The twenty-two chapters that make up this brief novel combine surprisingly poignant discussions between two women, one very young and one very old, with closely observed details of the natural world. The girl and her grandmother spend their summers together on a tiny island in the Gulf of Finland, while Papa is also somewhere about, working. Jansson, author of the Moomintroll comic strip and books, apparently based much of it on her own summers on a similar island.
Early on, six-year-old Sophia “woke up and remembered that they had come back to the island and that she had a bed to herself because her mother was dead.” Although this death, almost an aside, is not mentioned again, we are reminded that summer and death go hand in hand: “summer’s lease hath all too short a date.” The transitory nature of life haunts the story and adds depth to the exchanges between Sophia and her grandmother.
The chapters are deceptively plain yet leave the reader aware that each seemingly normal summer adventure—diving into water, entertaining a friend, studying worms—holds a deeper meaning. Jansson’s simple and direct language invites consideration of subtext and metaphor. It leaves a silence similar to the white space around a line of poetry, space where a reader can bring forward her own memories. Surely you, too, have been here: “The forest was full of rustling and whispering. There was a wonderful smell of pine and damp moss. Everything was soft and springy underfoot. You could see a long way between the tree trunks, and here and there sunlight fell on patches of berries.”
I know Sophie and her grandmother as surely as though they are real people in my life. Avoiding sentiment and stereotypes, Jansson gives us a child with strong opinions who feels safe enough to voice them, and a grandmother who is ill and often in pain but who wants to help this child while she can. They speak the truth to each other—how rare is that between the very old and the very young? Such bluntness sometimes means expressing irritation or anger, yet they always speak with love.
They cheat at cards and argue about God. “Sophia asked how God could keep track of all the people who prayed at the same time. ‘He’s very, very smart,’ Grandmother mumbled sleepily under her hat. ‘Answer really,’ Sophia said. ‘How does He have time?’ ‘He has secretaries…’ “
A postcard of Venice leads the grandmother to explain that the city is sinking, and they build their own version of Venice, creating palazzos, bridges and gondolas: “There is something very elegant about throwing the plates out the window after dinner, and about living in a house that is slowly sinking to its doom.”
Most of all, they wander about exploring the island. They walk the shore looking for what the sea has washed up in the night. They are careful not to step on the fragile moss. “Step on it once and it rises the next time it rains. The second time, it doesn’t rise back up. And the third time you step on moss, it dies.” Fragility and protection run through the book. Sophia helps her grandmother when they crawl into the Magic Forest, a dense tangle of dead and living trees, twisted by the wind. Trying to clear a path or separate them “might lead to the ruin of the magic forest,” but left alone, “the trees slipped deeper and deeper into each other’s arms as time went by.’
Although the publisher indicates that the book is about a single summer, there are indications that these are fragments from several summers, floating up as memories do, one calling another, each so unexpected, so vivid, yet mysteriously connected. I came away thinking about the ways we take care of each other and of the natural world. I think about how we connect and what we pass on. This is a book I will come back to again and again.
Summer is a little more than half over for most of us. What has been your favorite summer read?
