The Slummer: Quarters Till Death

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It is beautifully done. What might, in less skilful hands, have been mawkish or twee, maintains to the last sentence a precise and rigorous habit of observation, an acute sense of the play of emotion between people and the landscape they inhabit, and a remarkable ability to render accurately the emotions of the very old and the very young.’ Jane Shilling, The Scotsman 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 Although known first and foremost as an author, Tove Jansson considered her careers as author and painter to be of equal importance. The journeying across the causeway and trips to civilisation made shops etc seem nearer than you'd expect. I’ve been a runner for over 25 years and The Slummer is the first novel about running that I couldn’t put down and was the most inspired by. For me, it’s a much better story than even Once a Runner, the cult classic running novel by John L. Parker.

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson | Goodreads The Summer Book by Tove Jansson | Goodreads

Jansson transports us to this island and helps us to see it through the loving eyes of a person who has known it forever and the wondering eyes of a person who is just discovering all its hidden treasures. I kept thinking of another work of this type, The Country of the Pointed Firs and Other Stories, in which the natural environment is almost a character itself. The Summer Book gave me that same immersed feeling.

This is the first running book I've read that I think, wow this is like peeking into my brain and my way of thinking. Both are strong-willed characters, though the grandmother at times is concerned about Sophia becoming too set in certain ways and tries to teach her how to get by in the world, as in the nice scene where she thinks:

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson | Waterstones The Summer Book by Tove Jansson | Waterstones

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. 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”. Benjamin Brandt is a hero I need right now and will be someone I'll think of often during my long runs. I think I'll go for a long run!The Summer Book manages to make you feel good as well as wise, without having to make too much effort . . . [it] says so much that we want to hear in such an accessible form, without ever really saying anything at all. Years earlier, in his post college days, Geoff moved to and adventured around California with his dog, a boxer named Edgar. Being single at the time, they were inseparable hiking and camping throughout the Sierra’s together. Named after Edgar Allan Poe, Geoff’s favorite author, it became destined that Edgar was intertwined in the future of his own writings. Jansson’s] writing is all magical deception, her sentences simple and loaded; the novel reads like looking through clear water and seeing, suddenly, the depth.” — Ali Smith

BarkingBoxer Press - geoffreysimpson

There’s a line in The Summer Book by Tove Jansson where the narrator describes the fragility of moss. Residents of the tiny Finnish island where the novel is set are careful to avoid treading on the plant, and it is “only farmers and summer guests” who walk on it.a b Knight, Lucy (1 September 2022). " 'A masterpiece': why Tove Jansson's The Summer Book is as relevant as ever at 50". The Guardian. The novelist Philip Pullman described the book as "a marvelous, beautiful, wise novel, which is also very funny." [4]

The Summer Book (New York Review Books Classics) The Summer Book (New York Review Books Classics)

Do you remember when you were a child, so many books were enchanting, casting a spell of wonder and reverence over you that you carried around long after the book was finished? Even if the book contained absolutely no magic or fantasy, but was "down to earth," about the lives of real people and "ordinary" experiences -- told in an extraordinary way? Then you "graduated" to "adult" books and began to wonder why really wonderful books and authors for adults were so rare and difficult to discover ... Great book! I wouldn’t normally read a fiction book, but I have to say this is a great read, would highly recommend it.Jansson’s brilliance is to create a narrative that seems, at least, to have no forward motion, to exist in lit moments, gleaming dark moments, like lights on a string, each chapter its own beautifully constructed, random-seeming, complete story. Her writing is all magical deception, her sentences simple and loaded; the novel reads like looking through clear water and seeing, suddenly, the depth ... Jansson was a writer who knew the proper magnitudes of our small worlds.’ Ali Smith, The Guardian 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 Oh, you mean he's dead,’ said Grandmother. She started thinking about all the euphemisms for death, all the anxious taboos that had always fascinated her. It was too bad you could never have an intelligent discussion on the subject. People were either too young or too old, or else they didn't have time. There on a small island - Esther Freud if you were wondering if she is related to Sigmund, the answer is yes in her introduction to the edition I read, says that it took her only minutes to walk round - live Sophia, and her Grandmother and sometimes Sophia's Father. This is a fictionalised account of the summer (s) that the three spent together with respectively their aunt, daughter, sister: Tove Janssen. So the first observation is that the author has comprehensively written herself out of the narrative, she is however the omniscient narrative voice. That voice and awareness limits itself to Sophia's scale, therefore the island as we experience it in the narrative is big, the small events dramatic.