What is a person’s mission and lot in this world and this life?
What does one do, and what should or should not one do while life lasts?
Author: Satu Taskinen
Finnish original: Katedraali
Publisher: Teos Publishers, 2014
Genre: Literary fiction
Number of pages: 252 pp.
Reading material: Finnish original, German translation, English sample
Rights sold: Austria (World German), Residenz
Tea has been hoarding for years, and her apartment is stocked. She is leading an isolated life, avoids going out and meeting people. But when her sister Kerstin dies at the age of 37, having suffered from a painful genetic disorder all her life, Tea has to go to the funeral and face not only her siblings but also fundamental questions of life.
The family’s story unfolds slowly: the human relationships, the thoughts, fears, hopes and disappointments, the griefs and emotions. In Tea’s eyes the world repels people: we are no longer wanted here, and nobody wants our input or love. In history and in the news we are but ill-doers, polluters. The predominant feelings in life are guilt, grief and rancour.
Satu Taskinen writes brilliantly, tragically and with tongue in cheek. The reader cannot help laughing and crying at the same time, thinking of all the little things we cling to and call it a cathedral.
“The hoarder’s story makes a magnificent novel. The questions in Taskinen’s second novel are big: what to do, how to live a good life. […] Taskinen’s novels will be characterized as European. It means that they are interestingly un-Finnish.”
– Helsingin Sanomat newspaper
“The stream of consciousness used for the inner monologue, adding to the focus on the mind and on the feelings, make theCathedral a splendid heir of modernist prose.”
– Kaleva newspaper
Author’s website:
http://www.satutaskinen.com/de/
Also available:
Children (2017)
The Perfect Steak (2011)
About the author:
Satu Taskinen