Summer on the Island: A Q&A With Sophia Jansson, Niece of Tove Jansson, Author of The Summer Book
Paperback $15.95
The Summer Book
The Summer Book
By
Tove Jansson
Introduction
Kathryn Davis
Translator
Thomas Teal
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Paperback $15.95
A novel of 22 vignettes that capture the essence of summer, The Summer Book by Tove Jansson — the author of the acclaimed Moomintroll comic strip and books — is a poetic and meandering story about the life of a grandmother, her granddaughter, and their life on a small, isolated island. With a movie starring Glenn Close on the way, it’s the perfect time to dive into this brilliant novel. Keep reading for a Q&A with Tove Jansson’s niece Sophia about Tove’s life on the island.
A novel of 22 vignettes that capture the essence of summer, The Summer Book by Tove Jansson — the author of the acclaimed Moomintroll comic strip and books — is a poetic and meandering story about the life of a grandmother, her granddaughter, and their life on a small, isolated island. With a movie starring Glenn Close on the way, it’s the perfect time to dive into this brilliant novel. Keep reading for a Q&A with Tove Jansson’s niece Sophia about Tove’s life on the island.
In The Summer Book, the island/nature seems to be a character of its own. Is this reverence of her natural surroundings something that Tove carried with her daily?
Nature is often said to be one of the main characters in The Summer Book. In fact, I would say the island where the book plays out has a role much greater than just a backdrop. Tove was very familiar with the archipelago where the book is set and she loved every bit of it, as much for its demanding as its wonderfully giving features. To be near and one with the natural elements was inspiring for Tove. There was a sense of freedom in being at the mercy of the elements. Tove was also a very keen observer and used a lot of what she saw in her art and writing.
How would you characterize your relationship with your aunt? Would you say it aligns with the grandmother and granddaughter in this book?
My relationship to my aunt was a very good and loving one, but it was not the inspiration for The Summer Book. Tove and I would certainly do fun things together like fly kites and swim in the outer archipelago in the summertime, but it would be occasionally. My grandmother lived with us for long periods of time, so she was even much more present in my life.
Were any of the vignettes in the book directly inspired by your adventures with Tove as a child?
Tove used her own childhood and experiences with her mother as well as my relationship with my grandmother as a foundation for how she built up the stories, and of course, added entirely invented events. The islands in the book are much the same as the ones I spent time with Tove on but the chapters in the book are not really about real events we would have been through together.
In The Summer Book, the grandmother appears the most animated and joyful in the “Playing Venice”. This is also one of the sections of the book that seems to have the biggest connection to the loss of Sophia’s mother as Sophia tries to get her grandmother to play pretend and roleplay as a Venetian girl and her mother. Did Tove have a special connection to Venice, and was the sinking of their Venice symbolic of the grief and loss of family?
Venice, with its canals and sinking palazzos, is of course a magical place and so too it was for Tove and the whole family, but I am not aware that the city would have been tied to any extraordinary event in her life.
On the islands it was not unusual though to play in rock pools and build small maritime communities with bark boats and such in them. The Venice rock pool was based on a similar place on an island, but the story is entirely Tove’s creation.
In the “The Visitor”, Grandmother talks about how she doesn’t often talk about personal things in her old age. Was Tove also this way?
Tove was quite private but used her art and her writing to express her inner thoughts and emotions.