Neil Hopcroft

Theres something wonderful about waking up in a place with a Bessemer converter at the bottom of the garden.

Book review: Notes from an Island by Tove Jansson and Tuulikki Pietilä

[Softback, read aloud to Adelle]

Notes from an Island by Tove Jansson and Tuulikki Pietilä

This is a short book, part diary, part memoir, about the settling of Tove and Tooti on the island of Klovharun, and their subsequent life there.

It starts with the discovery of a desolate island and their choice to move there, followed by some notes from Tove and their builder Brunstrom, about the building of a cabin.

The island itself is small with a rocky outcrop, where they built the cabin, and a lagoon in the middle. Their life there is a constant battle with the sea, storms will undo much of whatever work they are trying to do, washing boulders they gathered for a landing back out to the water.

The life they had on the island is sometimes tranquil, away from other people, they never received visitors. But it was also exhilarating, waiting for the squalls they know are coming.

It was an ideal setting for their creative endeavours, Tove being the writer and artist behind the Moomins and Tooti a watercolour artist and sculptor of wood. They shared their life together with joy, Tooti especially laughing at and about all sorts of things.

While this is culturally closer to Through Finland in Carts than The Island House, being of a time before modern communications, although they did obtain a radio telephone toward the end of their time on the island, there is some parallels with the latter. In which Mary Considine talks about taking over their Cornish island from two ladies who had settled it before them – who would have been there at a similar time to Tove and Tooti settling Klovharun. And many of the challenges would have been familiar.

Overall, a slightly quirky book, as you would expect from the creator of the Moomins, with diary excerpts, from their builder as well as Tove, and descriptions of daily life, there just isn’t enough of it. I wanted to find out more.

As a side note, I discovered that Tove illustrated the Swedish version of The Hobbit, which lends it a rather different air than the English language version.