Ulla-Lena Lundbergin Marsipansoldaten sotaromaanina ja ruokakuvauksena

• Suvi Lahtonen

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30665/av.74919

Abstract

War and Food in Ulla-Lena Lundberg’s Novel The Marzipan Soldier

The article discusses the tradition of the Finnish war novel as a genre, its renewal and the role of food as one of the motifs for this renewal. The Finnish war novel has been a relatively rigid genre, but it has gradually changed as new authors have introduced previously ignored topics and perspectives. One such perspective, the depiction of civilian and home front experiences of war, was prominent in Finnish war novels published in the 1990’s and 2000’s, and forms a contrast to the older, “traditional” documentary war novels, which were based on authentic experiences of war and battle. In Ulla-Lena Lundberg’s novel The Marzipan Soldier (2001) the abundant descriptions of food serve as an homage to civil society and its survival as well as a reminder of the pleasures of youth and private life in the ideologically charged times of war. The novel thus incorporates metafiction and ambivalence in the genre of the Finnish war novel. However, food is depicted as an element of the grotesque, a common mode of narration in “traditional” Finnish war novels, which indicates that The Marzipan Soldier also preserves the traditions of the genre.