Abandoning the Untrustworthy Risk Society: Salvage and the Critique of Modernity in Laura Gustafsson’s Post-Apocalyptic Novel Korpisoturi

Abstract

This paper examines Laura Gustafsson’s third novel, Korpisoturi (Wilderness Warrior, 2016), as a work that combines conventions from both the mimetic and speculative genres. I suggest that the novel begins as a rather conventional psychological novel and a depiction of an “ordinary Finn”, but the realist reading is challenged when a cataclysm occurs in the form of an international trade embargo against Finland, and the conventions of the post-apocalyptic novel and survivalist fiction begin to dominate the narration. My main argument is to claim that Korpisoturi makes use of two genre conventions of the contemporary post-apocalyptic novel: salvage and the critique of modernity, even if some of the critique of modernity is communicated through the protagonist’s psychological development and thus the psychological novel. I also argue that despite Ahma, the protagonist, being a literary character, his psychological development resembles that of real-life American survivalists who adopt a self-sufficient lifestyle because they consider postmodern risk society untrustworthy.