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The Summer Book

Tove Jansson,

Esther Freud (Contributor)

Start date: July 1, 2020

Finish date: July 31, 2020

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What Members Thought

Jun 29, 2022 Sara rated it really liked it

Shelves: archive-org, multi-generational, family, women-writers, aging

Perhaps children and the very elderly are closer to God, or at least closer to nature, because one is newly born and knows little and the other is near death and knows too much. While reading this sweet story of a grandmother and grandchild sharing their summer on a Finnish island, I kept thinking of them as opposite ends of a spectrum and yet as alike as two newly-minted pennies.

There is a kind of serene loveliness to this book, which is more a series of vignettes than an actual novel. It is su Perhaps children and the very elderly are closer to God, or at least closer to nature, because one is newly born and knows little and the other is near death and knows too much. While reading this sweet story of a grandmother and grandchild sharing their summer on a Finnish island, I kept thinking of them as opposite ends of a spectrum and yet as alike as two newly-minted pennies.

There is a kind of serene loveliness to this book, which is more a series of vignettes than an actual novel. It is summer and Sophia and her grandmother share adventures, break the rules, and befriend one another; one on a path of discovery and the other contemplating and sharing all the things she has gleaned over a lifetime. And, sometimes it is the young who have the wisdom.

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.

Jansson transports us to this island and helps us to see it through the loving eyes of a person who has known it forever and the wondering eyes of a person who is just discovering all its hidden treasures. I kept thinking of another work of this type, The Country of the Pointed Firs and Other Stories, in which the natural environment is almost a character itself. The Summer Book gave me that same immersed feeling.

We end the book with the first indicators that fall is approaching.

It is still summer, but the summer is no longer alive. It has come to a standstill; nothing withers, and fall is not ready to begin. There are no stars yet, just darkness.

And we know, if the child does not, that the summers of her grandmother are limit; she has already passed into the autumn of her life and winter is nipping at her heels. But what a blessed thing this time is for them both, for Grandmother has a chance to see the wonder that her life has been and Sophia is building memories that will someday stand in for this person she must surely lose.

This is not a melancholy book, but there is a trace of melancholy that runs beneath its surface, and a current of joy as well.
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Jun 07, 2020 Dkbbookgirl rated it it was amazing

So lovely
Vividly descriptive

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Oct 28, 2024 Jill rated it it was amazing

This is a beautiful little book about a young girl and her grandmother that manages to avoid all sentimentality. The girl, her father and grandmother spend the summer on an island off the coast of Finland. The book is not plotted, but discuss life, love, God and death in a series of little vignettes. The little girl can be very selfish and bratty and so can the grandmother who takes lots of naps and sneaks off to smoke cigarettes. The two are thrown together because of age, one too old for thing ...more

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