Modernity, Meteorology and Magic: Mediating Weather with Johanna Sinisalo s The Storm Flute

This article examines The Storm Flute (2021), an eco-magical realist novel by Finnish author Johanna Sinisalo. Aiming to analyze how the novel addresses the question of technological weather modification in a way that encapsulates and criticizes the modern attitude to the natural world, the article contextualizes the novel’s plot development within the sociopolitical dynamics of control characteristic of modernity. The protagonist’s preoccupation with meteorology invites a discussion of how humans make sense of weather phenomena through scientific methodologies, in contrast to literary means. Noting Sinisalo’s use of a single magical element that predicates numinosity to weather phenomena, this econarratological reading contends that the novel argues against harmful anthropocentrism, prompting engagement with the natural world beyond the nature–culture binary. This article adds to the understanding of the tendencies of Sinisalo’s poetics, participating in broader discussions regarding the ways in which contemporary fiction can engage with the Anthropocene not as an abstract concept but as a lived reality.