Tervaksinen toteemi. Kalle Päätalon Iijoki-sarjan vastaanotto ja vaikutus

Abstract

Tervaksinen toteemi on pitkään odotettu ensimmäinen Kalle Päätalon tuotantoon liittyvä väitöskirja.

Omaelämäkerrallinen romaanisarja ja massiivinen lukijakunta toimivat harvinaisen täydellisinä vastinpareina Kalle Päätalon (1919 – 2000) Iijoki-sarjan (1971 – 1998) vastaanotossa. Iijoki-sarja syntyi tarpeesta ja tarpeeseen. Päätalo sarjoineen jakoi suomalaisia kahtia: puolustajiin ja vastustajiin. Se aiheutti julkista keskustelua.

Väitöskirja Tervaksinen toteemi keskittyy Iijoki-sarjan vastaanottoon ja vaikutukseen. Tutkimuksen aineistona ovat sarjan ilmestymisajan kritiikit, lehtikirjoitukset ja lukijakirjeet. Keskeisin teoria on lukijan valokeilaan asettava reseptioestetiikka.

Tutkimus tuo kiinnostavalla tavalla esille tavallisten lukijoiden ja kriitikoiden erilaiset arvottamistavat, makumieltymykset ja kontekstisidonnaisuuden. Se kuvaa ristiriidan asteittaista lientymistä kirjallisuusinstituution sisältä päin ja yhteiskunnallisen kontekstin huomioiden. Lukijoiden ja kriitikoiden sarjalle antamat yhteiskunnalliset ja yksilöpsykologiset merkitykset saivat kompensoida sarjan esteettistä merkitystä.

Kirjallisuuskäsitykset muuttuivat ja kritiikin normit väljentyivät jo 1980-luvulle tultaessa. Se auttoi kriitikoiden ja lukijoiden odotustasojen lähentymistä. Median ilmiöksi ja lukijoiden fanittamisen kohteeksi muuttunutta menestyskirjailijaa sarjoineen ei voitu enää sivuuttaa. Tutkimus havainnollistaa myös median kasvavaa vaikutusta kirjailijan julkusuuskuvaan ja vastaanottoon.

Tutkimus syventää tietämystä 1900-luvun kirjallisuuspoliittisista rintamista ja kirjallisuuden yksilökohtaisista ja yhteiskunnallisista funktioista Suomessa. Esimerkiksi suuren muuton kokeneet lukijat hakivat ja saivat sarjasta viihteellisyyden lisäksi myös keinoja sopeutumisongelmiinsa ja elämänhallintaansa. Sarja toimi heille kotouttajana ja vertaistukena.

Tervaksisessa toteemissa kuvattu Iijoki-sarjan värikäs vastaanoton historia on osa suomalaista kirjallisuudenhistoriaa.

Ritva Ylönen: Reflections of an Austere Monolith: The Reception and Influence of Kalle Päätalo’s Iijoki Series

My study is an analytical examination of how literature critics and readers have received and been influenced by the Iijoki series (1971–1998), a collection of 26 autobiographical novels by Kalle Päätalo (1919–2000). My research material consists of book reviews, media interviews and articles on the Iijoki series, and readers’ letters to the author, all ranging from the 1970s to 1990s. From the research material, I identify the individual psychological and societal meanings and values that critics and readers have assigned to the series in different contexts over three decades. I analyse and interpret the changes, differences and conflicts in reception by critics and readers, and also focus on discovering the causes for – and consequences of – the various receptions the series received.

My theoretical framework and concepts are based on reception aesthetics (Rezeptionästhetik in German), a reader-response literary theory developed in the 1960s by Hans Robert Jauss and Wolfgang Iser. Reception aesthetics highlight the reader and her individual act of reception (concretisation). This theory enables the reader to apprehend the form and meaning of the literary work within the continuing historical process of the work’s evaluation. It also requires the reader to place the individual work within the literary tradition to recognise its contextual literary position and significance.

The reader brings her own horizon of expectation to the act of reception. The horizon of expectation is the interpretative framework the reader uses to understand a text based on her own contemporary cultural codes and conventions. According to reception aesthetics theory, the history of literature does not solely consist of the history of literary works, it also includes the history of horizons of expectation, and the history of concretisations of literary works influenced by these horizons. The reading strategies that I use in this dissertation also relate to the horizons of expectation. I divide the concept of horizons of expectation in two parts: first, the literary horizon that includes literary and aesthetic expectations, and second, the wider socio-cultural horizon that encompasses social, socio-historical and literary institutional factors. This second part also includes the demographic and personal experiences of the reader and her literary competence.

I have supplemented this reception aesthetics framework with concepts derived from theoretical strands of American reader-response criticism and psychoanalytical literary criticism. In addition, I use concepts from sociology and cultural studies, especially Pierre Bourdieu’s theoretical conceptions related to cultural journalism and art criticism, and the concept of generational divisions developed by J.P. Roos. The use of theoretical concepts and tools from various disciplines is merited given the extensive research material, its long time span, and its context- specific nature.

According to the theoretical framework I use, the reader’s reception is a process determined by various cultural and social factors, where time and changing contexts produce changes in reception. These changes provoke new interpretations from readers and critics, as attested in the reception of the Iijoki series.

My dissertation uses both qualitative and quantitative methods. In the quantitative analysis of criticism and readers’ letters, I make use of a three-step categorisation: syntactic (forms of the work of literature), semantic (contents of the work), and pragmatic (relationship between the work, the author and society). In addition, I focus separately on the core values of Iijoki series, namely truthfulness and work ethic. A three-step categorisation is also used in the analysis of attitudes (negative, positive, neutral) and viewpoints (descriptive, interpretative, evaluative).

I use Hans-Georg Gadamer’s method of the hermeneutical circle as the qualitative method. According to this method, interpretation of the whole proceeds from the understanding of the parts, and interpretation of the parts proceeds from the understanding of the whole. This contextual understanding aims at giving as coherent and comprehensive a picture of the study subject as possible. I have used this method at all stages of the research process: in the coding of reception documents, in conceptualising the reading models, and in the conclusions and final thoughts derived from the readers’ and critics’ reception over three decades.

Reception and influence are tied to the context of reading. Therefore, contextualising the research approach has enabled me to use reception and influence to form a coherent and comprehensive picture in which one can see the effects of contemporary social factors, societal and literary historical factors, and the socio-literary factors.

Of particular importance to the models and motivations for reading was the urbanisation of Finnish society brought about by the move from an agrarian to an industrial economy in the 1960s and 1970s. Demographically, the physical and intellectual potential of the ‘Baby Boomer’ generation born between 1945 and 1955 were a major factor behind the massive success of the series, as was the development of literature-related institutions, such as libraries, the expansion of book sales from bookstores to department stores and supermarkets, and introduction of book clubs. Media coverage had an important role in intensifying this success and creating a ’virtuous circle’ that gave birth to the ‘Päätalo phenomenon’. Moreover, it facilitated the establishment and development of a fan culture and the cult status of the Iijoki series.

My research indicates that the Iijoki series resonated almost perfectly with the experiences of its readers, creating a unique phenomenon in Finnish literature. This phenomenon was fed by developments in Finnish society and social, institutional and cultural aspects related to the literary history of Finland, as well as the traits of the author and the Iijoki series. The author’s personality, identity and key life events created a popular series that reflected the readers’ needs. From a contemporary perspective, the style, technique and language of the series seems to have been written with the intention of being addictive reading.

The long time span of the reception enabled me to analyse differences in critical reception and to separate individual interpretations into those typical to their time. As time passed, norms and aesthetic expectations relaxed, literary conceptions changed, the values of literature diversified, and expectations became more varied. In addition, the reading models of critics and readers converged. These conditions triggered the development of new expectations of the Iijoki series. Simply for its extra-literary merits, it became impossible for critics to stay silent about the Iijoki series. Even though it is impossible to find an exact category and definition for the Iijoki series within literary tradition, the feature-rich history of its reception has become part of Finnish literary history.