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A Winter Book by Tove Jansson (view source)
Revision as of 09:34, 29 August 2020
, 09:34, 29 August 2020no edit summary
The Snow and Flotsam & Jetsam draw mainly from The Sculptor's Daughter but rearranging the tales thematically with the winter townscapes separated from the summer country.
The Snow brings us the real Winter-time stories. The Sisyphean myth replayed with all the seriousness of the child attaching a magical import to a stone, a desperation to fulfil this one task and thus end the family's woes. In another time, a young girl lies in her bed listening to her parents parties…the music played on the balalaika, and heroic conversations and the soft light and smell of too much drink, which spin tales in the mind of magic that might disappear if you look too closely, and disappear anyway the next day. Tales of darkness and of ice. And of snow that falls and falls and falls…being snowed in…and hiding under the piano…and then not being so silly and being brave and grown -up.
Flotsam and Jetsam takes us out on the other half of Finland…for only half of Finland is land, the other half of it is water and islands. Flotsam and Jetsam gives us a child's first iceberg…and her first ventures out into the ocean in an open boat…wartime wrecks and a little illegal salvage. What it gives us more of is the light on the water…and how you should properly equip a boat "not a single inessential object" and every necessary thing…and the power of love that can hit you as a sharp wave across the bow as easily as buoying you up in your adventure.
The final third of the book: Travelling Light…is a winter of a different kind. Or an autumn at least. These are the stories written in the last 20 years of Jansson's life (she died aged 86 in 2001)…and tell of relationships and leave-takings. There is the wonderful Squirrel…the harsh, often hurtful, Letters from Klara…admiration in the Messages from a would-be author a world away…and the final painful relief of leaving the island, maybe for the last time.
There is more pain in this third of the book…but no less beauty. Philip Pullman describes Jansson's writing is "as smooth and odd and beautiful as sea-worn driftwood, as full of light and air as the Nordic summer." As I only have the work in translation…I hope it is true. I hope the originals are even more beautiful than these second -hand versions…which themselves smell of the harsh bright light of the northern skies and let you taste the snows and fear the darkness.
Episodic. As beautiful, spiritual and hard to hold as light-play on the waves.
Read, and ponder.
If this is your first encounter with Jansson, we heartily recommend that both [[The Summer Book by Tove Jansson]] and for more about the author herself check out [[Letters from Tove by Tove Jansson (Author), Boel Westin (Editor), Helen Svensson (Editor), Sarah Death (Translator)]]. You might also appreciate [[For a Little While by Rick Bass]].
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