Mielensäpahoittaja

Mielensäpahoittaja (Finnish for ‘a person who always gets upset’) is a fictional character created by the Finnish author Tuomas Kyrö. This man writes letters to the editor of various newspaper, full of complaints about all kinds of things. He basically has the attitude that “everyone is entitled to my opinion.”

Originally his complaints were heard on the Finnish radio, interpreted by actor Antti Litja. Later his writings have been published in Finnish in two books and also in Helsingin Sanomat from the Christmas of 2010 until the summer of 2012. The letters read by Antti Litja are available on CDs.^[1]

The language used by Mielensäpahoittaja is characterised by a creative use of the Finnish word “kyllä” (‘yes’), such as in the opening phrase of virtually all of his contributions, “Kyllä minä niin mieleni pahoitin…” (‘I certainly got myself upset and all worked up…’), and in expressions such as “kyllä en” (‘I certainly don’t’) tai “kyllä ei/kyllä ei ole/kyllä ei ollut” (‘it certainly is not/was not’), where the word kyllä is virtually impossible to translate. It is not used to express the affirmative, but rather as an intensifier.^[1]

Mielensäpahoittaja is a cranky old man of roughly 80 years of age, and he is from Häme, as his dialect is a variant of the Tavastian dialects. He lives in the countryside, which he calls Sysi-Suomi, another expression virtually impossible to translate. (Suomi ‘Finland’; sysi ‘black or dark as coal’.) His home is somewhere to the west of Lake Päijänne, more or less equidistant from the nearest cities and towns, which appear to be Lahti, Tampere ja Jyväskylä, at 300 kilometers from Helsinki, although that would place him slightly to the north of Jyväskylä and into the area of the Savo dialects, which is clearly not where he lives. In his dialect, /d/ (which in Finnish is the weak grade of /t/) is replaced by /r/, such as in the word “rikdaattori”, in which, however, one can also notice a hypercorrect /d/.^[2]

Mielensäpahoittaja began his complaints when his doctor had told him to he had to change the way he lived, meaning chiefly his diet. However, against his doctor’s advice he made no changes in his diet, but instead got “into an honest habit of complaining”, and then asked “if my levels are where they ought to be? Well, they certainly are.”^[3]

At first the people who had to listen to his complaints were his missus and his only friend, Yrjänä (a Finnish variant of the name George). Now he lives alone in his home, because the missus lies in a ward in the community health center and will never be able to come home again. He has no friends, since his only friend Yrjänä is dead, “…and there’s nothing wrong about wondering if I had any other friends. Well, I certainly didn’t, since it was clear I never needed another friend,” he says. Since he has no one at or near his home to listen to his complaints, he has to do with writing letters to the editor, to various newspapers about which no details are given (apart from the stories that appeared in Helsingin Sanomat during 2010–2012).^[3]

He has a son and a daughter-in-law who live in a city 300 kilometers away (most probably in Helsinki), but he does not really get along with them. It happens for example, that “I certainly got myself upset and all worked up when my son invited me to his place for Christmas.” The daughter-in-law does not have a proper respect for the potato, and she causes the father-in-law to get upset by serving turkey for the main Christmas meal, instead of Christmas ham.

Mielensäpahoittaja gets upset about things in everyday life as well as domestic and world events. He has devoted several pieces to the Swedish Royal House and monarchy in general, and the dictators of North Korea have had their share of his criticism.

When it comes to things in his native Finland, he believes that for paying the television licence fee, he is entitled to seeing Finnish athletes winning Olympic gold medals. Concerning the year 1972 and the Summer Olympics in Munich, he says, “That was when the TV licence fee still worked. Lasse Virén and Pekka Vasala both won.” His favourite programmes on the TV would be provincial relay races in cross-country skiing, if they were broadcast, as he says was the case in the 1960s.^[4] Of the people in power he criticises the Finnish Prime Minister, who has told his fellow countrymen not to give money to beggars. “The very same man who never runs out of tarts and baked potatoes.”^[5] Likewise he criticises the Finnish members of parliament and members of the municipal councils, because they have decided that people of his age are exempt from the upcoming reform concerning sewage in the countryside. “You people in politics and in our municipal administration, are you so stupid that you think that everyone over 68 years of age is lacking of means?”^[6]

Books

• Mielensäpahoittaja. Helsinki: WSOY, 2010. 130 s. ISBN 978-951-0-36626-4 (hardcover).
• Mielensäpahoittaja ja ruskeakastike. Helsinki: WSOY, 2012. 130 s. ISBN 978-951-0-39079-5 (hardcover).

References