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April 1, 2021
Laura Lindstedt's Playlist for Her Novel "My Friend Natalia"
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Roxane Gay, and many others.
Laura Lindstedt's brilliant novel My Friend Natalia is haunting and funny in equal measure.
The New York Times wrote of the book:
"Sly, intriguing.... The deeper, indeed more layered, mystery is, it emerges, the novel’s chimerical narrator."
In her words, here is Laura Lindstedt's Book Notes music playlist for her book My Friend Natalia:
My Friend Natalia is a novel about a Finnish woman code-named “Natalia.” She suffers from sexual obsessions – or at least that’s what she claims. She begins treatment with an unnamed and ungendered therapist who prescribes a series of writing exercises, around which the therapeutic dialogue revolves. The therapist uses a “layering method” developed in the novel. The method carries with it a lot of art references, including literature, cinema, visual art… and music. I have chosen the following eight pieces directly from My Friend Natalia.
1. ”Oravan laulu” (“A Song for a Squirrel”)
This is a famous Finnish lullaby, composed by Aapo Similä (1891–1972). Every Finn knows it by heart, it has become a folk song. The text derives from Seitsemän veljestä (Seven Brothers) written by our national writer Aleksis Kivi (1834–1872). The book is said to be the first significant novel written in the Finnish language (1870). Aleksis Kivi’s birthday, 10 October, is celebrated as Finnish Literature Day.
To calm Natalia down, the therapist hums this song to her at the moment she’s having a mental collapse. The first and the most quoted lines go like this: “Cosily the little squirrel / Cowers in his mossy chamber; / There no hound, its white fangs baring / Nor the cunning, guileful ranger / Ever discovered the way.” (Transl. by Alex Matson, 1952.)
I have chosen here an old-school version of this song sung by an Estonian baritone Georg Ots (1920–1975).
2. Madonna: “Live to Tell”
The song appears in the novel as a reminiscence of Natalia. It pops up in a chain of associations which link Natalia’s immense agony with a courtroom drama Loved (1997), starring Robin Wright and Sean Penn, a couple at that time. Madonna sings she hopes she lives to tell the secret she has learned, a secret that burns inside of her, until it is told. This is one of the key ideas in therapy as well.
3. Yaël Naïm: “Toxic”
A mellow and purring cover version of ”Toxic” by Yaël Naïm, a French-Israeli singer, (originally performed by Britney Spears). Natalia uses this softporno-ish song – and the following four pieces included in my playlist – as background music for a short movie she shot with her mobile phone. The movie is a reckless execution of an exercise the therapist has suggested to Natalia.
4. Soft Cell: “Darker Times”
“It’s my going-out song,” says Natalia. “I always listen to this when I’m getting ready for a boozy night out.”
5. Juice Leskinen: “Marilyn”
A famous Finnish pop piece, released in 1974. Natalia dances to this song in a seedy bar. The male protagonist of the song expresses his nostalgic infatuation with Marilyn Monroe. This is most probably the first ever Finnish pop song where the onanism is mentioned. Juice Leskinen (1950–2006) said he got the inspiration for the song from a biography of Marilyn Monroe written by Norman Mailer (1973).
David Hackston has made a hilarious translation of the line I quote in the novel: “I always feel best when I look at your chest.” In the Finnish original, this line has no rhyming words. Its humor derives from funny vocabulary.
6. Einstürzende Neubauten: “Was ist ist”
“Collapsing New Builds” is the direct translation of the name of this German industrial band founded in West Berlin in 1980. Einstürzende Neubauten is one of my all-time favourites. As a soundtrack on Natalia’s short movie, this song creates an atmosphere of danger. The violently hacking refrain makes a philosophical claim, which is especially fascinating in the context of fiction: “Was ist, ist / Was nicht ist, ist möglich / Nur was nicht ist, ist möglich” (“What is is / What is not is possible / Only what is not is possible”).
7. Jean Sibelius: Finlandia
Jean Sibelius composed this patriotic symphonic poem (1899–1900) against the Russification of Finland (1899–1905; 1908–1917). Finlandia consists of six tableaus portraying episodes from Finnish history, starting from the mythological Kalevala era. The most well-known tableau is the last one, titled “Finlandia Hymn.” Americans might not have noticed, but Finns did: Part of it was played by the U.S. Marine Band in the 2021 presidential inauguration ceremony of Joe Biden.
In My Friend Natalia, Sibelius’ Finlandia functions as a background music for a gang bang. It takes place in a fancy hotel suite named after the Marshal of Finland Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim who was also our sixth president during World War II.
8. Bob Crosby & The Bobcats: “Big Noise from Winnetka”
The soundtrack of arousing desire, the symbol of which is the Mississippi River: “All you need is a set of drums, a bass and a whistle. Can you whistle, Doctor? The boys in New Orleans sure can! There’s a guy who slaps his fat bass in time with the drums while whistling a tune that really gets my Mississippi moving.”
Laura Lindstedt is the author of Oneiron, winner of the Finlandia Prize--the country's highest literary honor. Her works have been sold in eighteen countries. She lives in Helsinki, where she is revising her PhD thesis.
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