the summer book (1972)

Thoroughly enjoyed this charming grandmother-granddaughter book by the creator of the Moomins. It gives a straightforward account of the extended summer on the family's small Swedish-speaking Finnish island as these two characters (nearly autobiographical, I understand) navigate through their daily routines and relationship with one another. If you loved Pippi Longstocking and occasionally ached for the wild child she is, wishing to know what life might have been like had she had more conventional parenting,this little novel points at possible answers. It's a book I'd like to read regularly. ( )

The lingering memories of The Summer Book are of having dwelt for a while in a dreamlike idyll. Yet as with other similarly-affecting books, Brideshead and [b:Le Grand Meaulnes|794779|Le Grand Meaulnes|Henri Alain-Fournier|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178422620s/794779.jpg|51583], there is darkness too, deeper within the reverie.

The exquisitely-described landscapes of a small Finnish island are remoter and rockier and mossier and harsher than those of early twentieth century France or southern England. The peace and isolation are a holiday in themselves: it's something north european fiction does very well. I've never experienced such relaxation from reading books as from this and the also-rural settings of [b:Greenvoe|824132|Greenvoe|George Mackay Brown|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178714251s/824132.jpg|1943688] and [b:Out Stealing Horses|398323|Out Stealing Horses|Per Petterson|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1317791439s/398323.jpg|3321103]. And the translator's repeated use of the word 'skerry' amplifies the similarity of Nordic and Scottish landscapes.

It's not the book of one summer: the summers mingle, un-numbered and out of time as if there were no school or Christmas between.

Sophia at the start is six, and her mother has recently died; the impact is never narrated or analysed - what a relief! - we just feel the soothing effect of the landscape and freedom to play.

Her Grandmother, her companion throughout the book, doesn't always say the right thing - but with great wisdom and understanding, often intuits the best course of action. Unlike my grandmothers who lived among mildly tense conversational gaps, the quiet tick of clocks, the rustle of napkins and the pour of hot drinks, Sophia's is a roguish adventurer: they climb rocks they shouldn't, break into a deserted house and get up to other mischief much like Royal Tenenbaum on his outings with Ari and Uzi. Aside from one mention that Grandmother was once a leader of girl scouts in Sweden, who won them the freedom to be able to go camping, the escapades are free of gender-political comment: these two are simply being themselves.

Sophia may be charming and cute sometimes, but throughout she is also a stroppy wilful brat who knows her own mind and doesn't react in a sugar-and-spice way to being frightened. The first moment that cuts jagged through the stillness is when she screams and cries distraught at the idea that a duck may have killed himself. Whether the average reader - for this book is a classic in Scandinavia - is assumed to accept Sophia's noise particularly because of her bereavement, I don't know, but her imperfection makes the book more perfect. And from one former stroppy wilful brat to another, it's a truer childhood than it would be with some Pollyanna protagonist.

It would have been quite lovely to have read this out in the sun at the height of summer, but the end instead matches our summer's end. ( )

I thought it would be a sweet grandmother and child observing nature... it was much better than that. Not sweet at all, but calming. I like how each chapter ended with a sentence that brought everything in the chapter together, but not a lesson. The grandmother and the child just got added to the list of my favourite characters in fiction. ( )

This is incredibly relaxing.

These short stories detail a slow and peaceful island life, long summer days, grandmother and granddaughter. Detailed peace and the build-up of life moments. A painting built up from colored daubs. Reminds me of Studio Ghibli movies. ( )

It's a long time since I sat down with a book and read it from cover-to-cover, but (apart from a necessary overnight sleep) that's what I did with The Summer Book.

It's a book of small incidents and and close intimacies between a young girl, Sophia, and her grandmother, who spend their summer months together on a tiny island in the Gulf of Finland. Even when the occasional large-scale event intrudes, such as the storm that Sophia prays for and then regrets, the focus is on the interplay between the child and her grandmother.

I like it that both characters are given equal voice, the point of view flowing gently from one to the other. Papa is with them, a loved and often worried-over figure, but he's usually "off-stage".

It's clear that the events of several summers are narrated in the course of the story, but there is little to indicate any growth in the relationship between the two - their attitudes towards each other are basically the same at the end as at the beginning: the child alternately loving and hating her grandmother and taking her presence for granted - she had never given thought to the fact that Grandmother must once have been married and that there was a Grandfather at some time in the past; Grandmother nurturing and cherishing the child, while finding her demands a nuisance and throwing petulant fits as unreasonable as those of the child's. The constancy of their relationship is a reflection of the endless summer days of the high latitudes. Ending the book with Sophia still a child, unchanged by adolescence and unaware of the minds and needs of others, Jansson creates something timeless. ( )