The Summer Book (New York Review Books Classics)
$8.99
Price: $8.99
(as of Dec 01, 2023 23:57:54 UTC – Details)
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 the Publisher
About this book
A grandmother and her granddaughter live out a summer of play, talk, love, and exploration on a tiny island in the Gulf of Finland. This first, career-spanning collection of Jansson’s stories delves into themes of travel, artistic creation, and living among people as flawed as oneself. Here Jansson takes a darker look at the subjects that animate the best of her work: solitude and community, art and life, love and hate. The art of loving, creating, and living is examined in this group of quietly moving episodes from the lives of two artists.
Publisher : NYRB Classics; Later Printing edition (May 20, 2008)
Language : English
Paperback : 184 pages
ISBN-10 : 159017268X
ISBN-13 : 978-1590172681
Item Weight : 7.6 ounces
Dimensions : 5 x 0.47 x 7.97 inches
There are no reviews yet.