is a kind of secretive script that people can learn to read but that never allows
complete interpretation. People are surrounded by an all embracing fascinating theatre
where everything is simultaneously extremely simple and extremely mysterious.
Everything is exactly what it is and yet nothing is as it seems to be. In such a world it is
difficult to judge what is more real – the invisible, fantasy, the dream or the visible and
concrete around us that we call reality. Human beings, the poet, the smallest things, even
the words in our language are equipped with masks. When reality appears like a huge
theatre, two paths are offered to those who do not want to only enjoy sitting in the
audience: to try and see through the facades and masks and reveal the underlying and
actual reality or to partake in the drama and sustain the veiling of reality. What does
Carpelan do?
Carpelan chooses both ways: both to unveil and veil reality. The path of exposure is the
serious and heavy route that seeks the fundamental being behind appearance and that,
therefore, is constantly confronted with the finiteness of life and death. The other way is
the way of veiling. It is the lighter route – the way of laughter, play, illusion, masquerade,
fairy tale, fantasy, enchantment and dreams. If the consciousness of death gives life’s
moments their value, so it is this way that breaks up the linear nature of life and creates
an illusionary instant where death is absent. It is this path that gives life its ease.
Experiences of lightness and heaviness and light and dark are, in the end, weighed
against each other. Life’s simplicity and clarity seem like a kind of balancing point
between veiling and unveiling. Clarity is alleviating, yet weighty, to face up to, since it is
inseparable from an insight into the finiteness of life.
The request to learn to see is ultimately about learning to be curious and fascinated
when faced with the world. What does it involve that the insignificant and everyday
things can appear as signs? In the end it involves the fact that the entire world bears
significance. There is a deep knowledge and assurance in the present, in the humble and
the self evident. It is this unnoticed here and now that Carpelan carefully tries to uncover
I have concentrated on in the title of this thesis, The Architecture of the Invisible.
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Translated by Elizabeth Nyman