Culture|Book review
Maria Mustranta’s novel is a skillful and observant account of the ruthlessness of motherhood.
Novel
Maria Mustranta: Mother’s role. WSOY. 285 s.
Four years then I read and judged the Danish Naja Marie Aidtin mourning book If death has taken something from you, give it back. Carlin’s book. It told of a mother’s brutal grief after her own child died in an accident. I had never read anything like it.
Maria Mustrannan The role of the mother is akin to that novel: direct, declarative, undisguised. The works are united by a ruthlessness that is specifically related to the mother’s part.
It should be revealed that now the child does not die, but demands a lot from the mother. Often far too much.
Mustrannan in the novel, single mother Laura lives with her nine-year-old son Pyry. Pyry starts with symptoms and gets uncontrollable outbursts of rage, especially at school.
It is difficult for him to respect authority. The mother receives Wilma messages, treats at school, seeks help and diagnoses her son.
Skillfully and addictively, Mustranta develops the plot and reveals details of Laura and Pyry’s past lives. Laura has a background in prison and is now studying to be a laboratory analyst.
Pyry has been in the care of her grandparents during her mother’s imprisonment. The boy’s father has not been involved in life.
Because Pyryn it is difficult to control his feelings, friendships are challenging for him. That’s why companionship with the son of career-minded politicians Rafael feels relieving at first.
However, that friendship turns out to be some kind of double-edged sword. Laura often finds herself in a situation where she wonders if friendship is more detrimental than beneficial to her child.
As the boys ’friendship builds, Laura becomes friends with the whole family and they spend time together, even on holiday in Italy – generously funded by Raphael’s wealthy family.
Raphael’s mother, Mirella in particular, becomes an important mirror for Laura. The different attitudes of these two women towards their children’s symptoms are one of the interesting topics in the work.
Mustranta’s skill, however, is that he does not oppress any moralization. This is also true of Laura’s prison history. When the reason for the verdict becomes clear, the reader does not want to judge Laura either.
These two women from different social classes emerge as multidimensional people and do not hide their weaknesses. On the other hand, they are not underlined either.
The pattern is addictive with exciting twists, the descriptions of the elite gimmicks are also interesting when told from Laura’s point of view. The men – the fathers – are some kind of background characters in the novel: elusive parenthood, left-handers or fugitives, still objects of desire.
The role of the mother raises many painful and difficult questions to consider:
How long does a mother have to stretch because of her child? How long do you have to be on your child’s side? How far can one go in sacrifice? Who does sacrifice serve? How to see your own child, growing up in your own body, completely separate from yourself? And even more brutally: in an extreme, save yourself or your children?
Every mother at every time in every corner of the world has to answer these questions with her own actions and choices. Without full certainty as to where each individual choice will lead.
The novel hits time. There are currently many Finnish families with children who have symptoms in some way. The situation of children and young people in the Helsinki metropolitan area is particularly alarming. The queues for assistance are too long.
It cannot be the case that the welfare of children is left to mothers alone. Maria Mustranta’s novel therefore also has an important social message: mothers are not left alone.
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