I LOVE the grandmother. I don't find her strange but real, rather than perfect. It is so easy to make a grandparent character a flat stereotype. This grandmother had the gift of a good teacher, being able to meet the child where she is at and infuse meaning to their simple dialogues and play. At times, she seemed to instinctively use 'play therapy' to help Sophia cope and overcome her loss which seems to trigger her outbursts. But the grandmother was also very realistic and sometimes she got tired and needed to stop abruptly and somedays she was just too tired to play or do much. I think the effect of just understanding these characters in glimpses makes them more real.
It took me until the angleworms chapter to get this book. But once I got it, I GOT IT and started rereadingfrom the beginning. It's now up there on my list of faves.
I really enjoyed this book. Thank you for including it! And Heidi, sorry about the developers. In many ways some of the conflict in the book dovetails with the issue of land development. A neighbor of ours recently bought 40 acres for his children to one day build on, but also to keep it from developers. We were really glad that he did, especially since he lets us hike on it.
It didn't register with me either the first time I read it or this time the there was another layer behind the grandmother's desire to leave everything in she for possible strangers visiting. Didn't occur to me that she was also putting things into shape for Sophia and her father to get along without the grandmother.
Interesting, by the way, that because he's referred to Sophia's father we are never sure whether the grandmother is his mother or his late wife's mother. Whose mother do people think she is? We're given so little information I can't really decide. Though I rather suspect she's Sophia's maternal grandmother because I think if she was the father's mother we'd see her mothering him more.
What a wonderful book! Thank you so much for putting it on this year's list -- and thank you, Heidi, for recommending it. You've added another title to my shortlist of favorites!
It seems significant that Papa had only one line in the entire book (that I noticed, anyway). In the final chapter, as Grandmother is fretting over the possibility of birds building nests in the chimney the next spring, we get this:
"'But we'll be back by then,' Sophia's father said." (p 167)
(Interesting that he's referred to here in terms of his relationship to Sophia.) His words seem to be a calm reassurance that these island summers will continue on, even when Grandmother is no longer there.
I have wondered if the grandmother’s “strangeness” is due to translation. I haven’t read a huge amount of Scandinavian lit but one that stands out is my first read of Bachman’s “A Man Called Ove”…..I just could not find the right tone for that book.
I loved The Summer Book the first time I read it but the second read has opened up some deeper understanding on the dynamic of the relationship
I can’t wait for the retreat! Can’t wait to respond either :) I did mean to say that Sophia’s precociousness, personally, bugs me as well as the grandmother, just not as much. Maybe precocious children in books are more common and to be expected. (I also don’t know how I old she’s supposed to be, but maybe I just missed that.)
So I still think there is something a little off with the grandmother, maybe not abnormally so, but in a fictional, foreign way. After finishing the book, I think it’s her childishness/playfulness - some of her responses to Sophia, getting angry like Sophia, and crawling on the ground.
I knew absolutely nothing about the book coming in (my preference), so having finished it I feel that’s it’s an end-of-life story as well as a coming-of-age story in addition to a memory novel. As y’all were talking about the confusion of time and the ending, that became more solidified. You have these two feminine perspectives, one young, one old, yet so similar (I thought of Patitsas’ “unknowing” feminine in regard to what Sean was saying, which made more sense to me this time, about the book’s femininity.) The end is a bit of a mystery, but I wonder if that’s due to Jansson’s almost shared/blended characters of the grandmother and Sophia, which partly points to the ideas of passed-on family history and beliefs, as Heidi talked about. Grandmother outside at night listening to the sounds mirrors Sophia in The Tent (about halfway through the book) - and they both decide to stay out. But grandmother is not in a tent, she’s in the world (maybe representing the next world?). I’ll have to reread to explore this more.
I LOVE the grandmother. I don't find her strange but real, rather than perfect. It is so easy to make a grandparent character a flat stereotype. This grandmother had the gift of a good teacher, being able to meet the child where she is at and infuse meaning to their simple dialogues and play. At times, she seemed to instinctively use 'play therapy' to help Sophia cope and overcome her loss which seems to trigger her outbursts. But the grandmother was also very realistic and sometimes she got tired and needed to stop abruptly and somedays she was just too tired to play or do much. I think the effect of just understanding these characters in glimpses makes them more real.
It took me until the angleworms chapter to get this book. But once I got it, I GOT IT and started rereadingfrom the beginning. It's now up there on my list of faves.
Has a Q&A thread been posted and I missed it? Or is this thread for questions?
I really enjoyed this book. Thank you for including it! And Heidi, sorry about the developers. In many ways some of the conflict in the book dovetails with the issue of land development. A neighbor of ours recently bought 40 acres for his children to one day build on, but also to keep it from developers. We were really glad that he did, especially since he lets us hike on it.
It didn't register with me either the first time I read it or this time the there was another layer behind the grandmother's desire to leave everything in she for possible strangers visiting. Didn't occur to me that she was also putting things into shape for Sophia and her father to get along without the grandmother.
Interesting, by the way, that because he's referred to Sophia's father we are never sure whether the grandmother is his mother or his late wife's mother. Whose mother do people think she is? We're given so little information I can't really decide. Though I rather suspect she's Sophia's maternal grandmother because I think if she was the father's mother we'd see her mothering him more.
What a wonderful book! Thank you so much for putting it on this year's list -- and thank you, Heidi, for recommending it. You've added another title to my shortlist of favorites!
It seems significant that Papa had only one line in the entire book (that I noticed, anyway). In the final chapter, as Grandmother is fretting over the possibility of birds building nests in the chimney the next spring, we get this:
"'But we'll be back by then,' Sophia's father said." (p 167)
(Interesting that he's referred to here in terms of his relationship to Sophia.) His words seem to be a calm reassurance that these island summers will continue on, even when Grandmother is no longer there.
My favorite takeaway from this is Heidi's statement. "A strong will is one that receives rather than resists goodness."
I have wondered if the grandmother’s “strangeness” is due to translation. I haven’t read a huge amount of Scandinavian lit but one that stands out is my first read of Bachman’s “A Man Called Ove”…..I just could not find the right tone for that book.
I loved The Summer Book the first time I read it but the second read has opened up some deeper understanding on the dynamic of the relationship
I can’t wait for the retreat! Can’t wait to respond either :) I did mean to say that Sophia’s precociousness, personally, bugs me as well as the grandmother, just not as much. Maybe precocious children in books are more common and to be expected. (I also don’t know how I old she’s supposed to be, but maybe I just missed that.)
So I still think there is something a little off with the grandmother, maybe not abnormally so, but in a fictional, foreign way. After finishing the book, I think it’s her childishness/playfulness - some of her responses to Sophia, getting angry like Sophia, and crawling on the ground.
I knew absolutely nothing about the book coming in (my preference), so having finished it I feel that’s it’s an end-of-life story as well as a coming-of-age story in addition to a memory novel. As y’all were talking about the confusion of time and the ending, that became more solidified. You have these two feminine perspectives, one young, one old, yet so similar (I thought of Patitsas’ “unknowing” feminine in regard to what Sean was saying, which made more sense to me this time, about the book’s femininity.) The end is a bit of a mystery, but I wonder if that’s due to Jansson’s almost shared/blended characters of the grandmother and Sophia, which partly points to the ideas of passed-on family history and beliefs, as Heidi talked about. Grandmother outside at night listening to the sounds mirrors Sophia in The Tent (about halfway through the book) - and they both decide to stay out. But grandmother is not in a tent, she’s in the world (maybe representing the next world?). I’ll have to reread to explore this more.