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What Members Thought
A series of vignettes, with 3 characters--grandma, dad, and 6-year-old Sophia. They spend every summer on an island in the sea, fishing, playing, gardening, watching nature. Sophia is a bit of a spitfire, dad is very busy fishing and doing undefined paperwork, and grandma isn't feeling that great in her old age. Bittersweet and sad, yet somehow happy and exciting as Sophia explores more and more. Makes me want to go spend a summer on a Scandinavian island.
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Jul 25, 2018
Dave
rated it
liked it
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review of another edition
Shelves:
clouds,
lost-in-translation
At first I thought this was so cold and precise that it reminded me of The Road, if you can believe it. Woman and girl, terse symbolic arguments, etc. But now I think I agree with the intro, and that the book is determinedly UN-symbolic (as well as unsentimental and non-narrative). What it is is the picture of Jansson's version of a summer, and if I wish it were warmer and better rounded, then that's just me being resistant to what it is.
I think it's written very well, and perfectly illustrated ...more
I think it's written very well, and perfectly illustrated ...more
Some people love page-turners and romance for summer reads. I prefer these slow, trance-like vignettes that I can pick up and put down and the action pauses while I break.
Beautiful, quirky, unsentimental novel about the relationship between a young child and her artistic grandmother who live on a very small island off the coast of Finland. This book is so well-observed and thoughtful that I was sorry to see it end. I am not surprised that the book is considered a classic in Scandinavia. It should be so here as well.
Started on the solstice, appropriately enough. A very Scandinavian summer story about a child and her grandmother on an island for the summer, with melancholy shot throughout. Jansson’s style is a slow burn of feeling, leisurely paced. A worthwhile read (although I liked The True Deceiver a bit more).
Sheer perfection.
Jun 12, 2012
Konstantinos Karagiannis
marked it as to-read
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review of another edition
Shelves:
fiction-to-read,
nyrb-books-to-read
