The Tove Jansson bus came and seemed to have gone for me quite a few years ago, or so I thought.
New translations were being published and much love for Tove was evident around the interwebs yet somehow I never quite jumped on the wagon. I've dipped in and out, and the shelf of books has grown year on year thanks to Nat at Sort Of Books. Nat has kept the faith and sent me new editions of each Tove Jansson book as they became available, but, as I think I may have mentioned a while back, it was the arrival of a proof copy of the forthcoming Letters From Tove which finally tipped the balance.
That and a summer of starting and stopping more books than I care to remember.
I was in need of An Autumn Reading Project.
There is nothing I love more than to explore the life and work of one writer but it's something I have stopped doing in recent years. I end up gorging, finding out far too much and spoil it for myself, but I had a feeling this wouldn't happen with Tove.
Born in Helsinki in Finland at the outbreak of World War One in August 1914, Tove Jansson would become famous for her illustrated Moomin books and perhaps less famous for her adult novels and short stories. Recent translations by Thomas Teal have rectified that. The Moomins, first made an appearance in 1945 and featured heavily in my library borrowing through the 1950s but it is only in recent years that Sort Of Books have made the adult fiction available.
A word of praise for the beauty of the books. French flaps...don't we all love a French flap and the Moomins reprinted in their original hardback format (for smaller hands) and iconic livery.
I have now read all three available novels and my thoughts on The Summer Book (third reading of that) The True Deceiver and Fair Play will appear dreckly over the coming weeks and I will be working my way through the short stories too. It strikes me that reading Tove Jansson is like stepping through the back of the literary wardrobe into a Narnia-like world of magic and difference. There's still plenty of snow but the landscape is changed, quirky, often eccentric but exciting too and so very refreshing for that.
It is Letters From Tove, published this week, that currently has my heart.
'Out of the thousands of letters Tove Jansson wrote a cache remains that she addressed to her family, her dearest confidantes, and her lovers, male and female. Into these she spilled her innermost thoughts, defended her ideals and revealed her heart. To read these letters is both an act of startling intimacy and a rare privilege.
Penned with grace and humour, Letters from Tove offers an almost seamless commentary on Tove Jansson's life as it unfolds within Helsinki's bohemian circles and her island home. Spanning fifty years between her art studies and the height of Moomin fame, we share with her the bleakness of war; the hopes for love that were dashed and renewed, and her determined attempts to establish herself as an artist.
Vivid, inspiring and shining with integrity, Letters from Tove shows precisely how an aspiring and courageous young artist can evolve into a very great one.'
Reading volumes of letters is always fascinating for the insights. I prefer them to diaries which perversely often give me too much insight and Tove's letters are absolute treasures. She was a prolific writer and I'm currently enjoying her long, chatty and illustrated correspondent to her parents; her mother Signe Hammarsten, an artist and illustrator, and her father Viktor a sculptor, the letters as near as I think I could get to being in conversation with her. I have been known to write airmail letters like this to Offspringette...they start and I add to them for the next week or so...tiny little life events of home and family.
Letters From Tove, will be serialised on Radio 4 in the week leading up to Christmas and, from the little I have read so far, it promises to be wonderful. A nod to a beautifully presented hardback book too, 500 pages of high quality paper and binding.
As I embark on my journey with Tove, please do come along if you would like to and I would love to know your thoughts...
Were the Moomins part of your childhood too...
Have you read any more of Tove Jansson's books...
And what about handwritten letters...
I fear books like this will be unknown for the future generations...
Can e mails possibly hold the same magic...
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