Book Review – November 2021
We dreamed about what our new cabin would look like. The room would have four windows, one in each wall. Towards the south-east we’d need to see the big storms that rage right across the island, on the east we’d see the moon’s reflection in the lagoon, and on the west side a rock face with moss and polypody ferns. To the north, we’ll keep watch for approaching boats so we’ll have time to get ready…
In 1963 Tove Jansson and her partner Tuulikki Pietilä set up their summer home on Klovharun, an almost barren outcrop of rock in the Gulf of Finland. With the help of Brunström, a local fisherman, and Jansson’s mother, Ham, they spent their first summer on the island building a log cabin that would be strong enough to survive the harsh Finnish winter. The two women then spent the next 26 summers on Klovharun: writing, painting, fishing and simply contemplating the sea, sky and local wildlife. They only left when they eventually became too old and frail to cope with the challenges of island life. This new English translation, by Thomas Teal, tells the story of their time on the island.
Klovharun
Tove Jansson is best known as the author of the Moomin series of children’s stories. She also wrote for adults including The Summer Book, a fictionalised version of life on an island like Klovharun. Tuulikki Pietilä (‘Tooti’) was a talented artist and lecturer with a very useful (on the island) affinity for tools and anything mechanical. Notes From an Island comprises Jansson’s prose and extracts from a logbook donated to her by Brunström. The book also features 24 exquisite copperplate etchings and wash drawings of Klovharun by Tooti.
Tuulikki Pietilä – 1976
Tooti wandered aimlessly around the island and stood stock still for long periods. I thought I knew what she was doing. She was working again. Copperplate etchings and wash drawings. Mostly the lagoon, the lagoon as a consummate mirror for clouds and birds, the lagoon in a storm, in fog. And the granite, first and foremost, the granite, the cliff, the rocks. It’s all peace and quiet now.
Life on the island is physically demanding, but is satisfying in its simplicity. Their daily routine revolves around keeping their small boat seaworthy, chopping driftwood for fuel, fishing for food and keeping the generator running for power. However, attitudes to the environment are very much of their time: rubbish and unwanted items are simply dumped in the sea, for example.
With each autumn Tove and Tooti would secure their house against the Baltic winter before returning to life on the mainland. They never locked their cabin; the local etiquette was that winter visitors to these small islands were free to borrow and use any item they needed. Unfortunately, however, Tove and Tooti found that many of these ‘borrowed’ items were never returned. But the sea was a much bigger challenge. After their first winter they returned to Klovharun to find that a winter storm had swept through their newly-built wood store and taken back every carefully chopped and stacked piece of driftwood.
But the island gives far more than it takes. Both artists found that its quiet, meditative quality was a perfect location for working on their creative projects. Ultimately though, this is a story of love: the love of two women for nature, for the sea, for their art, for each other and the home they built together.
Tove Jansson
Tove Jansson (1914–2001) is best known as the creator of the Moomin stories, which were first published in English sixty years ago and have remained in print ever since. In her fifties, Jansson turned her attention to writing for adults, producing a dozen novels and story collections, including the classic, bestselling The Summer Book.
Tuulikki Pietilä
Tuulikki Pietilä (1917–2009), Tove Jansson’s life partner, was a Finnish graphic artist and professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki. Together they collaborated on many art projects, and the Moomin characters had a significant role in Pietilä’s work as an artist.
This sounds wonderful – I do like a book about an island. I have read some of Jannson’s adult novels, I was scared of the Moomins as a child!
Island books – that could be a whole genre in itself!
I loved The Winter Book and Summer Book and her novel The True Deceiver. I haven’t read this but I feel like I already know it in part from the stories that allude to it.
What a beautiful edition along with the artwork of Tuulikki Pietilä, that sun breaking through the cloud, so evocative.
It’s quite a slim volume, but very beautifully presented, and with those superb illustrations.
I really enjoyed this book, and yes – it is a slim volume. There’s a true sense of place and purpose. The narrator voice switches often as it cycles through different diaries of the island’s development. There is quarrel and drinking and lots of island adventure. Well worth hunting down.
Thanks Andy. That’s a good summary of a terrific little book.