Month: May 2012

The Spinster Book – Myrtle Reed

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Image source, and online text

There has been a bit of a theme on SiaB this year, hasn’t there?  Lots of books for, and about, unmarried women – because of the research I’ve been doing.  You’ll be hearing more about metamorphosis and talking animals later in the year, so get ready for that… Anyway, The Spinster Book by Myrtle Reed is the earliest of the books I’ve read this year – published, as it was, in 1901.  Myrtle Reed was only my age (26) which is perhaps too young to be penning anything with ‘spinster’ in the title – and, indeed, she never became an old spinster, or an old anything, as she committed suicide when she was 36.  I learnt all this after reading the book; it would, perhaps, have coloured my view of what is a witty and exuberant examination of men, women, and marriage.

Quite why it is called The Spinster Book I’m not sure, unless it is intended to act as a guide for the uninitiated.  It certainly doesn’t linger on the single state for long – instead, leaping headfirst into a discussion about men.  This was perhaps the most openly satirical chapter – if I had read some of the others first, I might have thought Reed serious (if misguided) for 1901 is a long time ago, and her ‘advice’ might well have been current.  I couldn’t tell whether the beautiful lay-out of the book, with bordered margins and notes at the side to tell you the main topic of the page (none of which, I note, is available in the free ebook edition – just sayin’) was itself part of the satire, or simply a throwback to design which was not, in 1901, particularly distant.  But nobody could read this and imagine Reed’s tongue to be anywhere but in her cheek:

How shall a girl acquire her knowledge of the phenomena of affection, if men are not willing to be questioned on the subject?  What is more natural than to seek wisdom from the man a girl has just refused to marry?  Why should she not ask if he has ever loved before, how long he has loved her, if he were not surprised when he found it out, and how he feels in her presence? 

Yet a sensitive spinster is repeatedly astonished at finding her lover transformed into a friend, without other provocation than this.  He accuses her of being “a heartless coquette,” of having “led him on,” – whatever that may mean, – and he does not care to have her for his sister, or even for his friend.
The Spinster Book is something akin to a satirical exploration of men, women, and love – not really in the style of an advisory guide, but closer to natural history.  Reed writes of men and women as though she were neither, and merely watching them at an amused, or concerned, distance.  She is full of sage, simple advice:

In order to be happy, a woman needs only a good digestion, a satisfatory complexion, and a lover.  The first requirement being met, the second is not hard to obtain, and the third follows as a matter of course.

And who can blame her if the contemplation of mankind in the throes of romance makes her somewhat cynical?

The average love letter is sufficient to make a sensitive spinster weep, unless she herself is in love and the letter be addressed to her.  The first stage of the tender passion renders a man careless as to his punctuation, the second seriously affects his spelling, and in the last period of the malady, his grammar develops locomotor ataxia.  The single blessedness of school-teachers is largely to be attributed to this cause.

Although Reed is being tongue-in-cheek throughout, The Spinster Book is still interesting as a window on society in the early 1900s.  True, affections and engagements were probably not bestowed and withdrawn quite in the manner Reed suggests, but it is taken as read that a man will barely know a woman before he proposes, and that a woman ought to turn down a few men before she settles upon one (in contrast to the post-WW1 supposed mentality of grabbing any man one can.)  Cynicism about marriage is a trope of comic writing which has been around since Chaucer’s Wife of Bath, and doubtless before, but through this cynicism one can always discern a portrait of contemporaneous marriage and relationships – through a glass darkly, but it’s there.  Failing that, The Spinster Book – though not satire at its most sophisticated or thorough – is still good for a giggle.

(As usual, clicking on the sketch will give you a larger, more readable, image… enjoy!)

The Spinster Book
Lesson No.1: Get lots of cats.
Lesson No.2: errr…

Hearing Marilynne Robinson

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I mentioned on Twitter a while ago that I’d attended a talk by Marilynne Robinson at Blackwell’s (in Oxford) and promised to write about it.  And now, finally, I am!  I’ve waited for too long to write this, so I’m having to rely on my dodgy memory…

Last year I did hear Marilynne Robinson give a lecture, and wrote about how star-struck I was then (and you also told me all the exciting authors you’d met).  Back then she spoke about philosophy and politics, and I didn’t understand the title of the lecture let alone anything that followed.  So it was lovely to hear her give readings from her latest collection of essays, When I Was A Child I Read Books, as well as my beloved Gilead, and then answer questions from the floor.

Oh, but it was wonderful!

She reads undramatically – calmly, sensibly, perhaps.  If I call hers a flat voice, then please don’t read that as a criticism – somehow it works, and there is a slight rise and fall at the end of each sentence, which prevents it from becoming monotonous.  It is exactly right for the unsensational, intelligent prose which Marilynne Robinson writes, and Gilead would have been ruined in an overly-expressive reading.

Afterwards there were questions.  When she is talking spontaneously, rather than from a prepared lecture (a different category, of course, from a reading), she is warm and witty and so very interesting.  There were a few questions at the previous talk, and I remember wishing that she’d done more of that – so the event last week was perfect for me.  Even though Robinson was still talking about theology and philosophy, alongside her own experience as a novelist, I found it easier to understand.  I didn’t make notes, but I’ll try to remember some of it… She spoke eloquently and passionately about the false divide set up between science and religion, and the very reductive models of both which are used in media debates: she is almost as passionate about the wonderful discoveries of science as she is about theology.  And in philosophical discussions, she said something I thought very wise, in response to a question about sorrow.  (I was a bit confused for a moment, misremembering that a baby in Gilead had been called Sorrow, pace Tess of the D’Ubervilles.)  Robinson inveighed against the misdiagnosis and over-diagnosis by doctors, arguing that sorrow is a valid part of human, and just not medical, experience.  (Sorrow, of course, is far from being the same thing as depression.)

But this is a book blog, and I shouldn’t be getting too out of my depth.  Hearing Robinson speak about writing Gilead was overwhelmingly wonderful – although she spoke about Home and Housekeeping too, it was Gilead which got by far the most attention (thankfully for me, since it is still the only one I’ve read.)

What most interested me was the development of the character John Ames – or, rather, the lack of development.  Robinson said that one day his voice simply came into her head, more or less fully-formed.  Her comment was that, though she wasn’t surprised that the character was a Christian in Iowa, it was rather more surprising that he was a man who loved baseball…

Incidentally, I know nothing about American geography, nor the stereotypes of these regions.  I didn’t know where Iowa was (indeed, the only state I know the location of is New Jersey, and that’s only because a friend at school almost moved there.)  In her reading from When I Was A Child I Read Books, Robinson said ‘I find that the hardest work is to convince the world – in fact it may be impossible – is to persuade Easterners that growing up in the West is not intellectually crippling.’  A student newspaper (linked below) mentioned that ‘turning the “middle West” into great literature may seem like an impossible task’, which strikes me as strange.  I can’t imagine any location in Britain being considered ill-fitting for great literature – surely the location a book is set has absolutely nothing to do with its literary merit?  I’d love to hear what Americans think of this debate…

My memory is terrible.  I don’t seem able to recall anything else she said about Gilead, even though I know it was substantial.  Apparently Semi-Fictional was also there, so you can read her report, or you can read what the Cherwell student newspaper had to say.  (I was once a section editor on the rival student newspaper, OxStu, but they don’t seem to have written about it.)

I’ll finish with one of the funniest moments of what was often a funny evening:

“This girl is wondering why I haven’t published any poetry.  That’s because she hasn’t read my poetry!  I would if I could.”

Five From The Archive (no.1)

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Whilst I was away from blogging, I came up with a fun idea (which you’re welcome to borrow, if you like it)…  One of the anomalies I’ve noticed about blogging is that we all put a lot of time and effort into reviews – creating really great, extensive resources about incredible books – and yet these reviews are only likely to be read for a week or so, and then disappear into the hazy mists of the blog archive.  I thought it would be fun, and maybe useful, to highlight and group past books.

Since I’ve now celebrated my fifth blogging anniversary, I’m going to start an ongoing series Five From The Archive, where I post excerpts and links to five reviews from my past five years, grouped in some way.  That might be something obvious –  like ‘books in translation’ – or something a bit wackier.  And then I’ll ask you to contribute your own suggestions.  I’m even hoping to post a (new) relevant sketch with each one – but you know how slack I get at that – kicking off with one of me and Colin.

They’ll be appearing on Wednesdays, but probably not every week.

I’ll start with a very Stuck-in-a-Book topic…  


Five Books Featuring Twins or Doubles



1.) Christopher and Columbus (1919) by Elizabeth von Arnim

In short: Half-German/half-American twins are exiled to America during the war.  They meet a friendly young American man on the boat, and the three embark on rather mad travels.  Somehow both wickedly cynical and totally heart-warming.

From the review: “The most delicious thing about this novel (and it is a very delicious novel) is undoubtedly the twins’ dialogue.  It’s such a delight to read.  […] They both have such a captivatingly unusual outlook on life.  Their logic swirls in circles which dizzy the listener; their conversations would feel at home at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party – and yet they are lovely, kind, fundamentally good people – and without being remotely irritating.”

2.) The Icarus Girl (2005) by Helen Oyeyemi

In short: Introverted eight-year-old Jessamy meets TillyTilly, seemingly her double, whilst in her mother’s native Nigeria.  Their friendship grows gradually more unsettling…

From the review: “What starts as a novel about loneliness and isolation becomes infused with issues of obsession, possession, power and, most sophisticatedly, doubleness.”

3.) Alva & Irva (2003) by Edward Carey

In short: One twin helps battle the other’s agoraphobia, even as their bond is challenged, by building a scale replica of their town through plasticine – and it’s all presented as a travel guide.  Surreally brilliant, and surprisingly moving.

From the review: “It is a novel filled with grotesque characters (in the sense of exaggerated and strange) – the father who is obsessed with stamps, for example. The novel is actually, in many ways, about obsession – whether with objects or people or tasks.”

4.) A Lifetime Burning (2006) by Linda Gillard

In short: A compelling, involving novel about the dramas and conflicts within a tempestuous family – including twins whose relationship is far from normal.  Sadly my review was far too brief – I must re-read!

From the review: “Though the novel jumps all over the place, I never found it confusing – rather a path towards illumination and comprehension of the characters, understanding (rather than sanctioning) the way they act. Linda Gillard writes with lyrical intensity.”

5.) Identical Strangers (2007) by Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein

In short: An autobiographical account of twin sisters only meeting at age 35 – and how they cope with this shift in their lives, and their different needs and responses.

From the review: “We follow Paula and Elyse through a couple of years – the joy, the excitement, the bickering, the discovering of their extraordinary relationship. […] A fascinating topic, well told by engaging, honest people experiencing a rollercoaster of events.”

Over to you!

Which title (or titles) would you add for this category?  Let me know!

Spinster of this Parish – W.B. Maxwell

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I’m back!  Did you miss me?  I suspect a lot of people barely noticed, since I wasn’t away for all that long – but I usually try to post at least five times a week, so it felt like a lengthy holiday for me.  Sometimes a break is needed to keep blogging fresh for me – and my week-and-a-bit was enough to get me raring for more.  Let’s kick things off with a review to fill the 1922 slot on A Century of Books, eh?

It was in this article by Sarah Waters (an introduction to Sylvia Townsend Warner’s Lolly Willowes) that I first heard about Spinster of this Parish by W.B. Maxwell.  (A William, it turns out, but not that William Maxwell.)  It was only mentioned in passing, alongside F.M. Mayor’s The Rector’s Daughter (which sadly underwhelmed me) but it was enough to pique my interest.  Luckily Oxford library has a copy in its store, and eventually I got around to reading it.  It’s rather extraordinary.

The action kicks off in 1920, with Mildred Parker (age 25) visiting ‘old maid’ Miss Emmeline Verinder (age 50) in the hopes of receiving some advice.  Mildred is ‘that mixture of shrewdness and innocence which makes the typical modern girl seem at once so shallow and so baffling.’  She has fallen in love with a man of whom her parents do not approve – and is bewailing this state to Miss Verinder when she stops suddenly, and suggests that Mildred might not be able to help her, as she has never experienced ‘the passions’…

Rewind to 1895, and Emmeline’s youth.  We’re still in the third person, so it’s not entirely Emmeline Verinder’s perspective, but she is certainly taking centre stage.  She is engaging in the late-Victorian social whirl, when she happens to meet celebrated explorer Anthony Dyke… and yes, dear reader, Emmeline is smitten.

How had he captivated her?  She did not know.  Was it only because he was the incarnate antithesis of Kensington; because he was individual, unlike the things on either side of him, not arranged on any pattern, not dull, monotonous, or flat; a thing alive in a place where all else was sleeping or dead?  Neither then nor at any future time did she attempt mentally to differentiate between the impression he had made upon her as himself all complete, with the dark hair, the penetrating but impenetrable eyes, the record, the fame, and the impression she might have received if any of these attributes had been taken away from him.  Say, if he had been an unknown Mr. Tomkins instead of a known Mr. Dyke.  Absurd.  The man and the name were one. […] He was Anthony Dyke.  He was her lord, her prince, her lover.

In other words, he is about equal measures Tarzan and Mr. Rochester.  Indeed, he borrows more than a penetrating stare from the world’s most beloved bigamist – for Dyke [er, SPOILERS!], like Rochester, has a madwoman in the attic.  Like poor Rochester (for we can’t our brooding heroes being too cruel, can we?) Dyke was tricked into marrying a madwoman (variety of mental illness not mentioned) who is now not, actually, in an attic but in an asylum.

This is where things start to get a bit daring.  Dyke is rather more honest than Rochester, and tells Emmeline about his wife.  She, in turn, decides that their love is more important than society’s morals and her parents’ approval – and becomes, as it were, his mistress.  This was pretty daring for the time, wasn’t it?  Shunned by her parents (although, to do Maxwell justice, Mr. Verinder ‘was not in any respects the conventional old-fashioned father that lingered in the comic literature of the period’) Emmeline takes her maid Louisa and lives elsewhere.

Being an explorer, Dyke must explore – and he’s high-tailing it off to South America.  They have rather a rushed emotional goodbye and he sets sail… only… wait… Emmeline has sneakily crept onboard!

This, blog-readers, is where everything goes mad.

The next section of the novel takes place in South America – and I highly doubt that Maxwell had ever gone nearer to it than Land’s End.  They go emerald-hunting, get lost in caves, involved in duels… it’s insane, and entirely different from the novel I was expecting.  Had I seen the cover (below) then I might have been better prepared for the excesses of Spinster of this Parish, which were in no way betrayed by the novel’s title.

The Sheik by Ethel M. Hull was published in 1919, and was wildly popular into the 1920s – although Spinster of this Parish involves none of the disturbing rape fantasies of The Sheik, it’s clear that Maxwell (and many others) were influenced by the popularity for exoticism.  I, however, found this section rather tedious, and flicked through it…

Finally we are back in English society – Emmeline grows gradually less shunned, and Dyke’s adventures continue abroad without her.  He is determined to succeed in his quest to get to the South Pole… will he survive or not?  Maxwell has rather calmed down by now, and Dyke’s activities take place off stage, thankfully – instead, we see the changing views of upper-class society, and Emmeline’s unwavering loyalty to her absent lover.

Picture source

Ah, yes, their love.  I got a bit tired of that.  He is physically perfect and unimaginably manly; she is womanfully patient and devotedly passionate.  Hmm.  Not the most original of pairings.  A lot made sense to me when I found out that W.B. Maxwell is the son of none other than Mary Elizabeth Braddon – of Lady Audley’s Secret fame.  He certainly inherited her love of sensation romance literature (did I mention the blackmail plot that’s thrown in?)

And yet – I enjoyed an awful lot of it.  Maxwell’s writing is, if not exceptional, consistently good.  He is quite witty throughout, and certainly writes better than most of the authors who would warrant a similar dustjacket image.  When we were in England, looking at the workings of society, it was very much my cup of tea – even if the characters were a little too good to be true.  At one point I even thought of suggesting it to Persephone Books.  But… I couldn’t get past the insane section in the middle.  The bizarre trip through South America, duels-n-all, is what will make Spinster of this Parish so memorable – but also that which lets down the overall writing, and makes it feel rather silly.

So, a strange book with which to make me blog return!  If nothing else, it has taught be that one must not only forswear to judge a book by its cover – similar caution must be taken as regards a book’s title.

Back next week…

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Sorry to be absent for a while – since I signed off my last post with a cold, you might think that I’m suffering in some Swiss sanatorium (a la Katherine Mansfield) but… no, I just went away from blogging for a couple of days, and then decided that it would be nice to have a few more too.  So, I’ll be back next week – hope you’re all having lovely weeks!

A Trip to See Vanessa and Virginia

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They weren’t in, though.

My friends Shauna and Lauren (who were on the master’s course I did 2008/9) and I have been intending to take a trip to Sussex for about three years, and on Saturday we finally organised ourselves and did it.  Our itinerary?  Monk’s House and Charleston – being the homes of Virginia and Leonard Woolf, and Vanessa Bell et al respectively.  When I say ‘et al’ that includes luminaries as various as David Garnett, Duncan Grant, and John Maynard Keynes.

We took the train to Lewes (which is lovely and where, ahem, I bought a couple of books – Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky by Patrick Hamilton and Blaming by Elizabeth Taylor) and then had a beautiful walk along the river to Monk’s House.  It really couldn’t have been a better day for it – we kept stopping and marvelling at how beautiful it was.  Normally I do this sort of gasping next to my brother Colin, who doesn’t care at all about views (“They’re just things from further away”) so it was a refreshing change to have people agree with my effusiveness.

Such a lovely walk to take!  Also oddly deserted.

Lauren and I get a bit too excited about it all…

After a picnic and some debate over the map (and me falling into a very deep rabbit hole for a moment – sadly no Alice-esque adventures) we arrived at Monk’s House, and I used my National Trust membership for probably the last time.  And we were allowed to take photos!  Here follows lots of photos…

Table painted by Vanessa Bell!

Shakespeare volumes bound & labelled by VW

VW’s writing shed

 It was so special.  I love Virginia Woolf, as you probably know, and I can’t believe it’s taken me so many years to visit Monk’s House.  To be in the same rooms in which she lived, seeing her furniture and wandering around her garden, was a really wonderful, quite moving, experience.

But we didn’t just go to one Bloomsbury Group home, oh no!  Next stop was Charleston, a few miles away.  We weren’t allowed to take photographs inside, so here is just the outside.  If it was a beautiful home outside (and it was) than the inside was utterly breathtaking.  Every wall and item of furniture was decorated by Vanessa Bell or Duncan Grant – abstract patterns creating a sponged-on ‘wallpaper’, a rooster painted above the window to ‘wake up’ the occupant in the morning, etc.  Despite being a rented house…!  And paintings hung everywhere, too.  All so stunning, and all the more special because they had been done by one of the residents or their friends.  They included a portrait of Virginia Woolf by her sister, Vanessa Bell, which I hadn’t seen before, and which I prefer to the famous portraits Bell did of Woolf.  I can only find a small part of it online (see right).

Our guide, called Angie, was exceptionally good.  She barely drew breath in the hour we had for the tour.  It would have been nice to have time to ask questions, perhaps, but I suppose then we’d have lost out on some of the prepared tour.  It catered to people who knew nothing at all about the occupants and their friends, whereas I think all seven of us on the tour already knew quite a bit, but it was still great to hear it from an enthusiastic expert.  I’m definitely intending to go back – and if you go on a Sunday, then you can roam freely.

Oh, and there was a man about my age in the gift shop who had a 1920s chair at home, and they were buying reproduction Vanessa Bell fabric (at £55 a metre!) to re-cover it.  I don’t know whose life gave me greater life-envy – the Bloomsbury Group and their idyllic house, or the man who would have that beautiful chair…

If you get the chance to go to either of these wonderful properties, do take it.  I can also definitely recommend the walk from Lewes to Monk’s House, which is exceptionally beautiful on a sunny day.  It was the most delightful day out imaginable, and I was rather worried that my impending cold would ruin it for me.  Luckily I managed to stave it off for a day – and it has come back now with a vengeance.  So it might be a day or too before you hear from me again, whilst I feel sorry for myself…

The Times piece (photographed)

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I wrote yesterday’s very quick post on my phone at Charleston, of all places, without actually having a copy of The Times myself at that point.  More on Monk’s House and Charleston soon – but today I thought I’d pop up photos of my quotation in The Times for those of you who don’t get copies.  I was so excited to be asked to contribute!

This is what was printed (I’d like to point out that, when I wrote it, it didn’t end on a preposition!):

Simon Thomas, a postgraduate student at the University of Oxford and author of the Stuck-in-a-Book blog at Stuck-in-a-book.blogspot.com, says: “For the unrepentant bibliophile, being in a charity shop is like being a kid in a sweetshop — except you don’t have to get a parent’s permission to buy far more than is good for you.
“I am always willing to brave mountains of Danielle Steels and Dan Browns, not to mention entirely arbitrary shelving systems, in the hopes of finding something special. It was in a charity shop shelved entirely by colour that I found an amusing 1950 novel by Mary Essex, Tea Is So Intoxicating. It cost me 10p, but the cheapest I have ever seen it online is £70.
“It is not only stumbling across scarce books that has been rewarding. I daresay there are plenty of copies out there of The Love-Child by Edith Olivier [a 1927 novel, reprinted in the 1980s by Virago], but I probably wouldn’t have read it if I hadn’t found it by chance in the basement of a dingy charity shop. That serendipitous purchase ended up helping to determine the topic of the doctorate I am currently studying for.”

Stuck-in-a-Book’s Weekend Miscellany

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By the time you read this, I’ll either be in London or Sussex – a couple of my friends and I are off to Charleston and Monk’s House (the homes of Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf respectively) for a literary jaunt.  At least that’s the plan – right now I feel deathly with one of my oh-so-common colds.  But I am determined to enjoy myself!  I am equally determined to tell you about a book, a link, and a blog post… so make yourself comfortable, and enjoy.

1.) The book –  I can’t remember how I found this title, but it’s been waiting in a draft post for many months: David Batterham’s Among Booksellers.  Read all about it here, but essentially it’s the letters of a bookseller travelling Europe, meeting the eccentric booksellers of the world on his way.  It sounds great fun.

2.) The link – apparently the French isn’t very good in this clip (I watched it silently with the subtitles, and also wouldn’t notice poor French anyway) but cat-lovers will find this amusing, I think…

3.) The blog post – is a little silly, and not entirely for the faint-hearted.  You’ve probably heard of Fifty Shades of Gray/Grey and have probably the same level of desire to read it as I have (i.e. none whatsoever) – well, Book Riot have read it so that you don’t have to!  Their review is very funny…

4.) P.S. – if you’re in the UK, make sure you’re watching the documentaries Chatsworth on BBC and 56 Up on ITV – both are brilliant so far.  And, guess what?  They’re on at the same time.  Of course.  9pm on Mondays – started last week, and have a couple more episodes to come.

Moominpappa at Sea – Tove Jansson

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You probably know that I love and adore Tove Jansson.  She is, indeed, one of my all-time favourite writers, and the only author whose books I eagerly await.  (Yes, she’s dead, but they’re being steadily translated – a newly translated collection of short stories coming soon from Sort Of Books!)  Until now, though, I hadn’t read any of the Moomin books for which she is best known.  Aware of this, Margaret Szedenits very kindly gave me a copy of Moominpappa at Sea (1965) which is actually the final book to feature the Moomin family, except some picture books.

Only the beginning of Moominpappa at Sea takes place in Moominvalley, and only the Moomin family appear.  Apparently there are lots of other characters, but I got to know thoughtful, adventurous Moominpappa, wise, diligent Moominmamma, anxious, imaginative Moomintroll, and fearless, feisty Little My.  They have a map on their wall, a dot on which marks an island (or perhaps, Little My suggests, some fly-dirt) with a lighthouse – Moominpappa decides that the family will move there.

“Of course we run the risk of it being calm tonight,” said Moominpappa.  “We could have left immediately after lunch.  But on an occasion like this we must wait for sunset.  Setting out in the right way is just as important as the opening lines in a book: they determine everything.”
After a wet and windy journey across the sea, they arrive on the island – deserted, except for a taciturn fisherman – and head towards the lighthouse.  Everything is not quite as they hoped.  The beam of the lighthouse doesn’t work, there is no soil for Moominmamma’s garden, and worst of all – the lighthouse is locked and they can’t find the key.  Without being too much like an educational TV programme, Tove Jansson incorporates many different responses to change – whether it intimidates, infuriates, or energises people.  Moominmamma is definitely the family member who most wishes they had never left.

In front of them lay age-old rocks with steep and sharp sides and they stumbled past precipice after precipice, grey and full of crevices and fissures.

“Everything’s much too big here,” thought Moominmamma.  “Or perhaps I’m too small.”

Only the path was as small and insecure as she was.
And then it all gets a bit surreal.  Not only is are they followed by the Groke – a curious creature which fills them with fear and turns the ground to ice – the island itself seems to be alive.  The trees move, the sea itself has a definite, often petulant, character.  The Moomins take this in their stride – they almost seem to expect it.

Moominpappa leaned forward and stared sternly at the fuming sea.  “There’s something you don’t seem to understand,” he said.  “It’s your job to look after this island.  You should protect and comfort it instead of behaving as you do.  Do your understand?

Moominpappa listened, but the sea made no answer.
So, what did I make of it all?  I definitely enjoyed it, and I especially liked Tove Jansson’s deceptively simple illustrations throughout – they enhanced the story, and also softened its edges, as it were.  The emotions and actions of the Moomins are often quite human, and the illustrations remind us that we are in a different world – they give the prose a warm haze.

And yet I never felt I quite knew what Jansson was doing.  I was expecting that it might all be a sort of allegory, in a way, for how humans respond to change.  But the Moomins aren’t simply there to represent types of response – they form a family unit as valid as those in any novel, even if there isn’t quite the same depth of development in these relationships (in this book, at least.)  The characters certainly often speak wisely, or demonstrate their feelings through actions (as Moominmamma does with her painting), but I couldn’t ever forget that this was a children’s book – and that, in this case, the children’s book really did feel like a watered-down version of the adults’ novels.

I wasn’t sure how Tove Jansson’s books for children would relate to the wonderful novels and stories I’ve already read.  It seemed to me, after reading Moominpappa at Sea, that it was like the skeletal equivalent of something like Fair Play.  Janssons’ great talent is her deeply perceptive descriptions of everyday interactions between people – incredibly nuanced and yet subtle.  She only gives the bare bones of this in Moominpappa at Sea.  Well, more than the bare bones – more, I daresay, than a lot of adult novelists – but not with the finesse of which I know her capable.  I still loved reading it, and I’m very grateful to Margaret for giving me the book and the opportunity, but I now feel comfortable that I have not been thus far missing Jansson’s greatest work.  She may be best known for the Moomin books but, based on what I have read of her oeuvre so far, she saved her finest writing for elsewhere.