Book review | The actor known for the Aikuiset series wrote the best art student novel in years

Novel

Mikko Kauppila: Greetings K. Teos. 224 pp.

Debut writers prejudices about them include the fact that they have studied writing at Kriittisnes högälä and wrote a novel about a literature student who resembles them as a coursework there. Also known as an actress Mikko Kauppila is an exceptional debut author in that he fulfills these conditions.

Today, first-born books are more sensitively considered to be autobiographical than before Best regards K is not. Therefore, the publishing house has to state in the press release that, unlike the main character of the work, the author has not suffered from anorexia.

At the same time, the author’s connection to the theme is emphasized on a general level. Kauppila “has thought about corporeality, representation and identity both in her work as an actress and while studying gender studies at the University of Helsinki”.

It is undeniably great that the topic has been thought about when writing the book.

Protagonist K is a freshman student in a city very similar to Turku. He thinks he sees his childhood friend P on the bridge that crosses the river, which is very similar to the Aura River, to whom he then starts writing – even traditional paper letters!

It remains unclear whether they will ever be read, and ultimately whether P even exists.

The main thing in literature is that speech is created – and in K’s case, speech is harnessed to a sufficiently multidimensional use, so that the book can always be read from new perspectives. The epistolary novel is a traditional genre, whose antiquarian charm Kauppila skilfully uses to its advantage.

Considering the assumptions, student novels appear relatively rarely, good ones even less often. Facing a cliché, challenging prejudices by writing a debut book that conforms to assumptions – that kind of thing takes a lot of effort.

Without history, i.e. as a mere description of the present, the student novel almost inevitably fails, but one of the genre’s traditional strengths is the voracious reading, the direct engagement with literature.

Greetings to K can be read topic-oriented, as a case report about anorexia and always, but especially now, about current student nausea. However, the book takes off only when a familiar whisper starts to be heard from behind K’s own voice.

Well, that’s where a line of great loners of literature hold their own monologues: Dostoevsky Raskolnikov and Cellar trap lodger, by Knut Hamsun I’m starving unnamed protagonist, Kafka’s K, known from the novels, after whom Kauppila has had the trouble to name his lonely student parka.

The illness affects K’s written expression in many ways. In the beginning of the novel, he puffs up and paints an open picture of his successful studies and relationships for P, but the balloon soon bursts and towards the end, after visiting the department and running away from it, even the words written by K begin to wither beyond recognition.

With these snacks Best regards K emerges as the best new art student novel since Katja Raunio Make it all happen -of the firstborn (2015). It helps here that the main character of the book has the ability to be annoying, nagging, lying – even when sick, unsympathetic and difficult to identify with in every way.

The desire to please is a first-time author’s worst enemy, and this work has almost none of it. Or it is, but the author has become aware of it and done something interesting with it.

From the very beginning, the novel does not convince, because in terms of its writing style and its main character, who turns from modern information chaos into obsessive behavior, Kauppila is very close to the late Miki from Liukko. The effect can be seen in the details and the way you taste rare words.

K has a columnar hernia as a houseplant, and he spends his time like this: “When I’m not reading or doing muscle conditioning exercises in the corner of my studio, I might — watch the Biathlon World Cup on a streaming service.” The color of the bullet is also noted: anthracite.

It takes a bit of reading time before the after-Miki fades away and Kauppila can handle it as an independent author. But it has been expected that an author like Liukkonen will leave a big mark on literature. There is nothing wrong with that, especially if the influences are channeled into such successful works.