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CRC BLOG on
DEEP RIVER by Karl Marlantes:
“And the Greatest Sisu, Love”
“You can’t
love an ideal. You can only love
people.”
Kyllikki
speaking to her sister-in-law Aino.
DEEP RIVER Page 533
The 717-page literary novel DEEP
RIVER by Karl Marlantes explores the lives of Finland immigrants in
Kokkola, Finland and America’s Pacific Northwest between 1893 to 1969. The main
focus is on the Koski Siblings: brothers
Ilmari and Matti and their sister Aino.
Ilmari
is the first to migrate to Washington State in 1897 when he takes advantage of
the Timber and Stone Act, and settles next to the fictional Deep River (below, red dot), which
is modeled after the Naselle River. Matti
joins his brother in the summer of 1904 and his older sister joins her brothers
in 1905.
The greatest triumphant character of all
is the spirit Sisu, which is the main core of Finland’s culture and values.
Wikipedia defines Sisu as being a “grim, gritty, white-knuckle form of courage that is
presented typically in situations where success is against the odds. It
expresses itself in taking action against the odds and displaying courage and
resoluteness in the face of adversity, in other words, deciding on a course of
action and then sticking to that decision, even despite repeated failures. It is a term for going beyond one’s mental or
physical capacity.”
Sisu oftentimes finds
itself neglected and embraced by its characters in Deep River; but the one
character who doesn’t grasp Sisu deeply enough is Aino. Aino has plenty of courage, determination,
hard work, sacrifice, hope, and even faith in her fellow human beings who are
socialists, but the one thing she seems to lack is love and the capacity to
feel that love.
Aino’s first love is her radical teacher Jarvinen, who, in September of 1901, gives the 13-year-old
a copies of The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels; and Reform
or Revolution by Rosa Luxemburg, which she reads with relish. Soon, Aino identifies herself, to
the horror of her Christian parents, as a socialist who wants to become the
next Rosa Luxemburg. Aino blames every
negative thing that happens on capitalism, which includes organized religion
and marriage.
That doesn’t prevent
her from falling in love with fellow socialist Oskar Penttila/Voitto and becoming
a member of Voitto’s own violent revolutionary party, the Finnish Active
Resistance Party. She is later arrested for treason
and sedition and sent to prison for sixteen days. During those sixteen days she is tortured,
beaten, and brutally raped by a line of men with a stool. But something else happens during those
sixteen days – something she can’t tell anyone about; something she can never
forgive herself for. When she gets off
the train her mother Maijaliisa is waiting to greet her.
Maijaliisa winced when she pulled Aino’s head against her chest;
her headscarf was covered with wet spots.
Maijaliisa pulled it back, exposing bald patches, oozing fluid where
skin had been torn away with hair. The
Okhrana’s notorious “goose-plucking.”
Page 60.
Almost immediately, at her
mother’s urging, Aino joins her brothers in Washington State near the Columbia
River. Her brothers are shocked: they no
longer recognize their sister Aino, but a stranger, who earns her keep by
working for the lumber company’s kitchen and midwifery, which she learned from
her own mother while in Finland.
This stranger
refuses to surrender to any emotion, thought, idea, or feeling unless it is for
the socialist idea, which she campaigns, writes, gives speeches, passes red
cards out, and travels abroad for. She
gains fame in newspapers by being on the front lines of the socialist movement
particularly the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
Soon she is a success and could
be compared to the famous Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. She is also the hated enemy
of the labor bosses, business owners, and capitalists who all call her a “Red Wobbly”
and “Red Whore.” She finds herself
persecuted, arrested, beaten, and imprisoned by those who do not support fair
wages, fair hours, and fair conditions for enslaved workers.
At first this reader feels compassion for Aino,
but then views her no longer a victim of her trauma but a victim of her own
prison she builds – a prison that does not allow her to experience what it
means to be a complete mature human being – one who is able to make herself
vulnerable in order to love and to be loved.
There are numerous times throughout DEEP
RIVER where family members try to talk Love Sisu into her but
nothing seems to make her embrace love.
It’s as if she is brainwashed and only has the capacity to feel whatever
is required for her to feel in order to make the socialist movement go forward
–nothing less and nothing more.
And she does this at the expense
of denying the existence of any God; denying time spent with her family which
includes missing her brother’s marriage; sacrificing her two marriages;
sacrificing the life of her unborn child; sacrificing her own daughter Eleanor;
and practicing the art of deliberate recklessness when it comes to her own
being, where she is beaten, arrested, and imprisoned numerous times. And all of this is for the idea of socialism
with her being fully encased in the Sisu of hate, anger, and fear.
But where is the Sisu of
love? Or as Paul says in 1 Corinthians
13:13: And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest
of these is love. This part of the Sisu seems to have escaped
Aino or is something that Aino refuses to allow to secrete her heart.
Her family never gives up and the one family
member who is persistent in trying to get Aino to embrace love is Aino’s
sister-in-law Kyllikki Saari, Matti’s wife.
Kyllikki has been patient with Aino, supporting her throughout the years;
but when Aino tells her that she is going to another IWW event, Kyllikki responds
in anger first by slamming her fist on the table and telling Aino she is making
a big mistake.
“You need a kick in
the rear.” Kyllikki leaned across the
table. “You have a child and you almost
lost her. And you want to leave her
again?”
Aino bristled. “I’ll send for her as soon as I’m settled.”
“Aino, you might
find this hard to swallow, but sending for her isn’t the issue. Putting her second is the issue.”
Page
532
Aino ignores Kyllikki’s advice
and travels to Portland, Oregon, where she convinces the workers from the
sawmills near the Willamette River to attend the upcoming Armistice Parade,
which turns out to be a disaster.
She then travels to Chicago where she works at a
bakery and continues her work with the IWW, helping the Cleveland Shirt and
Dress workers strike. On May of 1923 the
crowds are more intense than normal and she finds herself being hit with rocks
and then arrested by the Chicago Police and placed in the Cook County jail
where she finally takes Kyllikki’s words seriously.
She promised
that if she ever got out of this alive, she would put Eleanor and her family
first.
Page 576
Aino returns to Deep
River and begins a relationship with her true love – a fellow
immigrant from Sweden and the same baby boy whom her mother delivered, saving the baby and the life of his mother.
The two lie on Aino’s bed, fully clothed, side-by-side
and confess their love for one another.
It is here that Aino shares with him what happened those sixteen horrendous
days when she was in Finland arrested, imprisoned, beaten, tortured, and
raped. She also reveals to him her secret of what else happened during those sixteen days - a secret she not dare utter until now. Then her true love reveals his own secret
– a secret so devastating that it just might have killed whatever love Aino
finally allowed herself to feel – for
anyone. Aino kicks him out of her room
and the two do not see each other for months.
This time Kyllikki visits Aino’s home and stands
by her side. Will she be able to
convince Aino, once again, that love is the greatest Sisu there is?
CRC BLOG on
DEEP RIVER by Karl Marlantes:
That doesn’t prevent
her from falling in love with fellow socialist Oskar Penttila/Voitto and becoming
a member of Voitto’s own violent revolutionary party, the Finnish Active
Resistance Party. She is later arrested for treason
and sedition and sent to prison for sixteen days. During those sixteen days she is tortured,
beaten, and brutally raped by a line of men with a stool. But something else happens during those
sixteen days – something she can’t tell anyone about; something she can never
forgive herself for. When she gets off
the train her mother Maijaliisa is waiting to greet her.
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