The Slummer: Quarters Till Death

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It also feels, as we navigate the climate crisis and generational culture wars, highly relevant. The slim volume tells the story of a grandmother and granddaughter exploring, arguing and playing together during a summer on the island. As Smith puts it: “It would be easy to be sentimental here. Jansson never is.” Instead, she uses this intergenerational relationship to highlight the importance of respect: for one another, for differing opinions and for the planet. It’s a notably open-minded book, which is perhaps reflective of the open-minded life that Jansson and her family lived. Tove’s poking fun at what people might think is normality The Summer Book is pure loveliness. The movements of tides and winds and boats and insects loom larger for our narrator than the currents of history, and the profound quiet of the setting—I'm reminded of Akhil Sharma's description of a prose like "white light"—allows us to hear Jansson's unsparing and ironic tenderness, a tone that remains purely her own, even in translation. Maybe because grandmothers are the only people in the world capable of educating using the art of playing and granddaughters are the only ones ready to play with grandmothers seriously. I feel I have been overusing the word wonderful lately but The Summer Book is just such a reading experience. A grandmother and child and nature, all three somewhat wild and uncontrollable, live along with their son/father, during the summer, on a barren island they all love. This was written 40 years ago but is really timeless in its story of a child's unrelenting thirst for knowledge and stubborn daily brawls with the world at large. Most of her time is spent alternately loving, hating and hiking with her grandmother who is passing through her own difficult phase of life as she feels her body slowing down. I am drawn, always, to stories set in wild locales, especially beaches, and it's part of the reason why “Cast Away” is one of my favorite films of all time and why “Jimmy” from Ms. Atwood's Oryx and Crake is a literary love of mine. (Jimmy may be homeless after the Apocalypse, but he holds the appeal of the original Adam, and how's about that beachfront property?).

The Summer Book - Wikipedia The Summer Book - Wikipedia

The Summer Book is a slender, anecdotal novel, written in the clear, unadorned prose of a classic children’s book. It will slip by in an afternoon and be over before you know it. But don’t be fooled—Jansson is fearless. Moving seamlessly between the perspectives of a child and her grandmother, the novel plumbs the mysteries of aging and death, God and guilt, human folly in the face of nature’s power and the fragility of nature in the face of human folly.Lucy Knight, celebrating the book's 50th anniversary in The Guardian, quotes the novelist Ali Smith's description of The Summer Book, "a masterpiece of microcosm, a perfection of the small, quiet read". [5] Knight adds that Sophia Jansson – Tove's niece and the real-life model for the character of the granddaughter Sophia, [6] [7] thinks that Tove was "poking fun" at what people consider normal. In her view, the island allowed the Janssons, like the book's characters, to shape their own sort of "normality". Tolerance and care for nature were essential virtues. [5] Adaptations [ edit ] This kind of deep respect for nature is characteristic of Jansson’s writing, from the Moomin books, which focus on a family of trolls who live in harmony with their surroundings, to The Summer Book and the nine other novels and short-story collections she wrote for adults. Although known first and foremost as an author, Tove Jansson considered her careers as author and painter to be of equal importance. Nothing," her grandmother answered. "That is to say," she added angrily, "I'm looking for my false teeth." The Summer Book’ is often talked about this way. Tove Jansson wrote it in 1972, a year after the death of her mother, the artist Signe Hammersten. Their bond had been close and Jansson’s grief was intense; it is the dark generative heart of a book that describes the relations between a very old woman and her six-year-old granddaughter, Sophia, and the life that goes on around them on a very small island over the course of a single summer”.

The Summer Book is as ‘A masterpiece’: why Tove Jansson’s The Summer Book is as

This book consists of 22 vignettes of moments between Grandmother and Sophia and their time on the island. All took place in summer, but not necessarily the same summer. You can tell that the author has a respect for nature and our planet. Grandmother, through her conversations with Sophia, is trying to install her love of their natural surroundings into her. We learn early on that Sophia’s mother has recently died. There is never an outright discussion of this, but at moments, you can sense this in Sophia’s actions. The author has a beautiful, understated style to her writing. Sometimes people never saw things clearly until it was too late and they no longer had the strength to start again. Or else they forgot their idea along the way and didn’t even realize that they had forgotten”. In this little novella, we get to experience the relationship of a grandmother and her 6 year old grand daughter who get to spend an entire summer on an island off the coast of Finland. Nature plays a tremendous role in their lives and naturally, they use it to create some very special moments together. These two are such grouches at times and each of them believes she is right and knows what she is talking about often. Sometimes I wondered who was the adult and who was the child! They love each other but they grumble and yet, they can have serious conversations. They talk and learn and often it’s about the tough stuff like what love is, how to pray to God, what Heaven looks like, and when are we going to die. But they have fun, too, learning how to carve animals from branches for their magic forest and talking about what different birds represent. These two take care of each other in their own ways while having fun creating adventures and making up stories. The Summer Book is about an important summer in Sophia’s life, of course, but it is also a story about an important summer in Grandmother’s life. How does the book seem different when you look at it from that angle? What is the arc of the story from Grandmother’s point of view?Grandmother is the book's force, but the interactions between her and Sophia, her young granddaughter, fuel it. Sophia's mother has died before the book starts and, though there is only one mention of it, Sophia's outbursts, actions and reactions are colored by her personal tragedy. Grandmother, though always remaining true to her cranky self, understands, worries and mostly knows what to do to help Sophia. Tove Jansson distills the essence of the summer – its sunlight and storms – into twenty-two crystalline vignettes. This brief novel tells the story of Sophia, a six-year-old girl awakening to existence, and Sophia’s grandmother, nearing the end of her’s, as they spend the summer on a tiny unspoiled island in the Gulf of Finland ... Jansson creates her own complete world, full of the varied joys and sorrows of life.’ Robert MacFarlane

Books For Your Summer Reading List - The New York Times The Best Books For Your Summer Reading List - The New York Times

An island* — *summers* — “are often described as being impossible to categorize or describe, as if to suggest that they defy not only human powers of speech but also, obstinately, comprehension”. One tiny island in the gulf of Finland comes to represent a complete world full of miracle and mystery, safety and danger as we are swept happily along through the adventures of a feisty, indomitable little girl and her refreshingly different grandmother.

Tove Jansson (1914-2001) was born in Helsinki into Finland‘s Swedish speaking minority. Her father was a sculptor and her mother a graphic designer and illustrator. Winters were spent in the family’s art-filled studio and summers in the fisherman’s cottage on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, a setting that would later figure in Jansson’s writing for adults and children. Jansson loved books as a child, and set out from an early age to be an artist; her first illustration was published when she was fifteen years old; four years later a picture book appeared under a pseudonym”. Tove Jansson, The Summer Book (1972) Jansson’s The Summer Book’s anniversary celebrated with a new edition

The Slummer: Quarters Till Death by Geoffrey Simpson - Goodreads

Tove Jansson was born and died in Helsinki, Finland. As a Finnish citizen whose mother tongue was Swedish, she was part of the Swedish-speaking Finns minority. Thus, all her books were originally written in Swedish. Tove Jansson, the world-renowned creator of the Moomintroll characters, succinctly harnesses the power and glory of a seaside summer season in the twenty-two elegant vignettes contained within The Summer Book. Here is a book in no need of magic or any other fantastical adornments as she reminds us that we can discover pure, beautiful magic in the natural world all around us if only we quiet our lives and open our eyes to it. Set upon a tiny island in the Gulf of Finland much like where Jansson’s own family spent their summers, Summer Book chronicles the interactions and adventures between a young girl, Sophia, and her grandmother as they embrace the world and all the facts of life that surround them. Tender and subtle, yet laced with poignant investigations of life, love and death, Jansson’s words caress the soul like a warm breeze carrying with it the effluvium of the sea and all its majesty. This isn’t a book in which miracles occur, and less you take into account the sleight of hand Jansson’s achieves with point of view”.There is nothing comforting about it, and yet if you are afraid to see it in his own terms and look to it for comfort, for solace, you’ll be left worse off than you were before”. Every so often, a book is published that captures something in us … The Summer Book is one of those.” Rachel Simhon, The Daily Telegraph Which are your favorites of the games that Sophia and Grandmother play together? Did you play any games or do activities like that when you were a child? Was there anyone in your life like Grandmother? This slim, magical, life-affirming novel tells the story of a young girl and her grandmother, who spend their summers together on a small island in the Gulf of Finland. Absent of sentimentality, it is full of love and humor and wisdom.’ Elizabeth Gilbert, The New York Times I was ready to move in with the family and spend the second half of my life on their blustery, small island filled with quirky, faraway neighbors and weird wood carvings of animals.