Both the girl and the woman have wise mouths, and are not hesitant to voice their opinions. One too young to know any better, one too old to care. Bloody nitwit, Grandmother muttered to herself. Out loud she said, ‘You better ask your father about generations and all that. Ask him to draw it on a piece of paper. If you’re interested’”. 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. How it ended, Grandmother expected to die soon, was the last paragraph her actual death? The palpitations and approaching noise of a nonexistent engine made a strong description of an ending.

The Slummer, Quarters Till Death by Geoffrey Simpson The Slummer, Quarters Till Death by Geoffrey Simpson

The future doesn't look that much different except that the wealth gap has gotten to the point where there is no crossover and hate for the "Slummers" is blatant. All the while the rich get richer, and they have used that wealth and power to start breeding their children according to a shopping list of desirable DNA. So now they are rich AND nearly perfect. I loved it and it's a perfect read for a summer which will, I think, be memorable for many of us as a kind of shadow season, a time carved out from normal life and defined by the absence of normality. The truth is, I loved it! I could have probably finished this book in one sitting (it was THAT good). But with a few books on the go, I decided to savor this one and enjoy it. A membership for yourself or as a gift for a special reader will promise a year of good reading. Join NYRB Classics Book Club Although known first and foremost as an author, Tove Jansson considered her careers as author and painter to be of equal importance.One interesting point is made that almost seems like a judgment of America today. It's just a couple ot lines towards the end of the book that stood out to me: The writing is lovely. The characters are charming and real. The stories give an immersive look at the as-yet-otherwise-unknown-to-me experience of a Scandinavian summer that feels totally new, and simultaneously gives a look at a childhood summer that is so familiar and comfortable and nostalgic. The journeying across the causeway and trips to civilisation made shops etc seem nearer than you'd expect.

BarkingBoxer Press - geoffreysimpson

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. I will be reading it again and again." And even where so little seems to happen, everything is of consequence -- with Jansson's success also built on the fact that she doesn't try to hammer home that point, but rather lets the reader come to see it on their own. 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 grandmother when ill sometimes feels dizzy. She takes Lupatro. I didn’t know what that was, and looked it up and it’s a barbiturate (sedative)...not sure why she would take that if she felt dizzy. It was also an anti-seizure medication used to treat epilepsy.As I read this book, it is the dead of winter here in Calgary. It was lovely to imagine being on an island where the sun is shining (except for when it stormed). Most of the stories, and I would say this is less a novel and more a collection of stories deal with the relationship between Sophia and her grandmother, and this reminded me very strongly of Lea Ypi's book Free: A Child and a Country at the End of History in which the relationship between the young Ypi and her grandmother is very important. Sophia though is younger than Lea, we hear the voice of a child of between five and seven I guess; crawling, exploring and asking questions. Those latter are quite funny. Equally we are increasingly in grandmother's head experiencing her responses, her reactions and her thought on want she can't express or explain to a child. And that makes it a very pleasing book about the fairly different intellectual and emotional worlds of being old and being young, and the relationship between the two. So it becomes a little book about family life. The profoundly humane story of the unique friendship between the little girl Sophia and her grandmother, who spend endless summer days on an island far out in the archipelago, is loved by readers around the world. As the two learn to adjust to each other’s fears, whims and yearnings, a fierce yet understated love emerges – one that encompasses not only the summer inhabitants but the very island itself. Lace up for a powerful story of commitment, loss, aspiration and an unlikely challenger of systematic oppression.”

The Slummer: Quarters Till Death by Geoffrey Simpson

Rayner, Richard (27 April 2008). "Dreams of an endless summer". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 28 May 2010 . Retrieved 6 September 2012.

In the first chapter, Tove has written a book on the advice of her grandmother about Angleworms that have come apart. The worm knows that if it comes apart, both halves start growing separately. When I read the synopsis, I thought to myself, how original can a story like this be? But I decided to give it a shot, and commented to the author that I would read it over Christmas and give it an honest review. 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. 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

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

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. I have limited patience with child characters and narrators, particularly when they are irritating, demanding and pouty, as is the 6 year old character, Sophia. Jansson modeled the character on her niece (yikes!). The grandmother, based on Jansson’s mother, is easier to digest, because who doesn’t enjoy a sarcastic, cantankerous senior who once shouted “Quiet! Or I will throw up on you!” when the kid wouldn’t stop fussing? 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 ... Some of my favourite moments were the conversations between Grandmother and Sophia. They had me smiling and laughing out loud.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. There is an absence that haunts the book -- or rather the two characters --, mentioned early on, as Sophia wakes and remembers: "she had a bed to herself because her mother was dead". And we know, if the child does not, that the summers of her grandmother are limit; she has already passed into the autumn of her life and winter is nipping at her heels. But what a blessed thing this time is for them both, for Grandmother has a chance to see the wonder that her life has been and Sophia is building memories that will someday stand in for this person she must surely lose. 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.