The Woman Who Borrowed Memories: Selected Stories

by Tove Jansson, Thomas Teal (Translator), Silvester Mazzarella (Translator)

An NYRB Classics Original
 
Tove Jansson was a master of brevity, unfolding worlds at a touch. Her art flourished in small settings, as can be seen in her bestselling novel The Summer Book and in her internationally celebrated cartoon strips and books about the Moomins. It is only natural, then, that throughout her life she turned again and again to the short story. The Woman Who Borrowed Memories is the first extensive selection of Jansson's stories to appear in English.

Many of the stories collected here are pure Jansson, touching on island solitude and the dangerous pull of the artistic in "The Squirrel" the equanimity of the only inhabitant of a remote island is thrown by a visitor, in "The Summer Child" an unlovable boy is marooned along with his lively host family, in "The Cartoonist" an artist takes over a comic strip that has run for decades, and in "The Doll's House" a man's hobby threatens to overwhelm his life. Others explore unexpected territory: "Shopping" has a post-apocalyptic setting, "The Locomotive" centers on a railway-obsessed loner with murderous fantasies, and "The Woman Who Borrowed Memories" presents a case of disturbing transference. Unsentimental, yet always humane, Jansson's stories complement and enlarge our understanding of a singular figure in world literature.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Scandinavian Literature, Finnish Literature, Literary Fiction, 20th Century, Short Story Collection

283 pages, Paperback

First published October 21, 2014

About the author

Tove Jansson was born and died in Helsinki, Finland. As a Finnish citizen whose mother tongue was Swedish, she was part of the Swedish-speaking Finns minority. Thus, all her books were originally written in Swedish.

Although known first and foremost as an author, Tove Jansson considered her careers as author and painter to be of equal importance.

Tove Jansson wrote and illustrated her first Moomin book, The Moomins and the Great Flood (1945), during World War II. She said later that the war had depressed her, and she had wanted to write something naive and innocent. Besides the Moomin novels and short stories, Tove Jansson also wrote and illustrated four original and highly popular picture books.

Jansson's Moomin books have been translated into 33 languages.

Reviews

[Candi · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

“We read Tove Jansson to remember that to be human is dangerous, but also breathtaking, beautiful.”

I’ve been planning to read Tove Jansson’s The Summer Book for some time now. Instead, I somehow stumbled across this collection of short stories. These gave me a wonderful sense of her writing, which is quite lovely, but also tinged with a bit of melancholy and eeriness. Not eerie in the terrifying sense, but rather a bit unsettling. I couldn’t help but think of a certain collection of Shirley Jackson’s short stories while reading these. The tone is strikingly similar. Jansson was made famous by her Moomin comic strips, which she began writing in 1954. Fourteen years later, she began writing books for adults. Her love of artistry, and in particular working with one’s hands, is evident throughout most of this collection. In several of the stories, an artist’s work verges on obsession, often driving a character to the point of madness.

“I see my work as pieces of reality or unreality carved at random from a long and ineluctable course of events—the darkness I draw continues on endlessly. I cut across it with narrow and dangerous shafts of light…”

Memories feature heavily in this collection – loss of memory and distortion of memory in particular. The title story takes things a step further when one woman usurps the memories of a former roommate. It’s nearly the same as stealing another’s identity, isn’t it? Theoretically, one could convince herself that all the happy times experienced by another could indeed have happened to her instead. Isn’t it a bit like reading a book, when one becomes immersed for a time in the life of another to the point it’s all so palpable? How many steps more before we take this to an extreme?!

“Listen, being at home in your own room, where everything belongs to you and it’s all there, everything that’s happened and everything that’s been said, it’s all there, the walls are steeped in it, it’s all around you like a warm cloak and it holds you tighter and tighter . . . Don’t you believe me?”

Jansson was a Finnish writer, and nearly all of her stories take place in her native country. I spent some time looking at images of Finland while reading these. There are literally thousands of islands along its coastline- just lovely! Not surprisingly, many of her stories take place on these islands. This of course offers the opportunity to highlight isolation as another theme. Stories about isolation and characters yearning for connection are pretty irresistible to this reader. One of my favorites was about a woman living alone on an island, with only a bottle of Madeira for a trusted friend until one day a squirrel shows up unexpectedly. Best not to mess around with a woman’s bottle of booze though, little rodent buddy! I won’t say anything more on that one… Speaking of squirrels, it’s evident that Jansson had a love for nature and animals of all sorts. What a delight it was to discover a story called “The Gulls” that was heavily reminiscent of another tale titled “The Birds”. I imagine Daphne du Maurier would nod her head in great satisfaction had she the opportunity to read this one.

“The birds started screeching before dawn, like a thousand furies spoiling for war. Their feet tramped over the sheet-metal roof as if laying siege to the cottage. They were everywhere.”

What I admired about this collection was the great variety of stories – and the writing! The excellent writing! What I had some trouble with, on a personal note, was focus. My attention has been all over the place (whose hasn’t?!) I couldn’t really latch onto any one or two characters to keep me grounded. Well, yes, these were short stories, so I didn’t expect to. However, I think this kept me from appreciating them as fully as I could – right now. My enjoyment wavered while my admiration held steady. I still want to read The Summer Book – something perhaps a little more robust with some staying power to nourish my state of mind.

“Over and above factual catastrophes, miseries of one sort or another seem to repeat themselves with rather monotonous regularity so far as I’ve noticed: he or she is unfaithful or bored, someone’s no longer enjoying their work, ambitions or dreams have gone out of shape, time’s rapidly getting shorter, one’s family is behaving in an incomprehensible and frightening way, a friendship has been totally poisoned by something trivial.”

[emma]

this is my tove jansson year (going to move to a remote scandinavian island and romanticize my life)

[Tony]

It wasn't intentional, I promise. I was just waiting for a book to come in the mail. So I picked up - re-picked up - this collection of short stories thinking I could bang out a few more and then set it aside until another interlude occurred. But that same day, doing my morning ritual of breakfast-post office-used bookstore, I found Haruki Murakami's Men With Women at a shaved price.

I found myself reading a couple of hers, then one of his. Couple of hers, one of his. And, well, there's no way around it: you do stuff like this, no matter how unintentionally or ill-equipped, and you find yourself in a wilderness of comparative study.

On the printed page I saw minimalist dialogue, so I found myself folding the book to check the cover. Who was speaking: a Japanese man or a Swedish-speaking Finnish woman? When a cat appears, you think you know. But you might be wrong.

"Do you like opera?"
"Not particularly," said Viktoria. "What I like best is New Orleans, and classic jazz. When I retired, my students gave me a stereo. I take good care of it."

I'm not saying.

What I found though, is that I started reading more Jansson in between my reading of Murakami, even though I was enjoying them both.

With Murakami, however enjoyable the reading, his short stories have a sameness. There's a guy, kind of a blank canvas. Some one else wants to talk to him, explaining a love that is always inchoate, unrequited, or simply failed. The guy is observant, and always polite. Invariably a writer or someone engaged in the arts. The stories end bittersweet, but the guy walks into the sunset, having learned some sad lesson.

Jansson took chances. Will a gay couple break up because the one is obsessed with building a doll's house? A squirrel shows up on an island where an old woman lives alone. A popular cartoonist quits, suddenly, and a new cartoonist takes over the strip. People write letters; some are imagined.
There's an after-apocalypse to rival Saramago or McCarthy.

But always there's islands. And solitude.

Solitary people interest me. There are so many ways of being solitary.

Tove Jansson was never completely solitary. She was just picky on whom she invited to her island.

Watch this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYgC0...

----- ----- ----- ----- -----
P.S.: The Murakami has 26,649 GR ratings; the Jansson has 299. Teresa! Nathan! Everyone! We need to de-numb the world.

[Alwynne · Rating 3 out of 5]

An air of melancholy and quiet devastation pervades this compilation of Tove Jansson’s stories. A cross-section of pieces taken from earlier collections and ordered chronologically from the late 1970s onwards. Jansson’s characters tend to be artists and writers of some kind, giving the impression that these draw from, or reframe, her own experiences and feelings. Some seem based on figures who dominated aspects of her life such as the brutally egotistical sculptor in “The Monkey” who may, or may not, be a version of Jansson’s father. Creativity is a recurrent preoccupation but Jansson also marks the destructiveness, isolation and obsession that can go hand in hand with the act of making, as in her fictionalised portrait of Edward Gorey. The early pieces are particularly disturbing, uneasy narratives. As time passes, Jansson turns her gaze to more intimate relationships, some of which have a queer undercurrent as in “The Dollhouse” or to the strictures and pull of family. She also explores the challenges of aging with wistful evocations of the impact of the loss of memory or certainty that can accompany growing older. It’s an intriguing selection, often beautifully-observed and showcasing Jansson's usual enviable attention to detail when it comes to landscape or setting. A variable mix of standouts like unnerving “The Summer Child” and other more sketch-like offerings. For me these don’t reach the heights of her children's books or her novels but held my interest all the same.

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tony charged me with reading this— …de-numb the world! was his exhortation. I was a willing foot-soldier having already read two of Jansson’s works, including A Winter Book which shares a few of the same stories with this volume, “The Squirrel,” “Traveling Light,” “Correspondence,” “Messages”: they were a pleasure to read again.

I started this book over the holidays—the perfect time to read short stories like these—and doled them out to myself one per evening. I could’ve rushed through the stories, but most needed savoring long after I was finished reading them.

Several of the stories are breathtaking and I reread passages to figure out how Jansson did what she did. Nevertheless, I still don’t know how she accomplished “The Locomotive”, about a man with murderous fantasies and an obsession of railways. Was it all fantasy? Was some of it ‘real’? I have no idea; it was that brilliant.

There are other stories of obsession: in “The Doll’s House” a man’s hobby takes over the house while his partner worries about an intruder to their congenial life. Jansson’s characters are not always in a comfortable relationship, though, as another favorite theme is isolation.

The aforementioned “The Squirrel” combines both obsession and isolation: the first time I read it I found it funny; this time I thought it dark. “The Cartoonist” and “Shopping” (surprisingly, a post-apocalyptic tale) contain both themes as well…and then the main characters reach out to others. As Jansson writes in “The Garden of Eden”, a story that features a surreal, though serious, knife fight: There are so many ways of being solitary.

I could go on— the story about a forthright boy who rubs others the wrong way (“The Summer Child”) has also stayed with me and, oh, man, that ending of “The Gulls”—but I’ll stop here. You won’t go wrong if you read Jansson; and I will be reading even more of her.

Thank you for the mission, Tony.

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I find it very unusual to like every story in a book of shorts, in this one I can say I did. There was something that attracted me to each of these stories. There were of course a few standouts, one of which was titled The Squirrel. The sense of urgency, the loneliness and desperation of this woman living alone on an island and how she was so happy to see the squirrel and so desperate to have it stay. There is a twist here because I never really could figure out if the squirrel was actually real or not or if it arose out of her terrible loneliness.

The other story was altogether lighter and called, Traveling Light, about a man who needed to share his optimism with others.

The clarity of the writing in this collection was amazing, the descriptions wonderful. Really allowed me to immerse myself in each and every one of these stories. Themes of loneliness, nature and creativity were all explored. A truly wonderful collection.

ARC from publisher.

[S̶e̶a̶n̶ · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the kind of short story collection where no single story succeeds or fails in a memorable way. They all left a similar impression on me, for the most part. The closest to success was 'The Gulls' and my least favorites were the epistolary ones near the end. In particular, many of the endings fell flat and failed to fulfill my expectations. I also thought the stories lacked the punch that The True Deceiver delivers. But it's a perfectly serviceable collection, and I feel certain that it would appeal more to others, so don't take my word for it. (2.5, rounded up)

[Emily]

I haven't even started reading this yet, but already I'm irritated by it. Comparing it with the other Tove Jansson books currently on my shelves, I see that at least half the stories in it I already own in two other collections, Travelling Light and Art in Nature (but not all of the stories from those books are included), and I think there's also overlap with the one I can't check right now, A Winter Book. The explanation is clear enough -- Sort of Books, the UK publisher currently reviving her books and publishing new English translations, and New York Review Books, the American publisher doing the same are not on the same page. Vexing, especially for one who loves Tove Jansson so much that everything she wrote must be owned, even though I know none of these story collections for adults will ever come anywhere near to meaning as much to me as the moomin books do.

[michele · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars!

i wasn't really convinced until i was. i thought it started off strong, i liked "the listener". but the stories that came afterwards weren't really to my taste, or rather, my footing in jansson's style was shaky. i wasn't aware or yet certain about the feel of her stories, the purpose to them, whether they fit me or my predilections. and so i trudged through them. sometimes a bit unwillingly.

but when i got to "the cartoonist," she piqued my interest again, and so my curiosity bloomed and shifted and grew around her writing. in some ways, her stories can veer a bit aburdist, often ironic, and wholly unsettling. it surprised me, and that surprise delighted me. i enjoyed our little entry into lives in the midst of them, at times beginning or ending something, but always a continuation of. we get a peek into mundane people in seemingly mundane situations that take a bit of turn, experience some weirdness, and become unusual in some ways. by the end of each story, i quite enjoyed the strange feeling that comes over you, settling like a fog and obscuring like it at times too. i loved that i never quite knew if a story was going to benign or secretly sinister until i read the very last word of it.

i found her last section with correspondence, messages, and letters to all be intriguing inclusions in this selection. the organization, repetition, and banality of them show us her half of moomin, for whom she is iconic for, and her true lack of sentimentality. she feels somehow like a woman as a knife's edge.

the stories i enjoyed:
*= moreso than the otherd

the listener*
the other
the cartoonist*
white lady
the locomotive*
an eightieth birthday
the summer child*
a foreign city
the woman who borrowed memories*
traveling light
the garden of eden
shopping
the gulls
correspondences, messages, and letters

[Dr. K · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm on a Tove Jansson kick and I recommend it.

The author of the Moomins is the best kind of of comedian: one who is fully aware of the pains and bleakness of life. This comes cross in her short stories, which are gentle and sometimes painful paintings (or photographs?) of very human moments.

I'm writing this review two months after reading the book, and realize I remember few details about the stories but I do remember how they made me feel. So I recommend this if you want some slow-paced literary and occasionally bleak vignettes or to have a feeling of going through someone else's old family album. 3.25 stars.

[ocelia · Rating 5 out of 5]

so good! my favorites were the listener, black-white (edward gorey <3), the squirrel, and the woman who borrowed memories

[Helena · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think I am giving this book my first half star score ever, it gets a 4.5. I didn’t feel like I got every story exactly but I enjoyed reading them while it was happening. They feel both sparse and also rich which is very cool. My favorites were: The Squirrel, The Doll’s House, The Summer Child, The Garden of Eden, My Beloved Uncles, and Letters to Konikova

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tove Jansson to me is Mommin, as she is undoubtedly is too many people. But I’ve discovered that her adult work is just as enjoyable and has a wonderful, if sometimes perverted (which makes it better) sense of humor.
This is a collection of various short stories, and while I didn’t enjoy every short story it is a very good collection.
My favorite is mostly likely the one that is dedicated to Edward Gorey, “Black-White”. This story, like most of the others in the collection is about creator and creation. The story not only references several of Gorey’s outworks but does make a reader want to read a biography about Gorey.
The idea of creation taking over the creator is most thoughtfully depicted in “The Cartoonist”, and a reader has to wonder if this is, in part, about her own success with her strips and then her brother’s taking over of such work.
There are several stories about the natural world and the people that view it. There is a story of a woman and the squirrel that visits her on the woman’s island. The short story “The Doll’s House” isn’t Ibsen.
Perhaps the most interesting stories are the ones that take the form of letters towards the end of the collection.

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 1 out of 5]

That ultra-rare beast, the awful NYRB selection.
And man, these are dreadful. It's surprising, though, because Jansson was the creator of the "Moomin" weirdness for kids, which I remembered tangentially encountering at some point in the early 80s, and found memorable somehow. Unfortunately, there is nothing to commend these terrible stories even to an idiotic child, or man-child for that matter. These are uninspiring, with only vague hints at captivating whimsy or weirdness. I found myself gaily skipping through story after story as the first few pages made the front of my head thrum with pitiless agitation, as if there were a drunken, midget clockmaker trapped behind my blasphemous eyebrows dancing the watusi in high-hells. Heels, I mean. The quaking soon passed downwards along the fredulla moblongatis, that desperate node of neuron and chemical-social diarrhea. By sitting's end I found myself suspended in mid-hair atop a geyser of fetid, brown uncertainty, reduced to juvenile neologism and neostructuralist scatological references that give new meaning to the toponym(name) "Poocault".

[Daniel Polansky]

I have great esteem for Janson (despite never having actually read the Moomen. Moomin?) as (ugh) a writer’s writer, in the sense of having ferociously on point language, a complexity and peculiarity of viewpoint, etc. My expectations might have been a little unrealistic given how much I loved loved loved Fair Play, but not all of these quite hit for me. There are a couple of masterful cuts – The Squirrel, for instance, I really liked – but there were a fair few that didn’t have quite the tightness of theme that a really good short story requires. But, again, my expectations were very high, I still enjoyed these and read them real fast. Keep.

[Brent Legault · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jansson's tales unspool in the strangest ways while rarely resorting to Twilight Zone twists.* Her language is usually written from a great distance. (Is there such a thing as 4th or even 5th person narration?) But they won't fail to move you. And you'll be moved often if you read them all. Readers, like you and me, have their pick of favorites. Mine was The Summer Child. I don't know why it took me so long to come across that story, to incorporate it into my own inner mythology. How have I lived without it all these years?


*Not that I mind the old surprise ending now and then: see Charles Beaumont, Richard Aickman, and Daphne Du Maurier, to name but a few of the better practitioners.

[RH Walters · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unusual arty stories with intellectual preoccupations from another time that are familiar yet feel old-fashioned somehow -- identity; architecture; finding our moods echoed in nature. Some unforgettable imagery like glitter in the carpet, or waking up slowly in front of a wood stove. Due back at the library, so I'll miss seeing your flower-crowned swimming face, Tove.

[Tom Hughes · Rating 4 out of 5]

So good! her sensibility is not for everyone, she sees a world of sinister developments hiding behind the humdrum. (Her children's books are the opposite -- seemingly sinister events turn out to have friendly, family-ish meanings). Anyway, I loved it.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful anguish and art and birds.

[Juliana · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Woman Who Borrowed Memories is a collection of short stories by wonderful Finnish author and illustrator Tove Jannson spanning from 1971-1998. Jansson died in 2001 but over the course of her career, she wrote short stories, six novels, and articles, and also worked as an illustrator and graphic artist. She is best known for her Moomin children's books published in the 1940s and later turned into a beloved set of cartoons. She won the Hans Christian Anderson medal and was included in The Will Eisner Hall of Fame.

I first encountered Jannson when I read The Summer Book which kept popping up as a recommendation by fellow NYRB fans. I took that one on vacation on a beach, and to be reading a sweet simple story about a grandmother and granddaughter spending the summer at a shoreline cabin was a french kiss for my weekend away. I later followed that up with Fair Play her semi-autobiographical collection of vignettes about two senior artists living and traveling together. That book was a marvelous look at how we work, play, squabble, and love. That book was perfect for reading in the time of Covid as our quarters and families closed around us.

The Woman Who Borrowed Memories with an introduction by Lauren Groff is a collection of many stories, collected from other sources and with a number of translators. One of my favorite themes in this and all her books is Art as work. I've taught from Julia Cameron's The Artist Way and know a thing or two about the process of becoming an Artist. Jansson's work is about being an Artist in all its day-to-day activities. (Of course, Jansson was not only an artist but so were her parents).

One story, The Cartoonist, is about a young artist named Stein who takes over a beloved cartoon from an artist, Allington, who has retired. In this story, which was translated by Thomas Teal, Jansson cleverly reveals her process through the editor, "'You have to remember,' Fried said, 'you have to keep in mind the whole time that the tension has to mount. You've got a strip of three or four panels, five if absolutely necessary, but four's better. Okay. In the first one, you resolve the tension from the previous day. Catharsis, relief, the drama continues. You build up new tension in the second panel, increase it in panel three, and so on. I've explained that. You're good, but you get lost in the details, commentary, embroidery that gets in the way of the red thread. It has to be a straight line, simple and moves toward a peak, a climax, you see?'"

Stein goes about his daily work learning his role and wonders about the previous cartoonist, Allington as the office still retains both his essence and his sweaters. "It was a cartoonist who had worked here, and the sweater was his. Stein was curious and opened a drawer. It contained a mix of pencil stumps, tape, empty ink bottles, paper clips, all the usual junk. But maybe worse than usual. All of it had been stirred together as if in a rage. He opened the next drawer. It was empty,... It could have been Allington who'd had this room. Maybe he never worked at home, maybe he sat right here for twenty years and drew his Blubby." Stein is told repeatedly to do the work but to also take the Art and do "something of your own, but preferably no one will see the break."

How does one take over another's creative work and make it their own and why did Allington quit? Stein eventually decides to track down Allington even though no one in the office knows his whereabouts. He succeeds and visits Allington in a hotel in the suburbs and Allington is described as a "perfectly ordinary man, one of the invisible people on a bus." They meet and talk about the work. It ends with Allington offering to help Stein out, "I just thought," Allington said, "I just happened to think that, if you get stuck, I might be able to do a couple of strips. Sometime. If you'd like..." Ah, can an Artist really retire?

There are all kinds of stories in here and I love the glimpses of the Artist life and Scandinavian Summer Beach life. The cover even has a delightful photo of Jansson swimming in front of her cabin. Squirrel, also translated by Teal, is about the ups and downs of living in close quarters with wildlife. Another moment I'm sure we can all recognize from times of Covid. Maybe Scandanavians are built for isolation but Jansson is also good at showing the joys of the quiet life.

In the Artist's Way, Julia Cameron states, "The point of the work is the work." But there is also an emphasis on play. I can't help but feel a sense of joyful play when I read Jansson's work. I would recommend starting with one of her novels and then progressing to her short stories and then before you know it, Moomin books and then a Moomin coffee mug.

[maddie marko · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars! no big, hands-down, yell-to-the heavens-about essays for me, but pleasantly enjoyed them all. this woman’s Smart! she’s got it going for her, believe it or not. “the gulls” and “messages” will stick with me most, i think. loved the structure of “messages”— probably cobbled together from her received/sent letters? excerpt: “Hi! We’re three girls in a mad rush with our essays about you could you help us by saying in just a few words how you started writing and why and what life means to you and then a message to young people you know the kind of thing. Thanks in advance / Hi coming later heat the soup Kiss, T / What shall I do with my parents they’re becoming more and more hopeless. Write! / Couldn’t we meet and chat about the old days at school? I’m Margit, the one who punched you in the stomach in the playground / Hi dear unknown fairy-tale auntie, we’re a group of young folks with Ideas! What d’you think? Are you up for it? Luv, Plastic Ltd, ‘Now of Never’ project / Could you consider becoming patron of this constantly threatened little area of natural beauty” (278-281).

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection where the introduction (in this case written by Lauren Groff) was helpful to me in appreciating the stories. I picked up this book from the Alameda Free Library on a whim and I'm glad I did. If I could have, I would have read it at another time as it's a contemplative book. While very funny and smart, it's also a little cold and the recurring theme of isolation made it a difficult book for me during self-quarantine. Definitely recommend if you've never read or even heard of Jansson before. There's clarity of vision and intelligent humor throughout the collection. Must read.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an ARC from The New York Review of Books through Edelweiss.

This collection of short stories is divided into four sections, the first of which is entitled "The Listener" and was originally published in 1971. I found the stories in this part of the collection to have a dream-like, almost surreal quality to them. In the story that is the title to the collection, "The Listener", a woman who is called Aunt Gerda has always been a great listener to her family. She listens intently to all of their stories and woes and when she is about fifty-five years old her personality starts to change. She seems to forget names and people and starts to spend a lot of time by herself.

Aunt Gerda begins one day to map out, in great detail, a family tree and all of the relationship dynamics within the family. Then she includes on her map, through a code of colors, all of the secrets that various family members have told her over the years. I found this story, and the others in the first part of the collection, to take a surprising twist. This is not a sad tale about a woman who is in the early signs of Alzheimer's but instead it shows that buried somewhere deep inside her sub conscience are all of the stories which family members have confided to Aunt Gerda over the years. These stories have become a part of who she is.

One of my other favorite stories in the collection is entitled "A Leading Role." A woman named Maria has been giving the leading role in a play which is her first big part in her theater career. But Maria doesn't like the part she is given because she believes that the middle-aged woman she is required to play is "insignificant and anxious" and completely devoid of any personality.

One weekend Maria is at her lake house and is terribly bored due to a lack of company. She decides it would be a great idea to invite her cousin Frida to spend some time with her because Frida has the same personality traits of the role she is to play in her major theater debut. When Frida visits she is nervous, soft-spoken and plain.

Over the course of several conversations Maria completely changes her opinion of Frida and as a result begins to embrace her new part in the play. This story reminds us that a book cannot be judged by it's cover and we never truly know a person unless we spend some time engaging them in meaningful conversations.

Overall, I thought this was a remarkable translation of Jannson's works and it is unfortunate that they have not been translated into English until now. The New York Review of Books has published yet another wonderful collection of interesting stories.

[Madhuri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tove Jansson has come to be one of my most beloved writers. She creates these insanely sinister worlds with so little cheer that it sends shivers down your spine as you read through the pages. She sees so much and is then able to articulate it so well that the emotions transcend the process of translation and come straight to you. There is immense loneliness in her writing, and a severe recognition that despite any relations you may have, your world is still your own. The inability to share it with someone else is the cost at which independence comes.

While my favourite book from her is still The True Deceiver, this collection comes a close second, as there are very few stories where the deceit or darkness of the earlier favourite doesn't show itself.

My favourite story was the title story - The woman who borrowed memories - a disturbing story as you puzzle through whose memory is playing tricks and who has adopted memories from the other.

[DeanJean · Rating 5 out of 5]

All her short stories are more or less actually complete novels. I find it amazing that she packs so much in a few pages. I found it hard to understand initially but the sentence that ultimately endeared me to her work unfolded on page 44 in The Squirrel - "She didn't care about a dog anymore. Dogs are dangerous, they react to everything immediately, they're distinctly sympathetic animals. A squirrel was better." It's difficult to describe the magic but this sentence could explain how and why solitude figures so much in her short stories, and why her characters seem to constantly waver between unbridled sympathy born from genuine understanding, and the desire to distance oneself as a result of that understanding, and also how one distances in order to better understand themselves. Of course she livens everything up with a humour that twists and turns, appearing at places that you don't expect, which is what makes her stories so enjoyable.

[Robin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read "The Summer Book" by Jansson last summer and this book of selected stories is a great follow-up and treat for pandemic days. I am not finished yet but am doling out these stories bit by bit and expect to come back to some of them as well. I think "The Cartoonist" describes many of them well, as the new cartoonist is taught to drawn the tension through the panels and then resolve that tension in the first panel of the next day; some of the resolutions are unmade in these stories but the tension is palpable. These are tense and strong observations of daily life and of the arcs of some lives. Some of them read like mysteries, others like dramas/plays ("White Lady"), and others like dialogues waiting to be spoken aloud (the title story). The cover photo of Jansson wearing a birthday garland while swimming off a rocky coast is an additional treat. Thanks to Jansson and her translators for a weird, haunting, and wonderful collection.

[Austen to Zafón · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like most short story collections, there was some unevenness. Some stories were excellent, some mediocre. But even a mediocre story by Jansson is better than most short stories I've read. She tackles the topics of loneliness, aging, relatives, anxiety, passion, and obsession with such originality. While I liked her Summer Book much more, this was still worth reading.

[Karen Heuler · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5. I read the first story and thought: Oh My God! I'm about to be INFLUENCED! A terrifying thought. I should be unafraid of influences at this point in my life, and in fact by the second story I was already abandoning my fears. Yes, she's an impressive writer, but as I went on I found the claustrophobia too restrictive, the intensity of the narrowness not at all my ongoing ice cream.

[Cathy]

A wonderful book to dip in and out of, pick up and put down. Tove Jansson always seems to capture the 'quiet' moments of life that aren't actually quiet at all. There's no strong driving plot but astute observation & interpretation of people and the world.

[Kätlin Kaldmaa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every summer I read ”The Summer Book” by Tove. My books are still packed away, so I have to read what I can. All of Tove’s books are connected — you read one you read them all. Wonderful stories, read over and over by me, myself & I, and millions of others. Takk fyrir, Tove.