A Traveler's Library » Tove Jansson

Cool Off with A Winter Book (Finland)

pen4hire — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 08:00:32 +0000

Wintry Icicles. Photo courtesy of A House Called Nut

Destination: Finland

Book: A Winter Book by Tove Jansson

Finnish Winter Retreat

Guest Author Michele Simeone

If you’re tired of hearing about summer, how does a good dose of Finnish winter sound?

It was during my second year in Finland that my friend surprised me with a copy of [amazonify]0954899520::text:::: A Winter Book [/amazonify]. With one bitterly cold winter under my belt, I was now less worried about basic survival and more concerned with keeping cabin fever at bay during the long, dark months ahead. No matter how many winter sports a person picks up, I’d discovered, the extremity of the Finnish winter means spending a lot of time indoors. Thank goodness for books, piles and piles of books.

Finland. Ice in Winter. Photograph courtesy of A House Called Nut

A Winter Book (2006) is the first collection of Tove Jansson’s short fiction for adults to appear in English translation in almost forty years. Jansson, probably Finland’s best-known queer figure, is so overwhelmingly famous for authoring the Moomintroll series, that her contributions as a visual artist and writer of adult fiction have frequently gone unmentioned. But the popular reception of her novel The Summer Book (originally published in 1972 and reprinted in English in 2003) sparked a renewed interest in Jansson’s adult prose.

In addition to previously published stories and a selection of black and white photography, this latest compilation includes the piece “Correspondence,” appearing for the first time in English translation. This spare, poignant story is based on the actual letters exchanged by an elderly Jansson and a young Japanese fan. Tokyo resident Tamiko first writes to Jansson hoping to learn how to write stories, and a friendship soon buds. Tamiko’s letters reveal—we are not privy to Jansson’s side of the exchange—a great intimacy and understanding that defies cultural difference, age, and a vast geographic divide. In one letter, Tamiko writes:

How many lonely islands are there in Finland?

Can anyone live there who wants to?

I want to live on an island.

I love lonely islands and I love flowers and snow.

But I can’t write how they are.

Together, the stories collected in A Winter Book form a moving, but wholly unsentimental meditation on aging and youth. Unlike The Summer Book, not all the stories are confined to one season; here, winter takes on the more symbolic meaning of age. The first two parts of the collection are made up of stories told from the perspective of a child, while the third part takes an enormous leap into old age. Most of the pieces are semi-autobiographical and portray real people and events from Jansson’s life.

Tove Jansson’s success in making a family of plump, white trolls the symbol of a nation must be proof of her great mastery as a storyteller. Her adult fiction, though less known, is no exception. Whether you’re lying on the beach, or escaping the cold like I was, A Winter Book will transport you to Jansson’s universe—funny, sad, and always wise.

Michele says: I’m a freelance writer and award-winning literary translator. Since moving with my husband to our friend’s lakeside eco-cottage, I’ve written A House Called Nut about our pursuit of a simpler, greener life in the Finnish countryside.

Michele, thanks once again for sharing a look at Finland with A Traveler’s Library. Your blog, A House Called Nut is another wonderful virtual trip to Finland. What an interesting life you lead.

I am curious to know if anybody here has read those Moomin books? I read that they are the best selling book in America by a Finnish author, but I had never heard of them. Multi-talented author, huh? And in case you missed it, Michele discussed Tove’s Summer Book here earlier.

More reading on Scandinavia: Books, Movies and Plays about Sweden, A PBS Movie set in Sweden

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A Summer Book (Finland)

pen4hire — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 08:02:01 +0000

Meadow at The House Called Nut, Photo courtesy of a House Called Nut.

Destination: Finland

Book: The Summer Book by Tove Jansson

A Journey into the Finnish Summer

by guest author, Michele Simeon

Swedish-speaking Finnish writer Tove Jansson has been called the “laureate of small things” for her astounding ability to capture beauty, darkness, and meaning in deceptively simple details. Jansson’s novel The Summer Book follows an elderly woman and her granddaughter, Sophia, over the course of many summer stays on a remote, Finnish island. Time seems almost suspended in the eternal light of the Nordic summer, and the two protagonists, one at the beginning of life, one at the end, retreat into their shared world of magic, mischief, quarrels, and adventure.

Summer Midnight in Finland, Photograph courtesy of A House Called Nut.

The Summer Book entered my life at just the right moment: my husband and I were in the middle of uprooting our lives in a move from London to Helsinki. Trapped somewhere between happy anticipation and heartbreak, I let Jansson’s evocative descriptions carry me far from the urban jungle to a tiny island in Finland’s Pellinge archipelago.

The authenticity of the novel’s setting shines through and is, perhaps, due in some part to its basis in the actual island and cottage where Jansson and her extended family passed their summers. Such annual migration from town to country is customary in Finland, where places of business and work collectively shut their doors for the month of July.

Although our suitcases weren’t quite destined for a small island in the Gulf of Finland, the measured rhythm of life, embracement of simplicity, and return to nature that the novel portrays are all qualities customarily associated with the Finnish summer. Each of The Summer Book’s twenty-two chapters could be accessed as a self-contained short story, at the heart of which lies a deep communion with nature. From the powerful effect of geographic isolation to the sweet sensation of diving into the sea, Sophia and her grandmother’s interaction with their island natural surroundings permeate the novel:

“Do you know what it feels like when you dive?”

“Of course I do,” her grandmother said. “You let go of everything and get ready and just dive. You can feel the seaweed against your legs. It’s brown, and the water’s clear, lighter towards the top, with lots of bubbles. And you glide. You hold your breath and glide and turn and come up, let yourself rise and breathe out. And then you float. Just float.”

When I first read The Summer Book (because I have read it three times in four years), I had no idea that I’d eventually find myself living in the Finnish countryside in a modest home not unlike Jansson’s beloved summer cottage. Like Sophia, I wish for storms when the weather has been too fine for too long, and I have special parts of this plot of land with special names to accompany them. And now, at the height of summer, I lose track of time in the abiding northern light, and marvel that this once distant, foreign land has become my home too.

Michele says: I’m a freelance writer and award-winning literary translator. Since moving with my husband to our friend’s lakeside eco-cottage, I’ve written A House Called Nut about our pursuit of a simpler, greener life in the Finnish countryside.

Michele, thank you so much for introducing us to this enticing book about Finland. And lucky Library, Michele will return in three days with another book by Tove Jansson!I have always felt that life in Scandinavia is influenced by the seasons in a way that people from a more moderate climate cannot understand. How about you, reader? Have you lived in a place where the seasons dominated everyone’s lives?

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