Anssi Sinnemäki: Kritiikkien kritiikki / [A Critique of Critiques] (an essay collection)

 

Anssi Sinnemäki: Kritiikkien kritiikki / [A Critique of Critiques] (FI 2025). Cover art from: Lyubov Popova: Архитектоника / Painterly Architectonic: Black, Red, Gray (1916), oil on canvas.

Anssi Sinnemäki : Kritiikkien kritiikki ja muita kritiikkejä / [A Critique of Critiques and Other Critiques]. 260 pages. Soft cover. ISBN: 978-952-411-096-9 (printed). ISBN: 978-952-411-097-6 (pdf). Helsinki : Kulttuurivihkot, 2025. Day of publication: 10 Oct 2025.

OFFICIAL:

"Anssi Sinnemäki on valpas lukija, joka löytää teosten piileviä piirteitä ja yllättäviä merkityksiä. Teoksen nimi perustuu kirjoitukseen ”Kritiikkien kritiikki, eli muistokirjoitus dynastialle”. Siinä pohditaan vasemmistokirjallisuuden etujoukon nousua ja hiipumista sodanjälkeisessä Suomessa.  Yli 60 vuotta kirjallisuuskritiikkiä harjoittaneen ja yhä aktiivisesti harjoittavan Sinnemäen näkökulma asettuu usein esteettisen ja ideologisen rajankäyntiin, kirjallisuuden ja politiikan kentän vuorovaikutukseen; pääpaino on kuitenkin esteettisessä arviossa. Kritiikin polttopisteessä ovat usein kaanon ja reseptio, kritiikin särmät ja sivuvaikutukset, ja mitä kritiikin kautta voi ilmaista, eikä vain ilmaista vaan myös saada aikaan, hyvässä ja pahassa."

"Anssi Sinnemäki on kirjailija ja filosofian maisteri, jonka ensimmäinen kirjallisuusjuttu ilmestyi Helsingin Sanomien ”Nuoressa Hesassa” keväällä 1964."

"Teoksen artikkeleista valtaosa käsittelee suomalaisia kirjailijoita Aleksis Kivestä Juha Seppälään ja Aulikki Oksaseen ja kotimaisia kriitikkoja Anna-Maria Tallgrenista Pekka Tarkkaan ja Helena Ruuskaan. Kriitikko saattaa pahimmillaan vaientaa kirjailijan, mutta Anna-Maria Tallgrenin tapaus kertoo siitä miten kriitikko vaiennetaan. Viimeisen osan painopiste on moraalikritiikissä ja kritiikin moraalissa, aivan viimeisenä kartoitus otsikolla ”Vielä kerran Alice Munro”."

"Kritiikki on oma instituutionsa kirjallisuuden kentässä. Kriitikon sananvalta on sidoksissa kentän voimasuhteisiin - ja kriitikon ammattitaitoon. Kritiikin ja kriitikon asema on jäänyt median kumouksen jalkoihin. Käytössä olevat foorumit ovat keskittyneet, huvenneet tai hukkuneet printtimedioiden lakkautuksen myötä verkon syövereihin. Kritiikin vapaus yhä ahtaammissa oloissa ei voi toteutua."

"Kritiikin kriisi on eksistentiaalinen. Yksi vastaus on ottaa käyttöön vanha kunnon julkaisualusta: painettu kirja, jonka kauniiden kansien välissä on hyödyllisellä ja huvittavalla tekstillä täytettyjä sivuja. Käyttäkää hyväksenne!" (official introduction)

AA: In Finnish and Swedish, like in French, German and Italian, there is no distinction between the words "critique" and "criticism". Anssi Sinnemäki's book is about literary criticism, but there is also a more general and profound dimension of critique.

Before reading, I thought that Sinnemäki's book might be a reflection on Tomas Forser's Kritik av kritiken [A Critique of Critique] (SE 2002), a modern classic of Nordic literary studies, theoretical textbook and thorough overview on the metamorphosis of literary criticism in 20th century Sweden (with excursions into Denmark and Norway). It is also an account of the downfall of criticism since the golden age of the 1960s through the 1980s.

In a way Sinnemäki's work is such a reflection, but the meaning of his title is more serious: that of a miscarriage of justice. A critic has power. Finnish literary history knows instances in which a critic has crushed a talented writer's work, including books that have since been recognized as the greatest classics. This can be a matter of life and death. With power comes responsibility. 

Sinnemäki has discussed these issues in all his books: Kapina rippituolissa (1989), Pyhät paikat (2007), Vastakirja, eli, miten lapset syövät vallankumouksensa (2011), Sota Kentästä ja kasarmista (2014), Trifonovin syndrooma (2017) and now Kritiikkien kritiikki.

Half of the book is devoted to the rehabilitation of a single critic, Anna-Maria Tallgren (1886-1949), une grande dame, a bold and original talent with a cosmopolitan perspective and a special passion for French culture. In 1934 she edited her magnum opus, a Golden Book of French Literature, including many key writings in Finnish for the first time. Tallgren was not afraid to speak out about aesthetic blunders of men who were on their way to become pillars of the cultural establishment such as V. A. Koskenniemi and Huugo Jalkanen. With pioneering investigative research Sinnemäki shows how they and their networks carried out a revenge by blacklisting and cancelling Tallgren from her prominent position in Finnish culture. An open streak of misogyny was involved. The injustice continues even after Tallgren's death. Her reputation in Finnish literature history, including her Wikipedia entry, is still stained by the wrath of her vengeful enemies.

A huge red thread in Sinnemäki's work is fatherlessness. His book The Trifonov Syndrome discusses the traumatic history of the Soviet Union through the family saga of the writer Yuri Trifonov (1925-1981), whose Old Bolshevik and Red Army veteran father was murdered in Stalin's purges in the 1930s. His mother survived the Gulag. In that book, Sinnemäki also offers an extraordinary encyclopedia of fatherlessness among writers. I have never read anything like this in any language. Sinnemäki is exploring an immensely rich and rewarding territory.

In A Critique of Critiques, Sinnemäki returns to a favourite writer of his, Paavo Rintala (1930-1999), whose father died in the Winter War, now via one of his critiques of critiques, on Juha Seppälä's book Reading Rintala. Both critics focus on a key long story, "Eino", with new interpretations. The theme of fatherlessness deepens again. Seppälä and Rintala bonded in a way in which Sinnemäki sees Seppälä turning into a surrogate son for Rintala, who was a father of four daughters.

In two essays, Sinnemäki contributes to a self-criticism of Finlands leftist intelligentsia in the 1930s and the 1970s. These are valid and important texts, and I hope the debate continues because I miss key perspectives necessary for comprehending the fuller picture.

The final essay is "Farewell to Alice Munro". Finns have been fond of Alice Munro since the early 1980s, and many critics, including Sinnemäki, have written perspicaciously about her. 

When Munro died in 2024, her youngest daughter Andrea Skinner revealed that her stepfather Gerald Fremlin had sexually abused her for years since she was nine. Having learned about the abuse, Munro separated from Fremlin for a while but then returned. The abuse was known to many, including Munro's biographers, but kept secret.

The 2024 revelation was a lethal blow to the reputation of Munro, the Nobel laureate. Her books are avoided now, people remove them from their shelves, her name is seldom mentioned. Also Sinnemäki shares the distaste.

I'm thinking about Marcel Proust's Contre Sainte-Beuve. For the mighty French critic Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve (1804-1869), the writer equals the work. Sainte-Beuve would have cancelled Alice Munro. 

For Marcel Proust, the writer is a different "I" than the dandy who carouses in the nightlife of Paris. Proust would have embraced Alice Munro (as a writer). Art must be evaluated as art. This is also the lineage of New Criticism. 

My opinion is that Alice Munro's biographies need to be revised with the new devastating knowledge. Sexual abuse in families is more common than publicly acknowledged. Discussion about it is desperately needed. This prominent case can help spread awareness. But the value of Munro's work is unchanged.

The best of us can be the worst.