Mitä sähkö on (What is electricity) is a collection of short stories by Juha Seppälä. The stories do not follow the general structure of short stories: there are no real surprises in the end. The value of the stories lies in the language and in the bright observation of life, humanity, and human relationships.
In the best of the stories, Mitä sähkö on itself, an electrician tells about his profession. The electrician who work with high voltage lines have almost religious attitudes towards electricity. It is an untamed, fierce and unpredictable force, with which the electricians take no risks. Instead, for they (and we) do not know the electricity, they have developed rituals, which they use to keep them alive. They also wonder how little we non-electricians know about and care for the electricity supply, how we take it for granted, and how easily the supply may break down. When it breaks down, when electricity does not come to us any more, we will be in the dark, helpless as children.
The novel reminds the reader of the important work engineers and technicians do to keep us warm, fed, and healthy. Also, the reader realizes how for granted even our top politicians take electricity, and how the day of darkness may well be caused by neglect, not malice.
It takes quite an author to write such a deep short story. The story should be translated and published in other electricity dependent countries.
28.01.2007