"We were exhilarated by change and expectation ..."

November 11, 2021 4:12 PM

Tove Jansson & Tuulikki Pietilä (Granta, 10/04/2021), "Notes from an Island": "The sea was chalk white in every direction as far as the eye could see. It was only then that we noticed the absolute silence. And that we had started whispering." The Gloss recently published an additional extract--the beginning of the book--along with the publisher's introduction: "For 26 summers, writer Tove Jansson and her life partner, the graphic artist Tuulikki Pietilä (known as 'Tooti') would migrate to the rocky, almost barren island of Klovharun, at the edge of the Pellinge archipelago in the Gulf of Finland." Tove Jansson previously.
posted by Wobbuffet (5 comments total)

The hydro-copter sounds terrifying!
posted by rongorongo at 4:45 PM on November 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

There's lots of things I'm tired of in 2021, but being able to call up aerial photos of Bredskär and Klovaharun and actually see Tove and Tooti's little square cottages while I read this story is not one of them :-)
posted by nickzoic at 5:20 PM on November 11, 2021 [5 favorites]

I visited an Island called Klaverörn off the West Coast of Sweden. The name meant Clover Island. It had a dairy, run by a very elderly couple named Sven, and Svea. Svea made a table full, (eight feet,) of pastries to celebrate my marriage to the son of her friend. My MIL lived on a different Island a couple of miles away.That life was wonderful. Later my MIL bought an ice boat with a big fan to get around on and to and from the mainland in the winter. I like the low key, and brightly lit reality of this article, it reminds me of what was, is and can be, once people realize they can live their dreams.
posted by Oyéah at 5:52 PM on November 11, 2021 [7 favorites]

Thank you!

The Moomins are great, but The Summer Book was a revelation! I really look forward to digging into this.
posted by allthinky at 5:59 PM on November 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

The Summer Book is structured as a series of interlinked vignettes about a granny and her 6 year old grand-daughter Sophia who spend summers together on an island off the coast of Finland. The child’s mother is dead and her father is part of the background: silent, writing, fishing or asleep. Granny and Sophia have a series of inconsequential adventures, which will become evocative memories because they are filtered through the exaggerated sensibilities of the child’s imagination. If we could only live in the immediate as children do, the ordinary would stagger us. They take care of and love each other but Granny doesn’t always feel very well and can be tetchy and tired and snappy. She is also “artistic”, daft as a brush and not worried about getting muddy knees crawling through the undergrowth to reach a hidden kingdom.

Sophia is self-absorbed and demanding, gracious and kind and fanciful. But she gets the respect that should be owing to any person regardless of size. On the other hand, she is coming to terms with the fact that the world doesn’t turn around her alone and that Granny deserves a certain amount of respect (and extra time to get anywhere and space to herself) too. Sophia is also let out on her own to take risks even when this makes Granny sick with apprehension. The island, while physically tiny, is a world in itself and is, with the surrounding sea and the essential boat, a playground for the imagination. Any education is just there: in the talk; in the attitudes; in the projects that start and peter out and get forgotten; in the daily life and chores that are not chores because they are daily life; in the world outside and the interior world.
posted by BobTheScientist at 3:19 AM on November 12, 2021 [4 favorites]