The Summer Book
Tove Jansson (1914-2001) is perhaps the most famous Finnish writer and artist of the twentieth century, but it is worth noting, she was of the Swedish speaking minority. She is best known for her Moomintroll books of animated characters that continue to charm generations of readers. Jansson also wrote crisp, flowing prose. Her slender book, The Summer Book (originally published in 1978) is a beautiful story about life on a remote island in the Gulf of Finland during the summer months. Originally written in Swedish, The Summer Book is a work in translation (translated by Thomas Teal). A grandmother lives with her son and six-year-old granddaughter on a coastal island for the summer. This simple tale centers largely on the relationship of Sophia (the granddaughter) and Grandmother. In less than two hundred pages, The Summer Book captures many of life’s lessons in simple but profound ways and transports the reader to an island on the Gulf of Finland.
I read The Summer Book in August. I was drawn in by Jansson’s eloquent, succinct descriptions of place. I happily travelled by book to the cool climate of a Finnish island, a welcome escape from the excessive heat of southern Idaho’s August. But the human relationships developed in The Summer Book are equally as inspiring. Jansson’s prose mingles the intimate and mundane domestic moments of life among three generations living in relative isolation on a maritime island. They live in close proximity to one another, but also amid plenty of open space. The flora and fauna, weather patterns, and natural experiences of the island play an important role in the lives of the characters. The novel focuses on the relationship between Grandmother and her motherless granddaughter, Sophia, over the course of one summer. Both characters develop and grow through the summer months in deeply meaningful ways. There is something both durable and delicate between them that moves the reader. What’s more, the Finnish coastal island landscape is wonderfully captured and presents the reader with considerable opportunity for armchair travel.
Themes like death, loss, independence, solitude, connection, love, and resilience surface time and again in Jansson’s short novel. The Summer Book captures one summer—perhaps the summer that Sophia will look back later on with fondness and melancholy—in which Sophia and Grandmother both grow. There is a tension between coming of age and a letting go at work in this short novel. The characters are like book ends in life’s journey. Jansson’s The Summer Book brilliantly encapsulates cross-generational life as she brings two characters—one a child, one an elderly woman—to life. She provides a setting that is full of the scents and sounds of coastal life to such an extent that as a reader I could almost feel the sea spray on my face as I read.
This book is a delight. It is a beautiful reflection of the connection that exists between grandmother and granddaughter, between human and the natural world in which she lives. It is the ideal read for lovers of domestic fiction, of novels that celebrate nature, of books that transport readers to specific times and places. It is a slight book, but it packs a great deal of human experience into few pages. Ultimately, The Summer Book is a classic to cherish and read again and again.
Bibliography:
Jansson, Tove. Transl. by Thomas Teal. The Summer Book. New York Review of Books, 2008.
A Few Great Quotes:
“It’s a funny thing about bogs. You can fill them with rocks and sand and old logs and make a little fenced-in yard on top with a woodpile and a chopping block—but bogs go right on behaving like bogs. Early in the spring they breathe ice and make their own mist, in remembrance of the time when they had black water and their own sedge blossoming untouched” (18).
“Grandmother walked up over the bare granite and thought about birds in general. It seemed to her no other creature had the same dramatic capacity to underline and perfect events—the shifts in the seasons and the weather, the changes that run through people themselves. She thought about migratory birds, and the thrush on a summer evening, and the cuckoo—yes, a cuckoo—and the great, cold birds that sail and watch, and the very small birds that sweep in for hasty visits in large late-summer parties, chubby, dumb, and unafraid, and about the swallows that only honor houses where the people are happy. It seemed remarkable that the impersonal birds should have become such powerful symbols. Or maybe not. For Grandmother, long-tailed ducks meant anticipation and renewal” (19).
“They all moved about the island doing their own chores, which were so natural and obvious that no one mentioned them, neither for praise nor sympathy. It was just the same long summer, always, and everything lived and grew at its own pace” (28).
“‘It’s funny about love,’ Sophia said. ‘The more you love someone, the less he likes you back.’ ‘That’s very true,’ Grandmother observed. ‘And so what do you do?’ ‘You go on loving,’ said Sophia threateningly. ‘You love harder and harder.’ Her grandmother sighed and said nothing (54-55).
“A very long time ago, Grandmother had wanted to tell about all the things they did, but no one had bothered to ask. And now she had lost the urge. [. . .] That’s strange, Grandmother thought. I can’t describe things anymore. I can’t find the words, or maybe it’s just that I’m not trying hard enough. It was such a long time ago. No one here was even born. And unless I tell it because I want to, it’s as if it never happened; it gets closed off and then it’s lost” (80).
“Smell is important. It reminds a person all the things he’s been through; it is a sheath of memories and security” (100).
“Every year, the bright Scandinavian summer nights fade away without anyone’s noticing. One evening in August you have an errand outdoors, and all of a sudden it’s pitch-black. A great warm, dark silence surrounds the house. It is still summer, but the summer is no longer alive. It has come to a standstill; nothing withers, and fall is not ready to being. There are not stars yet, just darkness” (164).
