How can you tell a successful writers' conference from an unsuccessful one? By this, I don't mean the 'nice feeling' you get after escaping en masse from a summer downpour into a damp tent, a variety of performance numbers going on until long after midnight or marathon poetry evenings, where the phrase 'one for the road' can be heard just as often on the stage as at the bar. This time I mean the 'official' part of the conference, the panel debates themselves.
     Perhaps the first, somewhat Freudian answer could be: because, at some point during the proceedings, at least one participant will stand up and declare the theme of the conference to be flawed, irrelevant and wholly lacking in interest, particularly from a literary perspective, so that everyone within earshot is, finally assured of the burning necessity of the subject, as someone has gone to so much effort to argue against it.
     Another answer, in many ways related to the first one, might be: because the theme of the conference doesn't in fact mean anything, and so precisely because of this it means everything; because it is general and non-specific enough that every participant can understand it however they wish so that under the guise of this theme they can either talk about something they have always wanted to talk about, or simply talk about the same things they always talk about anyway.
     The Lahti International Writers' Reunion in Mukkula celebrated its 40th anniversary this year, inviting almost ninety writers from over thirty countries to join the philosopher Tuomas Nevanlinna and the writer Juha Siltanen in debating the question: what is holy?
     The majority of the debates were spent sorting out the differences between two different stances – often with a complete lack of common ground. Is 'holy' primarily a restrictive or religious set of rules, or should it conversely be understood on an individual level – as the experience of a greater presence or influence?
     Perhaps it is a sign of our times that 'holy', as a doctrine in itself, was met with rather unanimous condemnation. We have all inherited the Enlightenment, whether we like it or not. The Estonian Jaan Kaplinski, speaking from an ecophilosophical perspective, was one of very few to challenge Voltaire in this respect, as he tried to find at least some good in the balance with nature that came about when the lives of previous generations were confined by strict taboos.
     In another sense, we are also very much the product of the age of Romanticism. In her opening panel debate, the Finnish writer Pirkko Saisio alluded quite explicitly to the logic of German Romanticism. For Saisio, 'holy' is something personal, a unique and ecstatic experience; it is an intensity one cannot consciously strive towards, rather it appears unexpectedly, in a flash, fragmented. Saisio's words came in response to those who had earlier described holiness as being like a ladder of knowledge, something we climb through our inner development, step by step; thus achieving what is holy is a result of one's own efforts and input.
     One of the conference's most memorable debates erupted between Saisio and Veronica Pimenoff, another author at the forefront of women's writing in Finland. The rationalism of the Enlightenment challenged Romanticism head on, as Pimenoff warned us against automatically calling something holy simply because it feels good. She believes that 'holy' is always a social construct which comes about when something within a given society is declared to be holy. Thus everything that is holy in Western society is fundamentally hypocritical.
     Tanja Langer from Germany also spoke with the voice of the Enlightenment as she questioned why some people attached ever greater qualities to the idea of 'holy', when 'holy' itself – or things called holy – are the constant source of so much evil in the world.
     The French writer Dominique Sigaud was even harsher in her criticism of 'holy' and considered the whole subject to be utterly irrelevant as far as literature is concerned. Although it may be argued that both literature and the sacred stem from the same existential source, nonetheless whereas the sacred is something outside the world, literature is very much rooted in the world. Books are not holy, but some books have the gift of grace: the gift of 'seeing and knowing, loving, sharing, giving birth'. Indeed, this is the only higher human aim, because it does not exclude the existence of that which is unpleasant and unholy, things our world is full of.
     Depending on one's own perspective and, above all else, on one's interpretation of the word 'holy', participants at the Lahti conference longed to (re-)attain holiness as both saviour and salvation, whilst wishing to banish it once and for all, to stop it causing humanity such suffering.

For more on the Lahti International Writers' Reunion:
http://www.mukkula.org