Art in Nature
Page 13
“But we can’t,” Rosa whispered.
“No. We can’t.” Elena walked back and forth across the kitchen. Finally she stopped behind Rosa, put her hands on her shoulders, and asked, “What is it you want most of all, right now. Think about it.”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know. Then I’ll tell you what you want. You want to fly to the Canary Islands with your mama. It’s warm and just exotic enough. There are doctors. And tomorrow you’re going to go and book tickets and a hotel.”
Rosa said, “But flying …”
“They descend very gently – she’ll be fine. It’s all decided. You don’t need to think about it any more – you don’t need to make any decisions about anything. I’ve decided.”
Rosa turned around on her chair and looked at Elena. “But what about you?” she said.
“We’ll see. Right at the moment, I don’t have the strength to deal with you. And now you should go home. Tell her about the trip.” Elena watched the face in front of her smooth over in immense relief and become almost beautiful. She stepped back and said, “Forget about being grateful. You’re a mouse. Now you can dance on the table for a while. But at least be happy while you’re dancing.”
“And later?” Rosa shouted. “Afterwards?”
“I don’t know,” Elena answered. “How can we know how it’s going to be for us? Some queens reign for a very long time.”
Also by Tove Jansson
THE SUMMER BOOK
“The Summer Book is a marvellously uplifting read, full of gentle humour and wisdom.” Justine Picardie, Daily Telegraph
An elderly artist and her six-year-old grand-daughter while away a summer together on a tiny island in the gulf of Finland. As the two learn to adjust to each other’s fears, whims and yearnings, a fierce yet understated love emerges – one that encompasses not only the summer inhabitants but the very island itself.
Written in a clear, unsentimental style, full of brusque humour, and wisdom, The Summer Book is a profoundly life-affirming story. Tove Jansson captured much of her own life and spirit in the book, which was her favourite of her adult novels. This edition has a foreword by Esther Freud.
A WINTER BOOK
“As smooth and odd and beautiful as sea-worn driftwood, as full of light and air as the Nordic summer. We are lucky to have these stories collected at last.” Philip Pullman
A Winter Book features thirteen stories from Tove Jansson’s first book for adults, The Sculptor’s Daughter (1968) along with seven of her most cherished later stories (from 1971 to 1996). Drawn from youth and older age, this selection by Ali Smith provides a thrilling showcase of the great Finnish writer’s prose, scattered with insights and home truths. It is introduced by Ali Smith, and there are afterwords by Philip Pullman, Esther Freud and Frank Cottrell Boyce.
FAIR PLAY
“So what can happen when Tove Jansson turns her attention to her own favourite subjects, love and work, in the form of this novel about two women, lifelong partners and friends? Expect something philosophically calm – and discreetly radical. At first sight it looks autobiographical. Like everything Jansson wrote, it’s much more than it seems … Fair Play is very fine art.” From Ali Smith’s introduction
What mattered most to Tove Jansson, she explained in her eighties, was work and love, a sentiment she echoes in this tender and original novel. Fair Play portrays a love between two older women, a writer and artist, as they work side-by-side in their Helsinki studios, travel together and share summers on a remote island. In the generosity and respect they show each other and the many small shifts they make to accommodate each other’s creativity we are shown a relationship both heartening and truly progressive.
THE TRUE DECEIVER
“I loved this book. It’s cool in both senses of the word, understated yet exciting … the characters still haunt me.” Ruth Rendell
In the deep winter snows of a Swedish hamlet, a strange young woman fakes a break-in at the house of an elderly artist in order to persuade her that she needs companionship. But what does she hope to gain by doing this? And who ultimately is deceiving whom? In this portrayal of two women encircling each other with truth and lies, nothing can be taken for granted. By the time the snow thaws, both their lives will have changed irrevocably.
TRAVELLING LIGHT
“Jansson’s prose is wondrous: it is clean, deliberate; an aesthetic so certain of itself it’s breathtaking.” Kirsty Gunn, Daily Telegraph
Travelling Light takes us into new Tove Jansson territory. A professor arrives in a beautiful Spanish village only to find that her host has left and she must cope with fractious neighbours alone; a holiday on a Finnish Island is thrown into disarray by an oddly intrusive child; an artist returns from abroad to discover that her past has been eerily usurped. With the deceptively light prose that is her hallmark, Tove Jansson reveals to us the precariousness of a journey – the unease we feel at being placed outside of our millieu, the restlessness and shadows that intrude upon a summer.
Other Tove Jansson titles
published by Sort Of Books
Novels and stories
The Summer Book
A Winter Book
Fair Play
The True Deceiver
Travelling Light
Picture books for children
The Book about Moomin, Mymble and Little My
Who Will Comfort Toffle?
The Dangerous Journey
Also published as an App
The Book about Moomin, Mymble and Little My
Copyright
Art in Nature © Tove Jansson 1978
First published as Dockskåpet by Schildts Förlags Ab, Finland.
English translation © Thomas Teal and Sort Of Books 2012
All rights reserved
Thanks to Sophia Jansson for her encouragement and advice.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher except for the quotation of brief passages in reviews.
This English translation first published in 2012 by
Sort Of Books, PO Box 18678, London NW3 2FL.
Typeset in Goudy and GillSans to a design by Henry Iles.
Printed in Italy by Legoprint.
Sort Of Books gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance of FILI – Finnish Literature Exchange
176pp.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Print ISBN 978-0-9563086-9-6
ePub ISBN 978-1-908745-17-0