The Slummer: Quarters Till Death

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This is the first running book I've read that I think, wow this is like peeking into my brain and my way of thinking. I will be reading it again and again." In this little novella, we get to experience the relationship of a grandmother and her 6 year old grand daughter who get to spend an entire summer on an island off the coast of Finland. Nature plays a tremendous role in their lives and naturally, they use it to create some very special moments together. These two are such grouches at times and each of them believes she is right and knows what she is talking about often. Sometimes I wondered who was the adult and who was the child! They love each other but they grumble and yet, they can have serious conversations. They talk and learn and often it’s about the tough stuff like what love is, how to pray to God, what Heaven looks like, and when are we going to die. But they have fun, too, learning how to carve animals from branches for their magic forest and talking about what different birds represent. These two take care of each other in their own ways while having fun creating adventures and making up stories. The Summer Book collects twenty-two summer scenes and episodes, centred around a young girl, Sophia, and her old grandmother, and the time they spend together on a northern island in the Gulf of Finland.

Every once in a while I read a book that makes me jealous, that makes me wish I could write and do what the book did. Like this one. It's a wisp of a book - brief, with no plot to speak of and only two real characters, no compelling crisis to drive the action, no suspense.In ‘The Summer book’ Tove Jansson distills the essence of the summer—its sunlight and storms—into twenty-two crystalline vignettes. This brief novel tells the story of Sophia, a six-year-old girl awakening to existences, and Sophia’s grandmother, nearing the end of hers. As they spend the summer on a tiny unspoiled island in the Gulf of Finland. The grandmother is unsentimental and wise, if a little cranky; Sophia is impetuous and volatile, but she tends to her grandmother with the care of a new parent. Together they amble over coastline and forest in easy companionship, build boats from bark, create a miniature Venice, write a fanciful study of local bugs. They discuss things that matter to young and old alike: life, death, the nature of God and love. “On an island,” thinks the grandmother, “everything is complete.” In ‘The Summer Book’, Jansson creates her own complete world, full of the varied joys and sorrows of like.

I)t manages to make you feel good as well as wise, without having to make too much effort. (...) This book is in danger of taking itself rather too seriously; there is a lot of home-spun philosophy but only rare flashes of humour, which nevertheless are very funny. But what makes The Summer Book rise above the realm of happy thoughts for grim times are the observations on being young and growing old: the girl's desperation not to appear frightened of deep water, her grandmother's determination not to let her see that she knew she was." - Dea Birkett, The Independent There is nothing comforting about it, and yet if you are afraid to see it in his own terms and look to it for comfort, for solace, you’ll be left worse off than you were before”. The future doesn't look that much different except that the wealth gap has gotten to the point where there is no crossover and hate for the "Slummers" is blatant. All the while the rich get richer, and they have used that wealth and power to start breeding their children according to a shopping list of desirable DNA. So now they are rich AND nearly perfect. Die Idylle ist in diesen Episoden so flüchtig wie die kurze Zeit im Frühsommer, in der das Moos blüht und die ganze Insel mit einem warmen, kaum sichtbaren Schleier überzieht. Der Rest ist Nüchternheit, Sturm, prekäres Gleichgewicht." - Monika Osberghaus, Frankfurter Allgemeine ZeitungI never really knew either of my grandmothers as they both lived in Italy. This book made me yearn for a relationship I never had. I received a complimentary ARC edition from Geoffrey Simpson! This is my honest and voluntary review. This passage, at the beginning of the second chapter/vignette, is the only explicit mention of Sophia's underlying grief, which breaks through in subtle and unexpected ways at various times; of which her (paternal) grandmother is always conscious and careful -- recalling in a new light the book's humorous opening: It was an early, very warm morning in July, and it had rained during the night. The bare granite steamed, the moss and crevices were drenched with moisture, and all the colors everywhere had deepened. Below the veranda, the vegetation in the morning shade was like a rain forest of lush, evil leaves and flowers, which she had to be careful not to break as she searched. She held one hand in front of her mouth and was constantly afraid of losing her balance.