2 - The Summer Book (Tove Jansson)
About the author
Tove Jansson was a Finnish author and artist, part of the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland. She was born in 1914 and died in 2001, and spent much of her later life living on an island in the Gulf of Finland with her partner, artist Tuulikki Pietilä (although I believe that for a time it was said that she lived alone), first in a house that she and her brother had built and then later on a smaller island, further from the mainland.
Tove Jansson was most famously the creator of the Moomins, who I think are probably known in the English-speaking world primarily through various animated series. She wrote children's books, and drew picturebooks and comic strips about the Moomins for much of her early adult life, but later moved away from them and wrote books marketed more for adults. She seems to have felt trapped and limited by how successful the Moomins became.
You'll probably see Tove's name a lot from me; I'm a fan of hers in translation and using some of her simpler books to practice my Swedish reading skills as well. I read her books fairly often, because they resonate a lot with me, and I'm going to talk about them and her because I think more people should know.
The Summer Book
The Summer Book is set on an island in the Gulf of Finland, and is about a family spending the summer there: a father, daughter and grandmother, but not the mother, because, we find out at the opening of the book, she is dead - a fact which is only explicitly mentioned once, but which colours the entire book. The central characters of the book are the young girl and the old woman, who are based (to what extent one can't say) on Tove's mother, Signe, and her nice, Sophia, and the story is very much about the relationship between them. On the surface of it, not a great deal happens; they visit other islands, meet familiar neighbours and are wary of new ones, talk, squabble... it's a very quiet book, and entirely about people. And it's beautifully told.
There is also more to it than one might at first think.
The structure is a series of chapters which almost stand alone as short stories, each with its own topic. In this they collect bones; in that, they are caught by a storm on a tiny far-out island; in another, Sophia and her cat have a falling out over dead birds. The sea and the summer go right through it all, captured in precise, spare language which has its own odd beauty. Beyond these things it's about old age and childhood, and how things change, and the way people deal with each other; the negotiation of one's own space and friendship and companionship. And death is always there, in one form or another. Tove seems to have observed the delicate balancing act of feelings when one is shut up with the same people for a long time very sharply, too.
Some quotes:
Suddenly he burst out, “And now Backmansson is gone.”
“Where did he go?”
“He is no longer among us,” Verner explained angrily.
“Oh, you mean he’s dead,” said Grandmother. She started thinking about all the euphemisms for death, all the anxious taboos that had always fascinated her. It was too bad you could never have an intelligent discussion on the subject. People were either too young or too old, or else they didn’t have time.
and
The sea is always subject to unusual events; things drift in or run aground or shift in the night when the wind changes, and keeping track of all this takes experience, imagination, and unflagging watchfulness. It takes a good nose, to put it simply.
and
Gathering is peculiar, because you see nothing but what you’re looking for. If you’re picking raspberries, you see only what’s red, and if you’re looking for bones you see only the white. No matter where you go, the only thing you see is bones.
(More catching-up on reviews another day so that I don't spam you all too horribly. To come: Fair Play by Tove Jansson, To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, Vem ska trösta knyttet?/Who will comfort Toffle? by Tove Jansson, and possibly a couple of other things I'm forgetting offhand.)
Tove Jansson was a Finnish author and artist, part of the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland. She was born in 1914 and died in 2001, and spent much of her later life living on an island in the Gulf of Finland with her partner, artist Tuulikki Pietilä (although I believe that for a time it was said that she lived alone), first in a house that she and her brother had built and then later on a smaller island, further from the mainland.
Tove Jansson was most famously the creator of the Moomins, who I think are probably known in the English-speaking world primarily through various animated series. She wrote children's books, and drew picturebooks and comic strips about the Moomins for much of her early adult life, but later moved away from them and wrote books marketed more for adults. She seems to have felt trapped and limited by how successful the Moomins became.
You'll probably see Tove's name a lot from me; I'm a fan of hers in translation and using some of her simpler books to practice my Swedish reading skills as well. I read her books fairly often, because they resonate a lot with me, and I'm going to talk about them and her because I think more people should know.
The Summer Book
The Summer Book is set on an island in the Gulf of Finland, and is about a family spending the summer there: a father, daughter and grandmother, but not the mother, because, we find out at the opening of the book, she is dead - a fact which is only explicitly mentioned once, but which colours the entire book. The central characters of the book are the young girl and the old woman, who are based (to what extent one can't say) on Tove's mother, Signe, and her nice, Sophia, and the story is very much about the relationship between them. On the surface of it, not a great deal happens; they visit other islands, meet familiar neighbours and are wary of new ones, talk, squabble... it's a very quiet book, and entirely about people. And it's beautifully told.
There is also more to it than one might at first think.
The structure is a series of chapters which almost stand alone as short stories, each with its own topic. In this they collect bones; in that, they are caught by a storm on a tiny far-out island; in another, Sophia and her cat have a falling out over dead birds. The sea and the summer go right through it all, captured in precise, spare language which has its own odd beauty. Beyond these things it's about old age and childhood, and how things change, and the way people deal with each other; the negotiation of one's own space and friendship and companionship. And death is always there, in one form or another. Tove seems to have observed the delicate balancing act of feelings when one is shut up with the same people for a long time very sharply, too.
Some quotes:
Suddenly he burst out, “And now Backmansson is gone.”
“Where did he go?”
“He is no longer among us,” Verner explained angrily.
“Oh, you mean he’s dead,” said Grandmother. She started thinking about all the euphemisms for death, all the anxious taboos that had always fascinated her. It was too bad you could never have an intelligent discussion on the subject. People were either too young or too old, or else they didn’t have time.
and
The sea is always subject to unusual events; things drift in or run aground or shift in the night when the wind changes, and keeping track of all this takes experience, imagination, and unflagging watchfulness. It takes a good nose, to put it simply.
and
Gathering is peculiar, because you see nothing but what you’re looking for. If you’re picking raspberries, you see only what’s red, and if you’re looking for bones you see only the white. No matter where you go, the only thing you see is bones.
(More catching-up on reviews another day so that I don't spam you all too horribly. To come: Fair Play by Tove Jansson, To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, Vem ska trösta knyttet?/Who will comfort Toffle? by Tove Jansson, and possibly a couple of other things I'm forgetting offhand.)