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Pirkko Lindbergin romaanin Berenikes hår monitulkintainen dystooppisuus

• Hanna Samola Tampereen yliopisto

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30665/av.74917

Abstract

An Expedition to the Eternal Night. Pirkko Lindberg’s Novel Berenikes hår as an Ambiguous Dystopia

This article discusses the possibility to read Pirkko Lindberg’s Berenikes hår (2000) as a dystopian novel. I compare the novel to the genres of feminist and critical dystopias, which often combine elements of both the utopian and the dystopian traditions and depict multiple realities instead of drawing a static blueprint of a society.

At first Berenike, the protagonist and narrator of Lindberg’s novel, writes in her small room in a mental hospital. One midsummer night she travels to a faraway city called Nadir. There she lives in the display window of a brothel, luring clients. At the beginning of her stay Berenike finds the place to be a fulfilment of all her dreams: finally she is adored for her beauty. After a while she begins to see the horrors of the city, and in her writing Nadir changes from a utopian dream to an oppressive dystopia. In my reading the novel combines conventions of classical, critical and feminist dystopias and utopias. It depicts a strictly guarded and isolated city and a totalitarian and hierarchical society in which an individual must give up her privacy and personality. However, the elements of laughter as well as the hopeful ending challenge the interpretation of the novel as a traditional dystopia. I see Lindberg’s novel as a critical feminist dystopia, which criticises both society and the conventions of utopian and dystopian writing and allows room for hope in the story world.