Iida Sofia Hirvonen: Voittajantunti
| published in: | 2025 |
|---|---|
| read on: | 2025-11-17 |
| language: | Finnish |
A millennial art critic wanders in the night in Kallio.
The critic should be writing an album review for the final print edition of the pop culture magazine VISAGE. Instead, they go out and party with people that aren’t quite close enough to be called friends.
It’s a one-day story about a cast of characters who work in the creative field and who take part in the Helsinki scene.
I had high hopes for the book but it fell flat for me. Undoubtedly the characters and the situations are based on careful observation. However, despite living in the Greater Kallio area, I’m neither a creative nor go to night clubs. The book references classic rock a lot, but I’m not even a rock fan. I just didn’t have many flashes of recognition or moments of “it really do be like that sometimes”.
The most recognizable character was Mika, the prodigy turned into a drug dealer. I spent my youth getting to know prodigies and it really do be like that sometimes.
Like in her first novel Radalla, Iida Sofia Hirvonen’s use of language is excellent. She writes in ironic Internet style with the just right amount of typos and English words mixed into Finnish. The book makes fun of certain sorts of breathless ads, music journalism, and social media influencing by turning it to the max, and reading that stuff makes you feel like you’re taking psychic damage.
“Ilahduttavaa. Tervetuloa vähän elävöittämään tunnelmaa”, Ceppo tervehti. Cilmät cepposen celällään.