Tag: books

Travels in Moominland – Tove Jansson’s Islands

On By Ewa ShermanIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Today it’s Moomin Day… But really it’s one hundred and ten years since Tove Jansson was born in Helsinki and I was thinking of a very special trip which was ten years ago exactly. I wrote about it some time later, and below is the text originally published on Nordic Noir website run by my wonderful friend, late Miriam Owen. So here it is…

More than three years ago, in 2014 I was on a ‘pilgrimage’ in Finland, following in the footsteps of an incredible writer and fine artist Tove Marika Jansson, a woman who has created a completely new universe inhabited by wise philosophical trolls (Moomins), and who hugely influenced my outlook on life. Tove Jansson’s multi-dimensional works overflow with humour and creativity.

In Finland you can see a permanent exhibition of Tove Jansson’s works at Moomin Museum in Tampere, or visit Moomin World created for children in Turku. Moomin Official constantly expands the variety of experiences. My own experience came from the first Polish editions of Muminki, full of humour and warmth, published in the 1970’s, beautifully translated from Swedish and including original drawings by the author. My mother, as a ‘special regular’ customer at the bookshop, had the copies set aside specially for me. I knew all Finn Family Moomintroll, Moominsummer Madness, Moominland Winter and Tales from Moominvalley by heart. As well as other children’s books by Scandinavian authors. Astrid Lindgren wrote about practical kids of The Six Bullerby Children, and crazy Pippi Langstrumpf / Longstocking. Over the years I read all these books again in English yet the Polish translation of names and places appeal more to me. At the time Tove Jansson visited Poland when work on adapting her books for the small screen was in full swing. In 1977 Łódź film-based Se-ma-for created the TV series Tales of the Moomins. The cartoon was made with the use of semi-flat animated puppets on glass and it still has quite a surreal feel and quality to it.

The characters from the world of Moomins do not pretend that life is always okay. Yet, despite the storms, turmoil, evil desires and problems there was always a happy ending in these tales. I wanted to be like Moomin Mama, carrying a handbag. She is compassionate, has a sense of humour and, very important, has a sense of her own worth. More visitors: we will make pancake batter in the bathtub because the kitchen is too small. Moomin Papa lacking inspiration: maybe a plate of boiled sweets will help. Forest creatures lost their house: there is always space to sleep. And The Groke whom everyone feared is one of my favourites. Yes, she’s scary and freezes everything she touches but only because she wants love and acceptance. Like all of us.

Later I discovered Tove Jansson’s modest book for adults The Field of Stones which contains a lot of reflections on the writer’s struggle with the word. Searching for more I found books translated into Polish and English. The Summer Book is always available in English but there are no further reprints in Polish. I have Sculptor’s Daughter, an autobiographical novel for adults, The True Deceiver, and Stone Field, adorned with the letter Y on the cover (a symbol of character with whose biography the book’s hero is struggling). A Winter Book and Fair Play show more of Jansson’s talent for writing. Now Sort Of Books published the new collection of short stories originally published in 1991, and translated for the first time by Thomas Teal. Understated, elegant, beautiful simplicity in delicate yet powerful short stories collected in Letters from Klara written when Tove Jansson was in her seventies, at the height of her fame. She has truly mastered the form.  Balancing harshness of world and sharpness of the words, the stories also demonstrate love and compassion and a delicate sense of humour. They are philosophical, sarcastic and timeless:

‘…but if you’re odd, you’re odd, and that’s all there is to it.’

‘You’re hurt that I forgot your ancient birthday. You’re being unreasonable. I know you’ve always expected me to make a special fuss, simply because I’m three years younger. But it’s time you realized that the passage of years per se is no feather in anyone’s cap.’

I followed all Tove Jansson-related news and in 2013 I managed to find a hefty tome Tove Jansson. Moomin’s Mum, a comprehensive biography by Boel Westin, which had been translated from Swedish into Polish. In the UK, the same biography titled Life, Art, Words: The Authorised Biography was published a year later.

In 2014, the hundredth anniversary of her birth, the summer presented various events which I attended. The Finnish Institute in London opened a photo exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) under the title Tove Jansson: Tales from the Nordic Archipelago. I loved the beautiful photographs by C-G Hagström, reflecting the simplicity and beauty of the hardships of life, and at the same time the severity of the conditions of existence on the islands, to which Tove and her long-term life companion Tuulikki Pietila responded with joy.

Helsinki’s Ateneum Art Museum, previously the Finnish Art Society’s drawing school which she had attended in Helsinki, organised a brilliant retrospective exhibition of paintings, drawings and sketches, as well as everything related to Moomins before the Japanese machine began to create animations. Next stop for the exhibition is at Dulwich Gallery which opened in October 2017 and runs until 28th January 2018 and I cannot wait to see it again.

Moomin troll first appeared as a long snouted ‘Snork’ in 1943 at the time when young Tove drew cartoons for the satirical political anti-Hitler paper Garm. His first formal outing was in The Moomins and the Great Flood published in 1945, and then through further books and comic strips, translations and slowly but steadily growing Moomin emporium. His modest beginnings and frequent cameo appearances in the drawings and paintings eventually demanded proper presence in a book.

In August 2014 I travelled with my mum Krystyna Konecka, another fan of Tove Jansson, and our adventure started at the Hietaniemi cemetery at the family grave exactly on a day of Tove’s hundredth birthday. Her mother was the Swedish artist and graphic designer Signe Hammarsten, called Ham, and the father was the Finnish sculptor Victor Jansson, known in the family as Faffan. Afterwards we travelled by bus to Porvoo, 50 km east of Helsinki, and then to the island Klovharun in the Gulf of Finland. Even though it was incredibly hot and all arrangements have been confirmed weeks in advance, the trip could have been cancelled because of strong winds. And that’s how it was for Tove and her partner Tuulikki – when they left the bustle of the Capital life and moved to the island for the entire summer for nearly thirty years. Harsh reality of isolated island living, friends, uninvited guests and creativity.

In Porvoo we received a booklet with the Moomin Troll on the cover, made by Polish studio Se-ma-for. This was presented by Liisa Vähäkylä, Managing Director of Finnanimation. She and other members of Tove Jansson Society, along with the head Annikki Vähätalo attended, and we joined them at the opening of the exhibition of photographs of the artist by her friend of many years, artist C-G Hagström, whom I met earlier in London, and Tove’s younger brother Per Olov Jansson who is now 97 years old.

Another adventure awaited in a form of Gerd, wonderful Finnish Swede, living on one of the islands of the archipelago Pellinki, who had arrived in a big taxi to collect us. We made online arrangements for our trip from Porvoo to the small place on the coast. Gerd knew the archipelago, its history, people, roads, landscape. She stopped at the village store where Tove used to do basic shopping, coming by boat from her island Klovharun. On the way back, taking a slightly different route, she suggested stopping for a moment to see ‘Mårran’. And so we drove into the woods and suddenly there was a huge boulder in an unusual shape, a wreath of flowers on its top, with luminous painted eyes and teeth, and it was a happy Groke! A new Finnish word to add to my limited vocabulary.

Walking all day in Helsinki added flavour and substance to what I’ve learnt about Tove’s life. The imposing building at Luotsikatu 4 was the childhood home and her parents’ studio. From there she often walked around the corner to buy tobacco for her father to what is now a tiny Café Signora. Then she lived at the House of Artists Lallukka from 1933 until 1942 when she moved to her first studio nearby, and two years later to a tower of a building at Ullanlinnankatu 1. The top floor flat was cold and drafty, the building hit in the bombings but the upper window showed a strip of sea. Tove lived and worked in this oasis until her death. The little gems scattered around the town include Domus Academica (providing student accommodation) which hosts two original murals painted by Tove, or a modest courtyard surrounded by modern office buildings. Hiding amongst the greenery a Viktor Jansson’s sculpture of Mermaid, modelled on young Tove, is standing in an empty fountain.

Various Finnish places have memories of the artist and she has a special place in many hearts, not only those who love Moomins.

Paris Pages by Shelley Day

On By Ewa ShermanIn Uncategorized3 Comments

‘If I could make an effective plan I would write exquisite prose, multiply embedded, like W G Sebald, Modiano, Per Petterson. I’d tell it like it is, like Ernaux. I’d knock people over like Beckett; soothe like Tove Jansson; counsel, insightful, brave, and strong, like Maya Angelou; go dark-deep melancholy desperate beautiful like Plath. I’d meditate poetically like Toni Morrison, tantalise and annoy like Gertrude Stein. Like Clara, I’m never certain how well I get on with Stein; perhaps I see her more as a pivot, a queen bee, choreographing minions. I’d lead myself astray like Malte Laurids Brigge, or Anne in Astragale. I’d be capable of cruel shocking things, like those twins in Ágota Kristof.’

My plan was to lose myself in a fast-paced thriller or a crime fiction novel as the Norwegian tradition encourages everyone during the long Easter break. However, a completely different story pulled me into its core and påskekrim might have to wait, although Shelley Day, author of The Confession of Stella Moon is no stranger to the genre. (What Are You Like shows her another writing style). Paris Pages, published by Postbox Press / Red Squirrel Press, is both a universal and a deeply personal book that deals with the importance of art in everyday life and Art with a capital ‘A’, and what it truly means to be an artist. The quote above is just a tiny indication of the richness in the book. Through one hundred pieces of sublime lyrical prose which often becomes poetry, Paris Pages explore essence of the creative process. This in itself is a complicated meandering journey through opinions, thoughts and emotions. As the book is focusing on three main characters, the understanding of what Art is, or should be, and how it could relate to our existence and living, it contemplates various artistic forms and styles, reaching into the real historical events while absorbing atmosphere of the city which has always been an inspiration to many. Shelley Day knows Paris well, having lived there, visiting various galleries and museums, walking the streets, looking at the buildings and breathing the air. She made notes and made inquiries, asked questions and asked herself, and kept writing. The result is a stunning story, quite urgent in its message, and painfully contemporary. 
Very private experiences are also relevant to the intertwined lives of Clara Delaney, Sadie Sarrazin and László Száműzetés, three people who found themselves in the French capital for different reasons. The psychotherapist Clara feels she’s nearly done with her job and profession, and is determined to become a biographer of the barely known, nearly completely forgotten and possibly disgraced Max Zuniga, a psychoanalyst and one of Freud’s colleagues. It seems as if he had never existed. She is still processing breakup with her partner Johannes from Oslo.
The young photographer Sadie as a volunteer worked with traumatised migrants at Sangatte, a commune on the northern coast of France, a place which we might heard about as the Jungle near Calais. She struggles with powerlessness, unable to be creative, to find this special spark and continue her work as a witness to the events that had happened during this particular refugee crisis. Her own trauma paralyses her; and therapy sessions with Clara seem to increase anxiety and sense of failure. And László, a mysterious man linking both women and somehow guiding them through complex emotions, represents the spirit and soul of Art. He is the personification of the Exile, a state of mind, a situation that is both physical and intellectual, and conveyed beautifully in Paris Pages. ‘Where is Home?’ will resonate with many readers.
The author makes so many references to writers, painters, sculptors, thinkers – Beckett, Edith Piaf, Louise Bourgeois, Ai Wei Wei, Rothko, Picasso, Cocteau, Patti Smith, Keats – all those creative giants who made their mark in Paris and who had also shaped her own relationship with art. I loved this element of the book as it forced me to pause, go back to a paragraph or sentence, read again, reflect on what I had learnt about them before and what I now wanted to check, find out again, put in context. The abundance of delicately distributed knowledge is like that extra sprinkling of dark chocolate in otherwise ordinary coffee. Not that there is anything ordinary about Day’s writing, a firm believer in the true concept that ‘The story is everything and everything is the story and it’s all inter-connected.’

Let me leave you with this thought as you hopefully reach for Paris Pages: ‘There is and never can be anything worthwhile in any manifestation of Art as long as human beings are suffering and humanity itself is imperilled on the verge of planetary self-destruction. Some things are of crucial importance. Art is an irrelevance in a world as troubled as this.’

Remembering Miriam, always and for ever

On By Ewa ShermanIn Uncategorized5 Comments

My dear friend Miriam V Owen died suddenly last month; today was her funeral which I joined online. It was a beautiful touching but heart-breaking occasion. I can’t even imagine how her family must feel… All her friends are deeply sad but want to cherish the moments spent together. I don’t feel I can express well anything that goes through my mind as I think of Miriam, one of the #ScandiGang’s original members. So just this short post for now… We met in London in 2013, and clicked straight away, and shared love of Scandinavian and Nordic things: literature, food, landscapes mood. We talked about bringing up boys, about work and life, about crime fiction, travel, writing. She sent recipes. She was always there… We’ve been together at different book events and festivals in Iceland and the UK but haven’t managed to meet in Bergen in Norway. The plan was to follow in the footsteps of Varg Veum, the fictional PI created by Gunnar Staalesen, whom Miriam adored. Her passion for #NordicNoir was shown in her informative views as my fellow judge for Petrona Award and on the pages of the fascinating blog from which I copy the words below.

Nordic Noir blog – Iceland Noir 2014 ‘This film is all about experience at a crime writing festival in Reykjavik, Iceland. It contains interviews with authors, fans and one of the festival organisers as well as images, music and some text. It was made as piece of academic work in 2014 to allow me to explore videography as a tool for research. I loved the experience of making a film, editing it and working with a musician on some of the soundtrack. The piece has been well received at two conferences. One around the theme of Community Memory at the University of Stirling and also at the Academy of Marketing Arts and Heritage Colloquium 2016 held at Royal Holloway in London. The Icelandic Ambassador in London has also viewed it. When I made this I did not have any really fancy tools […] This piece would not have been such positive experience without the support of the crime fiction community as well as the academic community that has supported me. Thank you all.’

I will write more but not today. We miss you, Miriam.

ScandiGang underground. 13 October 2013