SUURI ILLUSIONI (a novel by Mika Waltari)

Suuri illusioni (The Grand Illusion). A novel by Mika Waltari, originally published in 1928. Reprint (Porvoo: WSOY 1968) with a new foreword by the author, acknowledging the inspiration of Michael Arlen's The Green Hat (1924), filmed as A Woman of Affairs (1928, with Greta Garbo). Michael Arlen was the model of the author Michaelis, the first, not sufficiently satisfying lover (skilful but not orgasmic) for Connie Chatterley in Lady Chatterley's Lover (also 1928). I had never read Waltari's first novel before, but now I enjoyed the urban poetry, the passion for modernity, the love of Paris and the Jazz Age romanticism of the 20-year-old author. The deadly earnest flirting with decadence sounds amusing from a latterday perspective. This must have been hard to swallow for the adult Waltari, but his first novel is a vital testimony of its age.