The summer book by Tove Jansson
19 Dec 2010 12 Comments
in books from, Finland Tags: FINNISH, TRANSLATIONS
source – own copy swapped for winter book with Inside books .
Tove Jansson was a finnish writer that wrote in Swedish ,she was best known for her children’s books the Moomin series ,which was made into a tv series ,that I watched as a child and loved its humour ,which is in this book .
The summer book follows the gran Tove and her six-year-old grand-daughter ,on her Island home during a summer ,The winter book I read earlier this year was mainly about coping on the Island over the winter .But summer book is firmly about family and the fun A six-year-old can be with questions ,we also see the ebb and flow of the island ,new neighbours Sophie the grand-daughter missing her father who returns in one of the stories .The stories are rich in the tapestry of life ,fun and simple .Tove Jansson has manage to make everyday life seem bright and Vibrant to the reader .I manage to get through this book in an evening smile and laughing along the way .
Sophie asked her grandmother what heaven looked like ,and grandmother said it might be like the pasture they were just the walking by ,on the way to the village over on the mainland .They stopped to look ,it was very hot the road was white and cracked ,and all the plants along the ditch had dust on their leaves .
Sophie like any young child has a questioning nature .
Passages like this remind me of my own holidays with grandparents growing up ,they always seemed so wise and different and always seemed to have the answer to any question ,like the grandmother .There are new neighbours to deal with a large house new to the island ,The grandmother and Sophie sneak over and have a look at this house and Sophie is surprised by how big it is and then the owners appear with a huge dog the runs and barks ,she gets nervous but grandmother gives him some sugar and the owner says he only wants to play .This story was so funny ,you can see Sophie’s nervousness at being in the house ,and fear of the dog but this is laced with humor and Sophie saying thinks like
he’s got big paintings .
They’ve found our boat .
Build the tension and humor .The book is now firmly one of my favourites and Jansson one of the best writers I ve read ,her style is uncluttered ,engaging and most of all highly readable ,the translation is perfect the book reads as thou it was originally written in English not Swedish .it evokes this island yet again ,I said on twitter it to someone when reading it ,that it made me want to live on a small island there is something about being away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life .Translated by Thomas Teal .
PURGE BY SOFI OKSANEN
30 Nov 2010 20 Comments
in Finland Tags: prize winners, TRANSLATIONS
source – library book
Sofi Oksanen is a finnish Estonian writer based in Finland ,this book won this years
Nordic book prize .She he father is finnish and her mother is Estonian .she has been heavily identified with BLGT Lit and has been well praised in the Baltic states for highlighting this .
The book centres on two women’s lives fifty years apart one at the start of communism and the other at the end of it ,we see how there stories develop ,throughout the book the main body of the work is devoted to Zara a victim of human trafficking in the nineties her trial and tribulations and how she escapes the clutches of the people who made her take part in the sex trade ,this story is a story that needs to be told and is a common problem for young women in the former soviet states that end up on the streets and dark rooms of the larger cities in Europe
A light shone through the keyhole .Zara awoke on a mattress next to the door .Pus had drained from her inflated earlobe; she could smell it .She groped for the beer bottle on the floor .the mouth of the bottle was sticky ,and the beer made her throat feel the same way go from dry to sticky and rough .
Zara early on in Berlin held in a room for men to use .
The second person in the book is Zara’s great-aunt Aliide Truu ,she has her own story to tell of love and jealousy with Zara grandmother her sister during and after the second world war that lead her to live in a remote part of Estonia and be estranged from her sister and the family ,in the middle part of the book we see the sisters story unfold during and after the war and how communism effected even the most normal of families as it did in their case ,this lead aliide to become a very strong and self-willed person she is at the very start when she finds the broken Zara at the front of her remote house as she has escape the clutches of the people who forced her into the sex trade .she is hesitant at first but then comes to care for her grand-niece .
Aliide tightened her grip on the scythe .Maybe the girl was crazy .Maybe she had escaped from somewhere .You never know .Maybe she was just confused ,maybe something had happened that caused her to be like that .Or maybe it was that she was in fact a decoy for a Russian criminal gang .
Aliide find her grand-niece in the garden .
This is a truly powerful novel ,it was developed from a play so there is a lot of speaking in places ,it seems to capture the female struggle before during and after communism for women in the Baltic states .The book is very violent in places but this is need as the subject matter shouldn’t be sugar-coated for the reader .a wonderfully powerful novel from a truly promising Young female writer .the book was translated by Lola Rodgers who seems to have done a wonderful job retaining the characters voices .
the year of the hare by Arto Paasilinna
02 Apr 2010 7 Comments
in EUROPEAN FICTION, Finland, NORDIC FICTION Tags: FINNISH
notes-
this book was originally written in 1975 ,and may be describe as new age in a way ,Arto Passilinna is Finnish a journalist poet and novelist .The year of the hare is his most successful book being named a U.N.E.S.C.O BOOK IN 1994 .The book has twice been made into a film in 1977 and 2006 .Arto has published over twenty novel his last published in finland last year Elävänä omissa hautajaisissa (“Alive at His Own Funeral”) .
THE BOOK -
The story revolves around Vatanen a finnish journalist ,he and a photographer are driving home one evening when they hit a hare . they gather the injured hare .At this point Vantanen decides to nurse the hare and follow it to the far north and wilds of finland,abandoning his previous life and his family as he does so ,but along the way taking a number of small jobs with an assortment of characters he runs along .He wants the hare as his constant companion and only real friend .in the end Vantanen ends up in prison in the old soviet union as the hare doesn’t know about borders . but not even this keeps him from freedom with his hare at his side .
my view-
this book seems to be of its time 1975 ,it is a new age novel in the vein of Jonathan Livingstone seagull about freedom and being yourself no matter what .Artos use of the hare is wonderful through history the hare has been revered as a magical and mischievous creature .The book is wonderfully paced with short snappy chapters and at 130 pages long is a two sitting or all day book . A real find of a book .
links -
QUESTION -
Have you read this book or any finnish fiction ?
A Winter Book by Tove Jansson
09 Feb 2010 2 Comments
in around the world, books from, Finland, NORDIC FICTION Tags: around the world 52, FINNISH, water, WINTER
A winter book is a collection of wintery themed book from the writer Tove Jansson ,perhaps best known for her moomin books for children although not a huge fan of the moomin books i did enjoy the cartoon series of the moomins .well the stories span a life time from childhood in finland to being a grown up ,letters .The writing has been wonderfully translated from Swedish ,the stories are simple and powerful .you get a real feel for Jansson as a person .Out of the stories the ones that really gripped me where -
The squirrel ,a wonderful short tale of a tame squirrel that ventures on to an island where the writer lives and brightens what is a quiet tranquil place with its liveliness and antics
correspondence ,a group of letters from a japanese person to Tove ,the beauty of these is how it shows a writer can touch people all over the world how tales wrote in a small island in finland can travel and engross a reader in japan .This showed me why my around the world project matters to me as to be touch by voices round the world is one of the greatest joys of reading
One windless day in november, near sunrise,she saw a squirrel at the landing-place .It was sitting motionless near the water, scarcely visible in the half-light , but she knew it was a real live squirrel and she hadn’t seen a living thing in a long time .You can’t count gulls:they’re always leaving:they’re like the wind over waves and grass.
a quote from start of the squirrel by Tove Jansson ,a winter book is published by sort of books
