No, I'm not talking about Sirkka Mertala but Susan Ruusunen/Kuronen. Read the book yesterday. My intention was not to read it but as the court sentenced Kuronen, I just had to know what is it that makes privacy more important than freedom of speech. And what did I find? Lots of detailed descriptions on the Prime Minister's penis, more detailed descriptions of kinky sex, S/M, "I'm your bitch, Susan!", water sports, gender bending... not. What I did find was poor language skills, a typical story of a failed relationship and a text in serious need of an editor (who had apparently been high while proofreading if that ever even took place). Let's justify these.
The language really is bad. I kept fighting the urge to get a red marker pen and correct all the spelling mistakes (there were some), grammatical mistakes (a lot of those, especially incomplete sentences), stylistic mistakes (even more) and the colloquial language (that really annoys me). Also, punctuation does not seem to be the strongest side of whoever is responsible for the final draft that goes out for printing. Examples:
Exhibit A for bad structures (would be good exercises for pupils to try to rephrase them into readable sentences): "Tarja Virmala kirjoittaa: huomiotalouden uhrit, otsikkona on: kohtuutonta että pääministerin rakastumisesta rangaistaan niin rankasti että joutuu koko kansan saaliiksi, tässä on lyhyesti: jos minun pitäisi valita ajanko haisevaa roska-autoa vai siivoanko ravintoloiden ruokottomia vessoja vai soitanko Susan Kurosen entiselle miehelle kysyäkseni onko pääministerin nykyinen naisystävä hänen mielestään suurennuttanut rintojaan [she has now...], valitsisin auton tai ruokottoman vessan; olen ajanut kuorma-autoa ennenkin ja tottunut penskana maalla monenlaisiin lemuihin, siivous- ja roskien keräily ovat kehnosta arvostuksestaan huolimatta säällisiä ammatteja ja erittäin kiitettävää työtä, siinä jos missä näkee työnsä jäljet." (s. 124)
Exhibit B for grammatical mistakes: "Sain vastauksen; [should be ':'] tuo oli tapahtunut ennen kuin olimme edes tavanneet." (s. 36)
Exhibit C for colloquialisms: "Minä olin että mitä?!!" (s. 19)
Exhibit D for 'someone needs to boost this woman's sense of self: "Matti sanoi minulle esimerkiksi hammaskorustani, että onkohan se kovin sopivaa enää keski-ikäiselle naiselle. No, kävin poistattamassa sen, kylläkin vasta kun hän oli jättänyt minut." (s. 18)
I'd say the book reveals mainly things (and thus invades the privacy) of Susan herself.
Exhibit E: "Minä taisin olla vähän aktiivisempi, ehdottelin kainelaisia uusia juttuja. Mattikin innostui, mutta ainakin yksi minun fantasiani jäi lopulta toteuttamatta. Matilla nimittäin on juhlasalissaan ehkä kahdeksan metriä pitkä ruokapöytä, ja minä olisin halunnut rakastella sen päällä, ihanissa alusasuissa ja korkeakorkoisissa saappaissa." (s. 62)
The text is clearly been recorded and then transcribed into the text. This shines through the colloquialisms and the wordings. In the second section (a compilation of paper clips of the stories written about the relationship and Kuronen herself with her comments on the stories) it is actually said in the beginning that the text is colloquial due to "challenging schedule (read = hurry) and that this way the reader really hears Susan's voice". As Exhibit A shows, the voice is that of an unorganised person and needs to be shifted into readable text.
And then the structure. The sloppy editing aside, the structure is unchronological. In my opinion, a 164-page book does not need a contents list in the beginning (the three section could easily have been dealt with in the preface). If it is absolutely necessary to keep the ½ to 4 pages per subtitle why not write them so that the actual contents beneath the title match the title! Jumping from one thing to another just confirms the recorded/transcribed theory. Vanhanen's text messages seem to be thrown in merely on the basis on when they were sent as they don't really add to the actual text or event at hand. This confirms the sense of sensationalism this book has.
As for the actual story... I don't see what the fuzz is about. Somewhere around 50 pages to the story I no longer thought about it being about the prime minister, more I thought of any ordinary person being involved with a high profile politician and the troubles this brings. All in all this might actually (I'm on a good mood) be useful for the rest of us to have one prespective on how the media constructs the image they choose to display and how the media works in a situation like this.
The way Vanhanen appears in the story does not boost my confidence in his actions. The pension reform was enough to break it altogether already and his engagement to Mertala appears a cheap media trick. But I have agree with Annamari Sipilä: if the prime minister doeasn't have the guts to tell frankly where he met his girlfriend but instead makes up stories that are even relatively easy to see through, how can we as citizens trust that this tactique is not employed to state matters? And in the end I also have to agree with Kuronen: Vanhanen's attempt to draw a clear line between his privacy and his public job doesn't work. Therefore also the sentence given for this book is in my opinion unjust. Or what would you say is a prime minister's ex-girlfriend wrote a book about the relationship and got sentenced as a result? Sounds very China/Russia/some-other-country-with-issues-on-freedom-of-speech to me.
