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| Tove Jansson |
Tove Jansson is, perhaps, best known for her series of
children’s books The Moomintrolls, a
wonderful, quirky and eclectic set of stories about a mythical group of
creatures who live in a strange kind of bohemian harmony. As a child I missed
out on the Moomins, I didn’t encounter them somehow. I remember there was a TV
series which I found strange and unsettling so didn’t watch, something about
the fuzzy-feltish animation which was lost on me (though how is a mystery –
this is awesome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t10MLKJ5svI
)
Looking back, I wish I’d made more of an effort because the
Moomins are brilliant, quirky and kind-spirited which pretty much sums up my
experience of Tove Jansson.
Jansson strikes me as one of the great undiscovered
treasures of Western European literary history. She is too often associated
purely with her Moomins series yet even this should have a higher profile than
it does. In my view it stands shoulder to shoulder with the ‘greats’ of
children’s literature: Lewis Carroll (actually she’s better than Carroll), C S
Lewis, E B White, and in fact a head above in many cases. More people should
read her. So I’m telling you now: do it, read Jansson.
Despite her fame with the Moomins, Jansson also wrote a number
of books for adults. A few of collections of short stories: The Summer Book and
The Winter Book, alongside short but effective novels including The True
Deceiver and Fair Play. There is not a bad word amongst them. Her work reminds
me, in some respects, of the work of Italo Calvino, who also used short
vignettes to express a fascinating depth and philosophy (I’m thinking here of
Cosmicomics and the wonderful Mr Palomar). One of the things that particularly appeals
to me about Jansson’s work is how it tends to focus on interplay between women,
quite effortlessly as though, imagine, women had lives and ideas and an
independent existence which didn’t rely upon men to make it real and important.
That is not
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| Tove Jansson & Tuulikki Pietilä |
to say that Jansson is a rampant bra-burning feminist, but rather
that her work has an independent, self-reliant existences which is something
which shouldn’t seem so shocking just because it also involves a woman. I also
enjoy how closely her work mirrors her life in a kind of way which could,
almost, be perceived as arrogant except that arrogant is absolutely the last
word you would ever use to describe her work and rather I think it is more appropriate to say it has authority. The parallels to her own life
are unmistakable: Jansson herself spent much of her life living on an island
with her female partner Tuulikki Pietilä, similarly in the book Fair Play the
story centres around two female artists living together on an island and
includes known biographical details like Pietilä’s passion for making Kodak
movies. The Summer Book centres around the relationship between the child Sophia
and her Grandmother and again taking place on an island, this time it is
Jansson’s real-life niece Sophie who serves as inspiration for the stories. My
favourite of her novels is The True Deceiver, which is in itself a deceptive
book simultaneously wintery and dark, sharp as icicles and blindingly
perceptive. Focusing again on a key relationship between two women, both of
whom are clever, talented and deceptively brilliant.
There is wisdom in Jansson’s writing, her pervasive
philosophy runs like a vein of gold through everything she writes. It takes
time to absorb, often hidden deceptively amongst the otherwise sweetly amusing lightly
whimsical anecdotes she seems to be almost personally sharing with you. Like
this, from the Summer Book:
‘“He is no longer among
us,” Verner explained angrily.
“Oh, you mean he is
dead,” said Grandmother. She started thinking about all the euphemisms for
death, all the anxious taboos that had always fascinated her. It was too bad
you could never have an intelligent discussion on the subject. People were
either too old or too young, or else they didn’t have time.’
or this:
“If only she were a
little bigger, Grandmother thought. Preferably a good deal bigger, so I could
tell her that I understand how awful it is. Here you come, head-long into a
tight little group of people who have always lived together, who have the habit
of moving around each other on land they know and own and understand, and every
threat to what they’re used to only makes them even more compact and
self-assured. An island can be dreadful for someone from outside. Everything is
complete, and everyone has his obstinate, sure and self-sufficient place.
Within their shores, everything functions according to rituals that are as hard
as rock from repetition, and at the same time they amble through their days as
whimsically and casually as if the world ended at the horizon.”
It is hard for me to articulate exactly what is so wonderful
about Jansson. You simply have to read her. She is a philosopher. She is deep. She
is brief and exact. She is deceptive and effortless. She is amusing and wise. She
deserves to be read widely and often, her ideas taken into the core and
believed. She would make us all better, more wonderful people. In my drive to
limit, to restrict, my endlessly questing reading I have often held the excuse
that there are newer, more wonderful ideas which simply have to be sought out,
and yet I believe that if I only ever read Tove Jansson for the rest of my days
my reading life would remain very rich indeed.
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