Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 Poignant island summer July 9, 2008
M (London, UK)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is the most beautifully written book, poignant, sad, wise, joyful, and not a shred of mawkish sentimentality to spoil it.
It tells of the loving, spiky relationship between an angry little girl whose mother has died, and her grandmother who has suffered all the joys and losses of a long life, lived to the full, sometimes raging at the frustrations/indignities of old age, some days calmly accepting them. (The saddest person in the book seems to be the shadowy figure of the father, his back turned to them, as he sits as his desk and buries his grief in work.)
Jansson brings the beauty of their sparse, tiny island vividly to life ... its stones, mosses, the colours of the sea, until you feel that, like the grandmother, you could feel your way around it in the dark.
I think this is one of those books I am going to remember for the rest of my life.
 At least its short January 16, 2008
Michael Gillespie (Scotland)
2 out of 12 found this review helpful
I feel that by reading this I wasted a part of my life that I'll never get back. Its not that I hated it, it was so bland that I couldn't even muster up dislike.
A DELIGHTFUL BOOK! January 11, 2008
Val De Beer
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Tove Jansson draws on people who formed her precious family circle, for the characters in this book.
Sophia, the little girl in the book, is Tove's niece, her father is Tove's brother, Lars, who in 1947 together with his sister built the house which is lovingly described here, with the 'magic forest' and the sea surrounding it.
Grandmother is Tove's mother, Signe Hammarsten, a very intelligent, wise woman who was a graphic designer and cartoonist.
Sophia's mother has died recently and she comes to the island to live with her father and grandmother, who is battling with her own fragile health, but who willingly takes on the mission of helping Sophia with her problems and nightmares.
In a clear, understated manner, Tove Jansson describes the environment which Sophia learns to respect, the people whom the old woman and the little girl meet and the cycle of the seasons on the island 'When the southwest wind was blowing, the days seemed to follow one another without any kind of change or occurrence, day and night, there was the same even, peaceful rush of wind....
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.'
This calm pattern of life is balm to the little girl's fears and loss and when she becomes independent and difficult, the grandmother realises what is happening, and deals with that in her own wise manner. She calms Sophia's fears in her own sensible manner, never 'talking down' to the child and as a result, the little girl begins to think in the same rational manner, and they comfort each other in times of difficulty.
Of course, it's not all pleasant, and sometimes they find each other very irritating, but the love between them is obvious and they learn together, one at the end of her life and one at the beginning.
Each 'story' deals with a different time in their life together and carries with it a metaphor for our lives and this philosophical attitude is emblematic of Tove Jansson's style of writing.
It is a sheer joy to read and re-read and it is no wonder that this book has never been out of print.
Buy it, read it and love it, and then read it again....
Perfect November 3, 2007
Mrs. K. A. Wheatley (Leicester, UK)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I had loved Jansson's writing as a child and obsessively read the Moomins series for years. I had no idea that she wrote adult fiction until I came across this in a bookshop somewhere. I bought it with some trepidation, worried that her adult fiction could not possibly live up to the strange delights of her works for children. I need not have worried. This book is perfect, slight, melancholy and beautifully drawn it tells the story of an old woman and her young grand-daughter sharing the summer together on a Finnish island. It is both nostalgic and yet contemporary and relevant. It is quirky and at times funny, but always with that underlying understanding of human frailty, impermanence and death that make life so worth living. At times it is almost philosophical in the wisdom the girl and woman share between each other about the nature of what it means to be alive, and yet it never, ever seems didactic, or loses its lightness of touch. A real gem.
More than Moomins October 15, 2007
J. Pink (UK)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I can not recommend this little book highly enough to you. I first heard it spoken of on Radio 4 and was so intrigued that I bought both a copy of this and Fair Play, also by Tove Jansson.
It is a small book but it's impact is huge. Beautifully written, it describes sensitively and vividly the relationship between grandmother and grand-daughter as they live together in almost complete isolation on a tiny, family-owned island. It is one of those books about seemingly very little, that says so very much.
The interactions between the aging, reflective and rather tetchy grandmother and the bright, curious child will warm the hearts of all who read them. If only it were as easy as Janssen makes it seem to convey the warmth of everyday exchanges - how much more we might appreciate and understand each other then!
I will be amazed if you don't love this book too. You will laugh as often as you shed a tear, and you will want to read more of Tove Janssens beautiful writing.
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