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hanna Pylväinen’s fascinating novel The End of the Drum Time reveals the world of the Sami – who with their herds of reindeer inhabit the northern regions of what are now Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia – as they coexist and clash with the Scandinavian missionaries and settlers during this stormy time. Lars Levi Lestadius, who plays a central role in this story, is a historical figure, a Lutheran priest, himself part Sami, who works to convert these nomadic people from their traditional religion and way of life. Pylväinen, who grew up in the American Midwest in a sect that grew out of the Lestatius movement, throws the reader immediately and compellingly into the bitter northern climate, which she makes intimate and familiar through the richness of her descriptions and the honesty of her characterization.
“Mad Lasse,” as the minister is known for his fervor, tries to wean his parishioners away from the evils of alcohol introduced by the Swedish settlers. His daughter Willa falls in love with a young Sami man, Ivvar, who is himself the son of an important figure in his community, Bietar. In a sense, the novel is a Romeo and Juliet love story: one in which entire cultures, not specific families, are at odds. Pylväinen, who spent six months living with Sami reindeer herders in Finland to research this novel, grounded this opposition in the lives of her characters. When Willa’s younger brother, Laurence, is deathly ill with what appears to be consumption, a Sámi healer, Old Susu, comes to care for him, performing her traditional services while the family recites the Lord’s Prayer: “Wila said it with them, but she could I have not said where she was in the prayer, which line was next.’
When the Sami leave the settlement with their reindeer—migrating along with the animals on which they are interdependent—Willa leaves with them and is swept into a new life: “Sometimes she wanted to cry with the relief of a reprieve from the parsonage… smoky indoors, the fear that her life has always been known to her. Through her external gaze, the reader sees Ivvar and his men: what they have lost and what they are trying to hold onto against impossible odds. In 1852 the border between Norway and Finland/Russia (as it was then) was closed, disrupting the patterns that humans and reindeer had followed for millennia. Ivvar tells Willa the stories that have been passed down to him of the communication between man, beast and earth, and he also tells her about the destruction caused by the aliens – how the Christians took away the drums of the noaids or shamans. “They burned the drums or brought them into their homes and put them on their walls, I don’t know. The time before that we call drum time. The time after that we call when the reels had to be hidden. The end of drum time.’
Pylväinen evokes all these lives with great depth and power as the novel moves inexorably toward its brutal climax. She creates tension through her atmospheric language, but also through her understanding and sympathy for the landscape and people she portrays. She said this novel grew out of the work she did for her first novel, We Sinners, a contemporary look at the Laestadian sect; her commitment to her material is evident in every line.
The End of the Drum Time is reminiscent of Thomas Hardy’s great novels – because Pülvainen understands, as Hardy does, the cost that this transformation imposes, and her writing reflects his empathy for all who came under his gaze. Like Hardy, she depicts seismic shifts in culture and industry in a way that is never heavy-handed, always fully lived through her characters, in their bodies, hearts and minds.
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