 | |
| Author | Tove Jansson |
|---|---|
| Original title | Sommarboken |
| Language | Swedish |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Bonnier |
Publication date | 1972 |
| Publication place | Finland |
Published in English | 2003 |
| Pages | 192 |
| ISBN | 978-9-1004-7282-5 |
The Summer Book (Swedish: Sommarboken) is a novel written by the Finnish author Tove Jansson in 1972.
An elderly woman and her six-year-old granddaughter Sophia spend a summer together on a tiny island in the Gulf of Finland exploring, talking about life, nature, everything but their feelings about Sophia's mother's death and their love for one another. [1]
The novelist Ali Smith, reviewing the book in The Guardian , wrote that Jansson was better known for her Moomin books than for her novels, and that with her worldwide fame, she knew the virtues of withdrawal. In Smith's view, The Summer Book is an astonishing achievement of artistry, "the writing so lightly kept, so simple-seeming, so closely concerned with the weighing of moments that any extra weight of exegesis is too much." [2] Telling the tale of the child and her grandmother in the simplest language, Smith writes, "The threat of brevity, even on this timeless island in this timeless, gorgeous summer, is very marked. But 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." [2] Smith praises Thomas Teal's English translation as "original and stunning". [2]
The journalist Antonia Windsor described it as "like a meditation on life and love and surviving in the natural world. It is a wonderfully humane and gentle book." [3]
The New York Review of Books writes that Jansson's characters, the girl and her grandmother, "discuss things that matter to young and old alike: life, death, the nature of God and of love." [4]
The novelist Philip Pullman described the book as "a marvelous, beautiful, wise novel, which is also very funny." [4]
Lucy Knight, celebrating the book's 50th anniversary in The Guardian, quotes the novelist Ali Smith's description of The Summer Book, "a masterpiece of microcosm, a perfection of the small, quiet read". [5] Knight adds that Sophia Jansson – Tove's niece and the real-life model for the character of the granddaughter Sophia, [6] [7] thinks that Tove was "poking fun" at what people consider normal. In her view, the island allowed the Janssons, like the book's characters, to shape their own sort of "normality". Tolerance and care for nature were essential virtues. [5]
Charlie McDowell is directing a film adaptation based on the book. It will star Glenn Close. [8] In 2023, the production was granted a waiver to allow filming to proceed through the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. [9]
Tove Marika Jansson was a Finnish author, novelist, painter, illustrator and comic strip author of Swedish descent. Brought up by artistic parents, Jansson studied art from 1930 to 1938 in Helsinki, Stockholm, and Paris. She held her first solo art exhibition in 1943. Over the same period, she penned short stories and articles for publication, and subsequently drew illustrations for book covers, advertisements, and postcards. She continued her work as an artist and writer for the rest of her life.
Snufkin is a character in the Moomin series of books written by Swedish-speaking Finn Tove Jansson, appearing in six of the nine books; his first appearance is in the second book, Comet in Moominland. He is the best friend of the series' protagonist, Moomintroll, and lives a nomadic lifestyle, only staying in Moominvalley in the spring and summer, but leaving for warmer climates down south every winter. He is the son of the elder Mymble and the Joxter, and is half-brother to the Mymble's daughter and Little My.
Comet in Moominland is the second in Finnish author Tove Jansson's series of Moomin books. Published in 1946, it marks the first appearance of several main characters, such as Snufkin and the Snork Maiden.
Finn Family Moomintroll is the third in the series of Tove Jansson's Moomins books, published in Swedish in 1948 and translated to English in 1950. It owes its title in translation to the fact that it was the first Moomin book to be published in English, and was actually marketed as the first in the series until the 1980s.
Moominland Midwinter is the sixth in the series of Tove Jansson's Moomin books, published in 1957. This book sees Jansson adopt a darker, more introspective tone compared to the earlier books that is continued in the remainder of the series. Often in the book Moomintroll is either lonely, miserable, angry or scared - the result of being forced to survive in a world to which he feels he does not belong. While preserving the charm of the previous novels, the story involves a more in-depth exploration of Moomintroll's character than before.
The Groke is a fictional character in the Moomin stories created by Tove Jansson. She appears as a ghost-like, hill-shaped body with two cold staring eyes and a wide row of white shiny teeth beneath a large and wide triangular nose. In the book Who Will Comfort Toffle?, it is mentioned that she has a tail, but it has never been seen. Wherever she stands, the ground below her freezes, plants and grass die and if she stands in place too long the soil itself will die and nothing will ever grow there again. She leaves a trace of ice and snow when she walks the ground. Anything that she touches will freeze. On one occasion, she froze a campfire by sitting down on it. She seeks friendship and warmth, but she is declined by everyone and everything, leaving her in her cold cavern on top of the Lonely Mountains.
Moomin is a Japanese anime television series produced by Zuiyo Enterprise and animated by Tokyo Movie until episode 26 and by Mushi Production after episode 27. The series is loosely based on the Moomin books by the Finnish author Tove Jansson and was broadcast on Fuji Television from 1969 to 1970. A sequel series entitled Shin Muumin was later released in 1972.
Ida Helmi Tuulikki Pietilä was an American-born Finnish graphic artist and professor. Pietilä is considered one of Finland's most influential graphic artists, with her work being shown in multiple art exhibitions. She worked as a teacher at the Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki, and later trained graphic artists and wrote multiple books about graphic arts.
The Moomins and the Great Flood is a book by Finnish author Tove Jansson. It was published in 1945, during the last months of World War II. It was the first book to star the Moomins, but is often seen as a prelude to the main Moomin books, as most of the main characters are introduced in the next book.
Moominpappa at Sea is the eighth book in the Moomin books by Finnish author Tove Jansson. First published in 1965, the novel is set contemporaneously with Moominvalley in November (1970), and is the final installment in the series where the titular Moomin family are present within the narrative.
Moominvalley in November is the ninth and final book in the Moomin series by Finnish author Tove Jansson, and was first published in her native Swedish in 1970, and in English in 1971. Set contemporaneously with her previous novel Moominpappa at Sea (1965), it is the only installment in the series where the titular Moomin family are actually absent. Instead it focuses on a set of other characters, including Snufkin, who come to live at Moominhouse during the onset of winter whilst its inhabitants are away, and the various interactions which they have with each other.
A Winter Book is a collection of twenty short stories by Finnish author Tove Jansson, published by Sort of Books in 2006. The stories, some of which had not previously been published in English, were selected by Ali Smith, who also wrote the book's introduction and had previously reviewed The Summer Book for The Guardian. Thirteen of them are from Jansson's first book for adults, Sculptor's Daughter (1968), and the remaining seven are from four of her other works. Five were included in her 1998 Swedish language collection Messages (Meddelande), including the title piece, a partially fictionalised compilation of letters Jansson had received. They were translated into English from the original Swedish by Silvester Mazzarella, David McDuff and Kingsley Hart.
Moomin is a comic strip created by Tove Jansson, and followed up by Lars Jansson, featuring their Moomin family of characters. The first comic strip, entitled Mumintrollet och jordens undergång was a short-lived project for the children's section of the Finland-Swedish leftist newspaper Ny Tid. It was written between 1947 and 1948, at the request of the editor, a friend of Jansson's, Atos Wirtanen. The series was published with two new strips weekly, and was mainly an adaptation of Comet in Moominland. The series has been reprinted in book form under the name Jorden går under by the newspaper.
Signe "Ham" Hammarsten-Jansson was a Swedish-Finnish graphic artist who designed, among other things, around 220 Finnish postage stamps during the course of three decades. She was the mother of Tove Jansson, creator of the Moomin characters.
Vivica Sophia Jansson is the daughter of cartoonist Lars Jansson and the niece of the famous Finnish writer and painter Tove Jansson. Jansson has worked as a Spanish language teacher, creative/artistic director, chairman, and majority shareholder of Oy Moomin Characters, Ltd, and provided direct oversight together with her father for the 1990 Moomin animated series.
The Moomins are the central characters in a series of novels, short stories, picture books, and a comic strip by Swedish-speaking Finnish writer and illustrator Tove Jansson, originally published in Swedish by Schildts in Finland. They are a family of white, round fairy-tale characters with large snouts that make them resemble the hippopotamus. However, despite this resemblance, the Moomin family are trolls. The family live in their house in Moominvalley.
Moomins on the Riviera is a 2014 Finnish-French animated family comedy film directed by Xavier Picard and produced by Hanna Hemilä, who is also co-director. The film is based on Moomin comic strips by Tove Jansson and Lars Jansson.
Moomin is a Dutch-Japanese anime television series produced by Telecable Benelux B.V. and animated by Telescreen Japan. Based on the Moomin novels and comic strips by the Finnish illustrator and author Tove Jansson and her brother Lars Jansson, it was the third anime adaptation of the property and the first to receive distribution in different countries worldwide. Moomin first aired on TV Tokyo from April 12, 1990, to October 3, 1991. The series had also been dubbed into English and aired on CBBC in United Kingdom during the same year.
The Summer Book is a 2024 drama film directed by Charlie McDowell, written by Robert Jones, and starring Glenn Close, Emily Matthews, and Anders Danielsen Lie. It is based on Tove Jansson's 1972 novel of the same title. A co-production of the United Kingdom, the United States, and Finland, the film premiered at the BFI London Film Festival on 12 October 2024.