Finland Gets the Message

Viimeiset Viestit
(The Last Messages)
By Hannu Luntiala
332 pages, Helsinki: Tammi, 2007 (in Finnish)

Open almost any guidebook to Finland, and you’ll encounter the boiled-down definition of Finnish culture known as the three Ss: sauna, sisu, and Sibelius. Sauna and Sibelius are clear enough. Sisu, which is most often translated as "guts," has a deeper meaning: the ability to encounter any adversity, whether man-made or wrought by nature, with an upending inner strength and unrelenting patience to overcome that challenge.

Add "cell phone" to that list, and you’ve got a complete cultural stereotype of modern Finland. Like most Europeans, Finns are avid text messagers. Finland is, after all, home to Nokia, the world’s largest manufacturer of mobile phones. The first commercial text message was sent in Finland in 1993, and today Finns are fond of doing everything from buying tram tickets to taking out loans via cell phone. And now, it appears, even writing books. In a very modern twist on the epistolary novel, Hannu Luntiala, a Helsinki-based civil servant, in his second book, has produced the world’s first novel composed entirely of text messages. Viimeiset Viestit (The Last Messages), which debuted in Finland in January, is a voyeur’s peek into the life of an ordinary man who puts himself in an extraordinary situation to ease human suffering.

When we first meet Teemu Jokela, a Microsoft finance executive, he’s already on the lam. The book takes place in 2005, over a two-month period following the Indian Ocean tsunami. We never learn the complete details of what happened or how he did it, but one of Teemu’s last acts before leaving the Finnish division of Microsoft was to embezzle 4 million euros to hand out to tsunami victims. In an interview, Luntiala says he was inspired to write the novel from an experience he had in his twenties while traveling in Sri Lanka. While waiting at a train station, he watched a blind man beg for change. After getting a small bank note, the man went inside the station to buy some steamed rice, which he hungrily ate. The mundane exchange was a momentous moment for Luntiala; he says he realized in an instant that for those in the West, everyday life is pretty simple. But for that man, and countless others like him, getting that small amount of money was a matter of living or dying.

With the scant outline Luntiala metes out in roughly 1,000 messages, all we can do is color in the details with our imagination. What little we do know of Teemu and his sisu comes from the tapping keypads of his inner circle. He’s middle-aged, particularly fond of red wine, cigars, and jazz. He’s been in an eight-year relationship with a teacher named Heidi, who has a young daughter, Anna. He has a son, a business-school student named Joonas, with whom he is quite close, and a sister, Liisa, who’s going through a painful divorce. We witness Teemu’s 84-year-old mother, Kaisa, sluggishly learn to text message. But he also continues to communicate with other friends and colleagues, including Rokka, a former coworker who is privy to Teemu’s white-collar crime. Says Rokka, in a message:

We all have a little
criminal inside us.
It’s just a matter of chance
if it stays a secret,
or if it comes out.

The Last Messages is a snapshot in time of Finnish language and culture. Joonas enthusiastically texts his father the details of the ice hockey championships, and Rokka sends Formula One updates. But Luntiala’s book is, at heart, a travel guide. As Teemu crisscrosses the globe, we tag along through his life — the ephemera, and the big-picture moments as well. We follow him through Stockholm, Amsterdam, Paris, Kuwait City, and Colombo, Sri Lanka, where he meets an assortment of money launderers and charity organization representatives, among others. When Teemu crosses borders and changes operators, we track his movements, getting welcome messages from hotels and boarding details from airlines. While Teemu is away from home, life in Finland continues at a dizzying pace. Authorities are catching on to his scheme, his son is falling in love, his sister’s marriage has fallen apart, and his girlfriend’s mental health is rapidly disintegrating.

But the details of life catch up to Teemu, even as he completes his 20-year dream. We learn early on, in a message from Heidi, that Teemu is probably dying of what appears to be lung cancer. As the book progresses, so does his disease. We get only glimpses of his suffering. He visits clinics at various checkpoints to get morphine, and in Colombo, he even has a three-day blackout. Teemu isn’t likely to return to Finland. He’s a dying man on a mission to do one last good thing. Heidi doesn’t comprehend that Teemu is not returning until nearly the end of the novel, where they say their goodbyes, and exchange "I love you"s.

The final glimpse into Teemu’s life is a message from Air Kuwait inviting him to check in via his mobile phone for a flight back home. Although Luntiala says we don’t actually know if Teemu makes it back to his family and friends, it feels at least like he is headed that way. His body has finally failed, though, even if his spirit has not. In a message that must be Luntiala, the bored civil servant, living vicariously through Teemu, he writes:

A good deed has come full circle, and what was given is now returned 1000 times over to the giver. My soul is at peace, finally.

Though the plot is intriguing, the medium in which it’s written and the questions that are raised through writing it in this format are far more so. The underlying theme of the ephemeral quality of a message, and a life, comes through loud and clear. The impact one has on the world is short and fleeting, and not many of us have the chance to make our mark. Can a person’s life be reduced to 160-character chunks? The Finns seem to think so. Luntiala’s work has generated intense media interest there, and throughout the world.

Luntiala clearly has done his sociology homework. Although text messaging is a worldwide phenomenon, and the theme is universal, the book in many ways is unique to the Finnish experience. Finns are generally very private and respectful of others’ personal space. Text messaging, which is less intrusive than a phone call and quicker than an e-mail, may be the perfect medium for the tech-savvy but reserved Finns. Perhaps only they have the tenacity and patience to text a loved one for two months without succumbing to making a single phone call, as Teemu does in The Last Messages. In some cultures, that would be real sisu.