I began reading this in the original Swedish on my Kobo but found it quite hard work and missed some of the enchantment that I knew was present. So then I got a copy in English, the translation by Thomas Teal, and reading the two versions together was a wonderful experience. I read on the publishers website that many Swedes (and I suppose Swedish-speaking Finns) read the book at the beginning of every summer, and I can see myself doing that too.
The story of Sophia and her grandmother (farmor) is simple but full of wisdom, and the writing is extremely skilful. Point-of-view is beautifully handled, as we see things through a child’s eyes and then an adult’s, sometimes Sophia is the child and sometimes the Grandmother is. Summers pass by on their little island in the Finnish archepeligo. The theme is the passing and return of the seasons, aging, endings and beginnings, memory, what is left at the end, the fragility of nature, the fragility of people... All the important things.
Ali Smith – whose recommendation of The Summer Book in The Guardian set me off – has a blurb on the back cover of Teal’s translation that captures it perfectly:
[Jansson’s] writing is all magical deception, her sentences simple and loaded; the novel reads like looking through clear water and seeing, suddenly, the depth.
The character of Sophia is based on Jansson's niece of the same name, and I found a video of the real Sophia talking about the 50th anniversary edition. I love the accent of Swedish-speaking Finns. My old Stockholmare friend Fredrik used to admit that Swedish-Finns spoke the nicest Swedish and listening to this I think I'll have to get an audiobook version of Sommarboken.
