gd bye. its not u, its me :(

GERARD CERLES/AFP

In yet another example of the unexpected consequences of technology, the text message may be evolving into a literary form. Finland, land of Nokia and reindeer, has just produced the world’s first novel written exclusively in text messages.

The move should not be a surprise, however, as the nation’s leaders have been exploring the emotive force of the medium for some time. Last month, Finnish Prime Minister Matti VanHanen broke up with his girlfriend by text message. The jilted lover was able to exact her revenge through more traditional media—by spilling to a tabloid.

The break-up made big news in the frosty land of over 5 million people. VanHanen had once been dubbed Finland’s sexiest man by that great European arbiter of taste, Jacques Chirac. At the time, moreover, the PM was taking his turn as EU President. So, while the text of the message itself has not yet been made public, some bespectacled academic poring through archives in Brussels decades hence may yet stumble upon the PM’s thoughts about the exchange in a journal Van Hanen kept at the time, “out of a sense of duty toward historical research.”