The Summer Book [L0117]

2008 PB in nice clean condition. In The Summer Book 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 hers, as they spend the summer on a tiny unspoiled island in the Gulf of Finland. The grandmother is unsentimental and wise, if a little cranky; Sophia is impetuous and volatile, but she tends to her grandmother with the care of a new parent. Together they amble over coastline and forest in easy companionship, build boats from bark, create a miniature Venice, write a fanciful study of local bugs. They discuss things that matter to young and old alike: life, death, the nature of God and of love. "On an island," thinks the grandmother, "everything is complete." In The Summer Book, Jansson creates her own complete world, full of the varied joys and sorrows of life. Tove Jansson, whose Moomintroll comic strip and books brought her international acclaim, lived for much of her life on an island like the one described in The Summer Book, and the work can be enjoyed as her closely observed journal of the sounds, sights, and feel of a summer spent in intimate contact with the natural world. The Summer Book is translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "This is the quietest great book I've ever read.

Every once in a while I read a book that makes me jealous, that makes me wish I could write and do what the book did. Like this one. It's a wisp of a book - brief, with no plot to speak of and only two real characters, no compelling crisis to drive the action, no suspense. I almost cried when it ended. It's like a watercolor of only four or five easy strokes, that you can't help but stare at for hours."; "This is a spare and beautiful story told through 22 different vignettes which are each deceptively simple and contain haunting descriptions of life, death, loss and renewal. It is a view of nature, and cultural values and is obviously written by someone who has lived this unique kind of life. There is also an underlying sense of humor and there were times I just laughed out loud or smiled to myself at the relationship between the ancient old woman who is possessed of a great natural wisdom and the young child. The voice is authentic, the prose beautiful, the view of nature real and uplifting. This is a short book and I must say I didn't want it to end. It is treat and it left me with a feeling of pleasure. That is about as high a compliment that I can pay to any book."; "A perfect book. A wonder. Small yet complete. A world in a grain of sand sort of book. If you haven't read this, better go into it as I did, knowing nothing about it except that the author, Tove Jansson, was a complete artist who could paint, draw, write, swim, garden, cook, tell jokes, live and love like there was no tomorrow."