Author Pirkko Saisio’s intimate biography is written in a surprisingly you-form. Dramaturg Heini Junkkaala had to distance herself from Saisio to find her own voice and complete the book.
Quite something.
– The first time I saw it, I thought, “Huh! I wonder if the thickness of the book is an obstacle for the reader,” says Saisio.
He says he has previously read online discussions among book lovers who complain about not being able to hold a particularly thick book on their chest before going to bed. And do readers nowadays even dare to fumble for one?
– After all, that object can really scare you, says Saisio.
Many Finns think that the subject of the book is also scary. So did Heini Junkkaala, who covered Saisio’s stories. In the biography, he interprets the fearsomeness as arising from Saisio’s impulsiveness and intelligence, which manifests itself as accurate observations and eloquence. With them, you can easily embarrass your interlocutor.
*I keep hearing that people are afraid of you. I feel a strange sense of pride for daring to do a biography of such a terrifying person. – I’ve been afraid of you too. Also while making this book.*
Known as a playwright and dramaturg, Junkkaala is Saisio’s former student at Teatterikorkeakoulu. Since then, a close colleague and friend, under whose direction the autobiographical plays *Odotus* (2009) and *Liar’s Wig* (2019) that received five-star ratings were born.
Junkkaala is probably the only person who would have gotten Saisio’s consent for the biography. In principle, Saisio was not interested in settling down with his life as someone else’s material, but if \”Heini leaves, then I’m ready.\”
The inconsistency of Saisio, or \”Saik\” as acquaintances call the author, was the thing that made Junkkaala respond affirmatively to the publisher’s proposal.
He wanted to reach Saisio’s worldview and enter it. To understand what kind of things make up a person who does not try to resolve the conflict in himself but lets it be channeled into a large artistic production.
– It is wonderful if a person endures contradictions throughout life and can live with them. That’s what I wanted to focus on and write this book.
Junkkaala says that he also thought about the fact that Finland would perhaps be left without Saisio’s biography if he did not take on the project.
– Oh, you sacrificed! The main character of the book throws and laughs uproariously.
The truth must not spoil a good story
In two years, it will be 50 years since the publication of 74-year-old Pirkko Saisio’s first novel *The Passage of Life*. Saisio’s works and acknowledgments are presented at the end of the book for seven pages: prose, plays, film and TV scripts, role performances and translations of the works.
A long career and a prominent personality guarantee that many Finns have their opinion about Saisio. For some, he is an independent cultural figure, others remember him as a passionate fighter and some as \”you sexual person from TV\”.
In addition to Saisio, Junkkaala interviewed about thirty people for the book. In the interviews, he collected a list of adjectives describing the object. None of them are lukewarm.
*It’s amazing and terribly attractive that a person can be choleric and yet present in a balanced way. Can be emotionally sensitive and empathetic and at the same time devilishly sharp and sharp. All this fits in one person.*
The voice of people who know Saisio and the main character’s story can be heard in the work, but Junkkaala, the author of the book, is responsible for every word and their tone.
Saisio’s mission was to get out of control; to position oneself as material and receive one’s own stories through another pen. It was not easy for a person who has written an auto-fictional trilogy (*Pieni vijjeja jaettava*, 1998, *Vastavalo*, 2000 and *Punainen erokirja*, 2003) and based his artistic production on his own lived life. Saisio says that if checking every magazine interview is \”a terrible process, it’s really hard with a biography\”.
– When you generously tell someone you know about your life, it mixes private confidence, gossip and what you intended to make public, says Saisio.
Junkkaala was given a free hand, but before the printing presses, passages were removed from the work at Saisio’s request to protect other people’s privacy. The book also didn’t end up with such shocking stories, the authenticity of which could not be verified. When Saisio possesses the essential ability of the best storytellers, exaggeration.
*He sure doesn’t let the truth ruin a good story. For him, nothing is as valuable as a good story.*
Saisio emphasizes that the book is not intended to offend anyone and hopes that it will not be treated as a gossip book in the afternoon press. However, he knows that this is what will happen. From *Inappropriate*, you are guaranteed to dig juicy click headlines about, for example, Saisio’s love life, militant past and suicidal thoughts. In public discussion, the whole is easily lost in the way of details.
– That makes me nervous, but the situation is the same for everyone. When talking about biographies, the pattern always repeats itself, Saisio sighs.
The deep meaning of light stories
*Inappropriate* is not a traditional biography that begins with birth and goes chronologically through the stages of its subject’s life. Its shape is made up of fragments that slide forward as a kind of mental image. The book’s twenty chapters contain short fragments of different phases of Saisio’s life, such as his childhood in Kallio, his theater school days and the years when Saisio published books under the pseudonyms Jukka Larsson and Eva Wein.
The use of personal pronouns also makes the biography exceptional. Usually, the biographical text is carried by me or him. Inappropriate use is *you*, which also makes the author visible.
– Finding the shape of you was absolutely central in this process. When I came up with it, I started to know how to write this book, says Junkkaala.
Light and heavy go hand in hand in Inappropriate. The reader finds himself gobbling up the lump like a bag of Saturday candy, alternately tasting tart and sweet.
– I kept asking myself if this chapter tells something new about Saisio. The anecdote could be very small and light. After all, light stories often have a really deep meaning, says Junkkaala.
Junkkaala writes in the preface that Saisio’s stories are often so imaginative that one doubts their veracity even when they are true.
*Why exactly have such dramatic accidents happened to Saisio? Why exactly has he been able to experience many funny quirks, strange coincidences and otherworldly things?*
Compared to the spectacle called Saisio, my own life easily feels colorless. Junkkaala says out loud the thoughts of many when he asks, has Saisio lived differently than him or experienced the events differently than others? Probably both.
Junkkaala comes to the conclusion that Saisio’s life has been hypnotically wild, because he himself has experienced it that way. It has certainly been helped by the fact that Saisio has an enviable ability to become an elf. And the writer’s ability to see even tragic things as comical.
Finding your own voice by distancing yourself
Unsuitable should have appeared a year ago. The publication took longer because the book became more extensive than Junkkaala had planned. The matter was not made easier by the fact that every time the biographer and the main character met, Saisio told more stories.
– Saikki lives life in such a way that there are more stories every day. It’s amazing! He also managed to tell them in such a way that he unintentionally sold them in the book, says Junkkaala.
Junkkaala had to get out of Saisio’s sphere of influence so that he could find his own language and hear his own thoughts.
– I wanted to show that I can do it myself and I can manage it. Don’t worry about it, you multiple Finlandia candidate and winner, says Junkkaala.
Saisio smiles gently at his friend. He gave space to the process and did not criticize the use of the pronoun you, although he admits now that he was startled by it at first. Having seen the danger spots: heavy reading and sentimentality. It was worth trusting. The gangs were avoided, Saisio admits now:
– It’s my book, and it works well.
Writing was enjoyable, because the stories were already in the raw material. Junkkaala’s task was to cut through the clutter, select the things that support the whole and put them together. Checks facts and backs things up in the archive.
Saisio’s most recent novel, *Passio*, published in 2021, had a natural ending.
*Wind. I feel like I’ll never catch you. As I write about your life, you live it more and expand your already extensive production. Another one. This time 732 pages. It took you less to write it than the pregnancy. You are superior.*
Plan: normal life
Saisio’s life didn’t go the way he planned. Growing up in a communist family in Kallio, the first high school student in his family thought he would make a career as a legendary mother tongue teacher or found an orphanage.
– I had planned such a normal life for myself. I believed and I didn’t believe that a black person would become a writer. I found my identity pretty soon, but I was about to get frustrated waiting for it, says Saisio now.
At the age of 20, Saisio felt that his future had been taken away from him when he did not get to the University of Helsinki to study Finnish. After crying for three days, Saisio reluctantly went to the cabin with his parents and went to the sauna alone at night. He plunged into the freezing cold water.
*When you got out of the water onto the dock, your skin tingled. Then something happened. A voice spoke to you: What you thought was for you is not for you. There’s something else for you. Trust that the rest will come and the rest will be wonderful.*
Now that life so far has been covered, it seems appropriate to ask, was it?
– It was. And it came soon. Everything wonderful that you get as a gift must be recognized and understood that this is now what you wished for. It always comes in a different package than you might think.
That book too. A scary black lump.
It’s surprisingly light.
*What kind of thoughts did the story evoke? You can comment on the topic until Monday, October 16 at 11 pm.*