A Forest on the Edge of Helsinki: Spatiality in Henrika Ringbom’s Novel Martina Dagers längtan

Abstract

The contrast between the city centre of Helsinki and the city’s forested suburban periphery is a key source of tension in Martina Dagers längtan (“the longing of Martina Dager”), a 1998 novel written by Henrika Ringbom. The novel is notable for the careful way in which it transforms the cityscape of downtown Helsinki into a somewhat deurbanized version of itself, a fact accomplished by removing the main thoroughfare of the city, and replacing it by a river. Ringbom uses her compositional abilities to create a fictional universe that is specific to this novel, but that nonetheless resembles what the Helsinki area actually looks like on the map. This is not the most dramatic alteration imaginable of the physical map but it has a clear effect, at least to readers familiar with Helsinki. The novel’s settings oscillate between the centre and the periphery of the Helsinki region as the protagonist, searching for a change in her life, becomes increasingly attracted to the forest on the fringes of the capital.