Eeva Lennon, Lontoo (a memoir)

Cover photograph by Inge Morath, courtesy of Magnum.

Eeva Lennon: Eeva Lennon, Lontoo. Hämeenlinna / Tallinna: Karisto, 2018, 399 p.

Peter Lennon: Foreign Correspondent. Paris in the Sixties. London: Picador, 1994. 220 p.

It is not surprising that memoirs of journalists are page-turners and easy to like. But it is rewarding to discover journalistic memoirs that grab something of the essence of great turning-points of history and convey key experiences in vivid detail.

We are celebrating this year the 50th anniversary of "the crazy year 1968", and I have been watching remarkable cinematic overviews such as L'Île de mai (Michel Andrieu, Jacques Kébadian, 2018) and Le Fond de l'air est rouge (Chris Marker, 1977). However, Frenchmen are so deep in the middle of their reality that there is sometimes a case of "not seeing the forest from the trees".

Foreign correspondents can be helpful. In Finland, Eeva Lennon has been active as a professional since the 1960s, "a perfect stranger" first in France, and, since the 1970s, in London. Married to an Irishman, the Dubliner Peter Lennon, who was a correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, among others, they were at once insiders and outsiders, deep in the cultures they were covering, raising their children both in France and London, yet always foreigners in the best sense: curious, willing to understand and translate events to their respective audiences.

Eeva Lennon's French background extends to the time before her birth. Her mother worked at the Finnish Embassy during the legendary 1920s in Paris. There she met her future husband who studied at the military schools of France. From Eeva Lennon's memoirs I keep discovering important facts and details that are not generally mentioned in French sources. Such as that during the sexual revolution of the 1960s France was reactionary, sexual segregation was severe, and males and females were strictly separated in universities. During the "summer of love" of 1967 France was left behind. Sexual frustration was a driving force in the 1968 revolution in France.

The 1960s in France were a decade of wars and revolutionary situations, and Eeva Lennon's and Peter Lennon's memoirs give an engrossing overview. We tend to forget how inflammatory and turbulent the Algerian War was with its dangerous aftermath. The Algerian War was the birthplace of modern terrorism, still undiminished. The Lennons have not forgotten the police brutality, either, which they witnessed at close range.

In England Eeva Lennon has followed the development from Harold Wilson to Theresa May. Also here she gives insights which I don't remember having registered in British sources. Eeva Lennon states that in the early 1970s trade unions of England were weak, much weaker than for instance in Germany and in the Nordic countries, and their weakness was the reason for their sometimes wild and reckless actions. The already weak trade unions were brutally crushed by Margaret Thatcher who ended the period of Keynesian capitalism and led England back to a much more unbridled Liberalism, with results we all know.

Eeva Lennon remembers with affection how different Englishmen were before Thatcherism. Chapter 17, "We move to London", should be published in English.

Eeva Lennon's book is also a personal history of professional journalism. She has experienced the periods of the greatest turbulences in the media, active in the press, the radio, and television, now working in the digital age. Her comments on the characteristics of the different media are illuminating. As a woman she has always been what we have later started to call a feminist, a fighter for equal rights, in the generation of champions who paved the way.

Having lived abroad almost all her adult life Eeva Lennon has insights about Finland, too, things to which we ourselves are deaf and blind. She states that Finnish literary language is difficult to speak fluently without a written manuscript. Finnish is too pithy, not flexible enough. It is harder to think in Finnish while you are speaking literary language.

The Lennons have been a cultural family, and among their closest friends was Samuel Beckett. Eeva Lennon reports that Beckett made a point of not writing in his native language, because for Irishmen verbal fluency can become a trap. Beckett wanted to make writing more difficult in order to get to the point. He was a minimalist, and writing was about getting to the essence (p. 159-160).

An ideal reading companion is of course Peter Lennon's Foreign Correspondent. It is a startling testimony about the turbulences of France in the 1960s. It is also a cultural treasure trove with encounters with Richard Wright, Sylvia Beach, Nathalie Sarraute, Salvador Dalí, Eugene Ionesco, Catherine Deneuve, Jacques Tati, Alfred Hitchcock, Jeanne Moreau, Buster Keaton, Raoul Coutard, Jean-Luc Godard, and Jean Renoir. Of course we get also the inside story of Peter's own movie Rocky Road to Dublin (1968), photographed by Coutard.

At Eeva's request she was almost completely left out from Peter's memoirs. Now finally we have her story, too, giving us a much fuller picture. A twin story of two foreign correspondents who inspired and complemented each other.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: DATA FROM KARISTO, THE PUBLISHER:
BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: DATA FROM KARISTO, THE PUBLISHER:

Tuotetiedot
Nimeke:     Eeva Lennon, Lontoo
Tekijät:     Lennon, Eeva (Kirjoittaja)
Tuotetunnus:     9789512363162
Tuotemuoto:     Kovakantinen kirja
Saatavuus:     Toimitusaika 1-3 arkipäivää
Hinta:     29,50 € (26,82 € alv 0)
Kustantaja:     Karisto
Painos:     2018
Julkaisuvuosi:     2018
Kieli:     suomi
Sivumäärä:     399
Tuoteryhmä:     tietokirjallisuus
Kirjastoluokka:     99.1 Elämäkerrat. Muistelmat
Kansalliskirjaston asiasanat:     kirjeenvaihtajat, ulkomaantoimittajat, yhteiskuntakuvaus, henkilöhistoria, historia, Iso-Britannia, Ranska, Suomi, Lennon, Eeva

Esittelyteksti

Eeva Karikoski syntyi oman aikansa julkkisperheeseen. Äiti oli Mika Waltarin pään sekoittanut kaunotar, isä Mannerheimin alaisuudessa Mikkelin päämajassa työskennellyt upseeri, sittemmin Suomen Työnantajaliiton toimitusjohtaja. Pikku-Eevan kodissa keskusteltiin usein tuolloisista merkkihenkilöistä, ja omakohtaisesti Eeva tutustui jo koulu- ja opiskeluaikoinaan moniin valtakunnan tuleviin nimimiehiin ja -naisiin: Claes Anderssoniin, Pentti Saarikoskeen, Matti Klingeen, Jaakko Pakkasvirtaan, Elina Haavio-Mannilaan, Katarina Eskolaan. Näyttelijä Elina Salosta tuli Eevan hyvä ystävä loppuelämäksi. Läheiseksi tuli myös feminismi, johon Eeva suhtautui intohimoisesti ja antaumuksella.

Opiskelu vei Eevan Pariisiin, missä hän tapasi tulevan miehensä Peter Lennonin. Pariisin-vuosina hänen tuttavapiiriinsä kuuluvat myös mm. Samuel Beckett, Pentti Holappa ja Kalevi ja Irene Sorsa. Päivänpolitiikka tuli tutuksi Eevalle, sillä hän oli alkanut tehdä juttuja Yleisradiolle, mutta siirtyi pian Uuden Suomen kirjeenvaihtajaksi, kunnes palasi Yleisradion leipiin muutettuaan Lontooseen. Öljykriisi ja Irlannin kriisi, jättiläisinflaatio ja muut 1900-luvun jälkipuoliskon melskeet, kuninkaallisten kuulumiset, poliittiset ikonit Harold Wilsonista Margaret Thatcheriin - kaikesta tuosta kuultiin koti-Suomessa, luotettavana kertojana ”Eeva Lennon, Lontoo”.

Eeva Lennonin uskomaton elämä - kokonainen aikakausi poliittista ja henkilökohtaista historiaa - avautuu lukijalle hämmästyttävänä, kiehtovana ja joskus hilpeyttä herättävänä, niin kuin vain Eeva Lennon sen itse osaa kuvata.