I absolutely loved this book.On the first reading I enjoyed it but didn't quite "get it`" but, like an elusive thought, it kept playing on my mind.
Katri and her dog were as one: alone, different, isolated in a hostile and uncomfortable world that they have difficulty fitting into. They learn to play a part that allows them to survive, straightjacketed perhaps from reality and from their true selves, their true natures. Katri has learned to "show her teeth" but doesn't appear to know how to smile. Is this deceit or survival? Her yellow "different" eyes widen when alarmed and for a moment we are allowed to glimpse her true identity, her inner soul.
As the book goes on I was both alarmed and appalled initially at her deception. But why, when so many of us are blinded to the truth, unable to even see it, let alone to confront it, to know what we truly want from life. And so we go on acting, playing a part that is expected of us, hiding behind superficial veneers, unable to confront and talk about the truth because it is too uncomfortable, too painful, too cruel?
Jansson gradually strips away the layers. Here is a book that appears, at first, to be simple but as soon as you dig below the surface and the snow starts to clear, the true nature and feelings of the main protaganists can be revealed. So the truth, the cruel and uncomfortable truth of their real identities (and so too ours) , their real ruthlessness and their real personalities are allowed to reveal themselves. The show more snow melts and everything is there to be discovered, but only if we are able to open our minds to reality and the freedom to see things as they really are, as they could be if we can only confront our inner selves.
Katri learns to play, to love, to hug, to feel and therefore becomes less different, less alone. She doesn't nee d the dog to protect her anymore but is able to connect with real people on a level previously denied to her. Yes, she has always loved Mats instinctively as a natural mother on an animal level of protecting, caring and nurturing but she has never really talked to him. Giving him the boat is a symbol of her true love; the boat will allow him to escape and sail away, to discover his true self as all our children should be allowed eventually to do.
Anna, on the otherhand, has always lived isolated and alone, apparently happy in her cocooned, idealistic and ridiculously unreal little world at the rabbit house. She has squirrelled herself away. Unable to even look at real meat (let alone eat it), she has been perhaps even more isolated and alone than Katri. Oh yes, people like her, because she has learned how to play her part well and with apparent success. Unlike Katri, material wealth has come easily to her and with a great deal of inherited luck. But how many of us can afford the luxury of such luck? She doesn't like real children. She has never had a real animal. She has always deceived herself that her parents were kind. It is only when her relationship with Mats and Katri allows her to confront the truth of her petty life, is she able to strip away the layers of deception and see the truth. With her piles of possessions lying on the ice, waiting to sink into the deep, she can be cleansed, released and liberated to develop. Katri has made her confront her true nature, her true self. She isn't really sweet or nice or even clever. She has just found a way of surviving her lonely existence through her talent for painting. By entering the real world, I believe she becomes a deeper, more real and fully rounded human being, able to connect to her inner and spiritual self.
Good Art should challenge us, should make us uncomfortable with ourselves so we can evolve, becoming better people in the process where we can truly connect with each other.
Words, art, symbols are essential to allow us to free ourselves from reality and connect to something higher and more meaningful outside and within our true selves. Only by confronting our past, can we release ourselves to explore the future. When Anna finally puts her only "friends" letters on the ice and revisits the reality of her past and her parents she is able to realise how very unimportant she was to them. Only then can she truly connect with Mats and Katri. In the end, they are alive, they are here now, they need love, material comfort and help, and by giving she receives true help, the comfort and the companionship that would have been denied her if Katri's circumstances hadn't forced her to connect with her.
We all need other people to survive. We all deceive because we have to in order to survive. And in the end that is what life is all about surviving and trying, on occasions, to take something a little higher, a little better and a lot more loving from the abyss.
The True Deceiver can be a life changing book if you can allow yourself to connect with it! show less
Katri and her dog were as one: alone, different, isolated in a hostile and uncomfortable world that they have difficulty fitting into. They learn to play a part that allows them to survive, straightjacketed perhaps from reality and from their true selves, their true natures. Katri has learned to "show her teeth" but doesn't appear to know how to smile. Is this deceit or survival? Her yellow "different" eyes widen when alarmed and for a moment we are allowed to glimpse her true identity, her inner soul.
As the book goes on I was both alarmed and appalled initially at her deception. But why, when so many of us are blinded to the truth, unable to even see it, let alone to confront it, to know what we truly want from life. And so we go on acting, playing a part that is expected of us, hiding behind superficial veneers, unable to confront and talk about the truth because it is too uncomfortable, too painful, too cruel?
Jansson gradually strips away the layers. Here is a book that appears, at first, to be simple but as soon as you dig below the surface and the snow starts to clear, the true nature and feelings of the main protaganists can be revealed. So the truth, the cruel and uncomfortable truth of their real identities (and so too ours) , their real ruthlessness and their real personalities are allowed to reveal themselves. The show more snow melts and everything is there to be discovered, but only if we are able to open our minds to reality and the freedom to see things as they really are, as they could be if we can only confront our inner selves.
Katri learns to play, to love, to hug, to feel and therefore becomes less different, less alone. She doesn't nee d the dog to protect her anymore but is able to connect with real people on a level previously denied to her. Yes, she has always loved Mats instinctively as a natural mother on an animal level of protecting, caring and nurturing but she has never really talked to him. Giving him the boat is a symbol of her true love; the boat will allow him to escape and sail away, to discover his true self as all our children should be allowed eventually to do.
Anna, on the otherhand, has always lived isolated and alone, apparently happy in her cocooned, idealistic and ridiculously unreal little world at the rabbit house. She has squirrelled herself away. Unable to even look at real meat (let alone eat it), she has been perhaps even more isolated and alone than Katri. Oh yes, people like her, because she has learned how to play her part well and with apparent success. Unlike Katri, material wealth has come easily to her and with a great deal of inherited luck. But how many of us can afford the luxury of such luck? She doesn't like real children. She has never had a real animal. She has always deceived herself that her parents were kind. It is only when her relationship with Mats and Katri allows her to confront the truth of her petty life, is she able to strip away the layers of deception and see the truth. With her piles of possessions lying on the ice, waiting to sink into the deep, she can be cleansed, released and liberated to develop. Katri has made her confront her true nature, her true self. She isn't really sweet or nice or even clever. She has just found a way of surviving her lonely existence through her talent for painting. By entering the real world, I believe she becomes a deeper, more real and fully rounded human being, able to connect to her inner and spiritual self.
Good Art should challenge us, should make us uncomfortable with ourselves so we can evolve, becoming better people in the process where we can truly connect with each other.
Words, art, symbols are essential to allow us to free ourselves from reality and connect to something higher and more meaningful outside and within our true selves. Only by confronting our past, can we release ourselves to explore the future. When Anna finally puts her only "friends" letters on the ice and revisits the reality of her past and her parents she is able to realise how very unimportant she was to them. Only then can she truly connect with Mats and Katri. In the end, they are alive, they are here now, they need love, material comfort and help, and by giving she receives true help, the comfort and the companionship that would have been denied her if Katri's circumstances hadn't forced her to connect with her.
We all need other people to survive. We all deceive because we have to in order to survive. And in the end that is what life is all about surviving and trying, on occasions, to take something a little higher, a little better and a lot more loving from the abyss.
The True Deceiver can be a life changing book if you can allow yourself to connect with it! show less