#ReadAroundTheWorld. #Finland

This is a series of short stories that form a memoir of Finnish author Tove Jansson’s growing up in Helsinki in the 1920s. This is her first book for adults and is a sweet, at times nostalgic, look at her childhood as the daughter of a sculptor and an artist.

Jansson captures beautifully the child’s perspective, including the mystery and wonder of life, mixed with the innocent wisdom of childhood. Jansson was part of the Finnish minority of Swedish speakers and her writing also reveals aspects of the culture and traditions. Her writing is magical, understated, luminous and exquisite. Her books are definitely worth exploring. ( )

Interesting. Her father comes across as pretty self-centred. ( )

Not so much a memoir as a group of stories from the point of view of a child - Tove Jansson. Very evocative and sweet. The one where she puts on her mother's tulle skirt and creeps around, spying a monster in the mirror, is perfect. ( )

I have been under the spell of Tove Jansson since I first read The True Deceiver in 2009. I never encountered her Moomin books as a child, and I must admit, the Moomins don't appeal to me in the same way that characters in the books by Dr. Seuss and Maurice Sendak do.

But the books, she wrote for adults, starting in 1968 with The Sculptor's Daughter including The Summer Book, Sun City, Travelling Light, and Fair Play have entangled me in Jansson's web of contemplation about friendship, work, artistry, childhood, and aging.

I found Sculptor's Daughter: A Childhood Memoir (Bildhuggarens Dotter) enchanting. When I first discovered Jansson, this book had been long out of print and unavailable, though some of the chapters had been reprinted as stories in A Winter Book, so I was delighted to see that William Morrow had issued a paperback reprint last year.

Jansson's voice in these vignettes from her childhood is both whimsical and wise, creative and ultimately practical. Her memories take her from her grandparents' house in Sweden, to the loft-studio where she lived with her artist parents in Helsinki, to the small island on which they summered in Finland's bays.

This is from the chapter titled "The Bays":

The house is grey, the sky and the sea are grey, and the field is grey with dew. It's four o'clock in the morning and I have saved three important hours which can be counted as extra. Or perhaps three and a half.

I have learned to tell the time, although I'm not yet quite sure about the minutes.

I'm also light grey, but inside, because I'm all vague and wobbly like a jelly-fish, not thinking but just feeling. If you sailed a hundred miles over the sea and walked a hundred miles through the forest in all directions, you wouldn't find a little girl at all. They just don't exist. I know because I've found out....The nearest thing to it you'll find is Fanny who is almost seventy and collects pebbles and shells and dead animals and sings when it is going to rain. ( )

Fint skriven med knivskarpa minnesbilder från barndomen men boken är alldeles för splittrad och fragmentarisk för att gripa tag i mig över huvud taget. Har många fler Tove Jansson böcker i bokhyllan som jag ska testa längre fram. Övertygad att jag kommer att gilla dem bättre. ( )