Miscellany: Suvanto Scenery

The most interesting aspect of Maile Chapman's otherwise overly-formulaic and derivative Scandinavian novel Your Presence is Requested at Suvanto is the setting. While the story and characters strike me as Chapman's attempt to channel Russell Banks channeling Woody Allen's Interiors channeling anything by Ingmar Bergman channeling Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain she manages to evoke the Finnish landscape enough to make me wonder what this place really looks like.

The Karelian Isthmus, where the novel takes place, turns out to look a lot like the northern states of the American Midwest - Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota. But among these untamed lakeside forests, a much richer architectural past is hidden.

Enjoy the scenery. A lot of this land is now part of Russia.



Lake Vuoksa - Courtesy of Dmitri A. Mottl, 2009.



Perovka River - Courtesy of Евгений Адаев, 2008.



Viipuri Wyborg Round Tower - Courtesy of Merja, 2010.



Loincloth in Lappeenranta - Courtesy of Finbar_Mad, 2004.



Olavinlinna - Courtesy of Jussi Hellsten, 2010.



Boat Houses - Courtesy of Miguel Virkkunen Carvalho

Katherine Noel, reviewing the book for the New York Times, on the other hand thinks Chapman's premise is quite original.