Impact
The book is considered a classic in Finland with print runs into hundreds of thousands. Even most of those who have not read the book recognise the opening words "In the beginning there were the marsh, the hoe - and Jussi".
The second book in the trilogy, The Uprising, generated considerable controversy over its portrayal of the Finnish Civil War because, for the first time, a novel was published that was sympathetic (on human terms, not politically) towards the Reds. Up until then, all history on the Finnish Civil War had been written by the Whites. Under the North Star played a crucial role in starting a discussion in Finland over what really happened in 1918 and in healing decades-old wounds between the two factions.
Read more about this topic: Under The North Star
Famous quotes containing the word impact:
“The question confronting the Church today is not any longer whether the man in the street can grasp a religious message, but how to employ the communications media so as to let him have the full impact of the Gospel message.”
—Pope John Paul II (b. 1920)
“One can describe a landscape in many different words and sentences, but one would not normally cut up a picture of a landscape and rearrange it in different patterns in order to describe it in different ways. Because a photograph is not composed of discrete units strung out in a linear row of meaningful pieces, we do not understand it by looking at one element after another in a set sequence. The photograph is understood in one act of seeing; it is perceived in a gestalt.”
—Joshua Meyrowitz, U.S. educator, media critic. “The Blurring of Public and Private Behaviors,” No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior, Oxford University Press (1985)
“Too many existing classrooms for young children have this overriding goal: To get the children ready for first grade. This goal is unworthy. It is hurtful. This goal has had the most distorting impact on five-year-olds. It causes kindergartens to be merely the handmaidens of first grade.... Kindergarten teachers cannot look at their own children and plan for their present needs as five-year-olds.”
—James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)