The Summer Book (New York Review Books Classics)

by Tove Jansson

Kathryn Davis (Introduction) and Thomas Teal (Translator)

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.

• ISBN10: 159017268X
• ISBN13: 9781590172681
• Publish Date: 20 May 2008 (first published 1 January 1975)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: The New York Review of Books, Inc
• Imprint: NYRB Classics
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 184
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9781590172681

Reviews

[nannah]

“On the one hand, you could say nothing happens, there is no plot, and on the other hand that everything in the book is driven by a single event, so fleetly mentioned as to be almost occult: ‘Sophia woke up and remembered that they had come back to the island and that she had a bed to herself because her mother was dead.’”
Kathryn Davis

What a lovely little book! I’m so glad I read this before summer was truly over; it truly captures summer’s feelings and little adventures. Sophia, her grandmother, and her father stay on a tiny island in a gulf of Finland for the summer. The book mostly explores the relationship between Sophia and her grandmother: their warm love, their fights, and everything in between that can occur when in a rather isolated place. Like Kathryn Davis said in the introduction, it could be argued that nothing actually happens, but so much is said, too.

I think I’ll be reading this over again many times on warm summer nights -- especially as I get older.

[brokentune]

A person can find anything if he takes the time, that is, if he can afford to look. And while he’s looking, he’s free, and he finds things he never expected.

This book is brilliant. It’s the story of 6-year-old Sophia and her grandmother and the summer they spend together on an island – they go exploring, they play and cheat at cards, they pick their new neighbour’s lock. Sophia and her gran are absolutely fab.

Every chapter is a different short story, full of warmth and allegorical depth.

I think I will need to read Jansson’s other books, too.

“It’s funny about love,” Sophia said. “The more you love someone, the less he likes you back.”
“That’s very true,” Grandmother observed. “And so what do you do?”
“You go on loving,” said Sophia threateningly. “You love harder and harder.”
Her grandmother sighed and said nothing.

[jamiereadthis]

10 stars? 20? The best book I’ve read all summer.