Release date is 2025-11-27

Ei liiaksi -- Ruotu-Mari -- Päivällisellä -- Kuvaus Laatokan rantamaalta -- Elämässä ja kuolemassa.

Juhani Kärkkäinen and Tapio Riikonen

"Kotiliedeltä" by Pekka Komonen is a collection of short stories written in the late 19th century. The pieces sketch everyday Finnish life with humor and bite, moving from rustic farce to social critique and urban observation. Early episodes center on ordinary people—Aapo, a hapless farmer bent on finding a wife; Ruotu-Mari, a destitute woman at the mercy of church authority; and a schoolboy watching a boarding-house dining room—highlighting class, custom, and conscience.

The opening of the collection follows three vignettes. First, in Ei liiaksi, Aapo dresses up in borrowed finery, buys a cheap ring and sweets on credit, and, aided by the slick-tongued Sipro Sukkela, goes to propose to Liisa at Liekari; the plan unravels when a neighbor exposes Aapo’s poverty and the family withdraws. Next, in Ruotu-Mari, Simo-setä recalls how he and Mari cut rye for the rector, who treats her harshly, and later, as Mari lies dying, a stand-in pastor refuses to come by boat, arrives without the sacraments, scolds her, and leaves; she dies and is buried with bare rites, underscoring clerical hardness. Finally, in Päivällisellä, a schoolboy boarder describes a lively table of officials, clerks, and actors, the charming server “Mansikka,” and the anxious etiquette of the dining room; when a new, awkward maid appears and serves lye fish, the narrator’s comic unease with city manners comes to the fore. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Originally published: Käkisalmi: M. Lankinen, 1890