The only real change is the character of Lehto in Sotaromaani he was a psychopath, in The Unknown Soldier he was a battle-hardened grunt.Īnd now: on to reviewing the book itself. An “uncensored” version of the book was published in 2000 (In Finnish, not English) under the name Sotaromaani (A War Novel, Linna’s working title), revealing that some of Linna’s critique of the officer corps and the often quite coarse language of the common soldiers had been removed in the original (though much of the so-called censorship seems to have been standard editorial changes and removal of tautology). The final sentence has also been removed due to cold war sensibilities.
Native Finnish speakers do not consider the translation to be faithful to the original Finnish in that in the original the various characters speechs are written in dialect, different characters come from different parts of Finland and so this adds depth to the Finnish version. Which brings me to some comments on the English translation (and I paraphrase from various Finnish sources here as I’ve only read the english translation, I’m still struggling with the finnish-language original): while “The Unknown Soldier” is a great novel, apparently the english translation is faulty, with scenes removed and added for unspecified reasons, and (also, based on comments in Finnish reviews) the translation is stylistically misleading as well. Linna’s lack of greater renown internationally probably reflects the obscurity of the language he happened to write in: Finnish, as well as the poor translation of this great novel into English. Linna’s other major work, the “Under the North Star” (Täällä Pohjantähden alla) trilogy, a historical family saga, is more widely known, easily available in English, and shares a few scenes and one major character (Vilho Koskela) with “The Unknown Soldier.” Under the North Star was voted by Finns as the best example of Finnish writing of the 20th century (the title, incidentally, was borrowed from a popular song by Johan Fredrik Granlund). It has been translated into 17 languages, filmed twice and is universally regarded a classic of Finnish literature. In Finland, a country with just over five million people, it has sold over 450,000 copies (the book is Finland’s all-time best-selling novel). The Unknown Soldier (Tuntematon Sotilas), first published in 1954, was author Väinö Linna’s (1920-1992) first major novel and, whilst almost unknown in the English-speaking world, is, in Scandinavia, widely recognized as among the greatest novels of the twentieth century. The Unknown Soldier (Tuntematon Sotilas) by Väinö Linna
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