Prime Minister secretly pleased with portrayal in novel
|
|
|
By Jaakko Hautamäki
Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre) chose an extremely calm style when he commented on Jari Tervo’s new novel Koljatti (“Goliath”) in the main square of Karkkila, where he was doing a little campaigning for the re-run municipal election. In the book Vanhanen is portrayed as a prime minister by the name of Pekka Lahnanen.
In Vanhanen’s view, people depicted in the book are probably “silently pleased” that they had been “given the honour”.
In Tervo’s book, Lahnanen hates journalists. Journalists in Karkkila were wondering how the Prime Minister can be pleased with his portrayal as a sex maniac who is keeping a professor of women’s studies imprisoned in his cellar.
In his answers , Vanhanen took refuge in the fact that he had not read the book. However, he was not at all flustered by any of the questions.
On the contrary. The Prime Minister was all smiles. He walked among the Centre Party people, shaking hands like Barack Obama, even though the main topic of the event was the municipal election in Karkkila.
Laughter came easily to Vanhanen, as it was in Tervo’s book: “I spontaneously leaned my head back and let a loud laugh come out.”
He is also known for this habit in real life as well.
The Prime Minister’s rapid answers appear to be very carefully practised, and if Vanhanen was upset, he managed to keep it a perfect secret.
“I will not be a book critic”, he said.
“Tervo is, after all, a tried and tested storyteller.”
The reading experience with Tervo’s work will wait until next summer, as he says that he even reads his detective stories in the summer.
Helsingin Sanomat offered him a copy of the book to glance at. Vanhanen gave out a laugh, and said that he would refrain from marketing the book.
And did the description of a quick bout of lovemaking in the checkout line at Lidl with bags of crisps strewn on the floor have some repercussions?
“I haven’t read the book. Tervo says that this is a story, and a story is a story.”
Vanhanen asked if Lahnanen’s residence in Nurmijärvi, his teetotalling, and his unexpected rise to the post of Prime Minister were also a story.
“Better ask the writer.”
As the Karkkila audience looked on, Vanhanen said calmly, that “in a democracy, those in power are always targets of satire”. “It is the sign of a healthy democracy”, he added.
Vanhanen has experience about going to court over a book. This time no such courtroom events will be seen.
Also appearing in the novel is a character based on Minister of Economic Affairs Mauri Pekkarinen (Centre Party). Pekkarinen said in Helsinki that he has not read the book.
Possible reactions to the book will be forthcoming from the minister only after it has been read.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 5.9.2009
Helsingin Sanomat
|
| 8.9.2009 - THIS WEEK |
 Prime Minister secretly pleased with portrayal in novel |
|
