#868 The Monkey- Tove Jansson

#868 The Monkey- Tove Jansson

This is a humorous dig at critics. An aging sculptor lives a lonely life. His only companion is a monkey he treats like a child or a friend. This is the day his latest art show is being reviewed and like the rest, he reads the write-ups with disdain. He sees the critics as leeches and brainless animals intent only on destroying what’s there instead of enjoying or supporting artists. In the following statement he compares his monkey to the critics:

“The monkey was like all the rest of them. The tiniest crack, the least stain or defect, and her fingers were there to make it worse or pick it apart. She noticed everything, every tiny sign of weakness, and that’s where she’d bite and rip and tear. That’s the way monkeys are, but they don’t know any better and so we forgive them. The others are unforgivable.”

Notable Passage: “He overtipped him out of pure contempt.”

Rating: 7-7-8-6 Total= 28

#840 The Wolf-Tove Jansson

#840 The Wolf-Tove Jansson

A woman is acting as a guide for a Japanese artist. He wishes to see ferocious indigenous animals. There are no such animals in the south part of the country so she shows him stuffed animals at an old museum, These are nice  but he wishes to see some live.

She manages a trip to an island sanctuary or a zoo even though it is off-season. They have the place to themselves. It is cold and quiet and the artists enjoys his explorations around the grounds. Finally he gets to see live wolves pacing ominously in their cages.

“The wolves’ ceaseless pacing struck her as appalling. It was timeless. They loped back and forth behind their bars week after week and year after year, and if they hate us, she thought, it must be a gigantic hate!”

There is an undercurrent here with the narrator that I cant quite get a finger on. Her insecurity and isolation mirrors the wolves, but not the ferocity or intrigue. Much of Jansson’s power is the subtleness of her style. I wonder how much of that is lost in the translation. 

Rating: 7-7-6-7 Total= 27

#811 The Storm- Tove Jansson

#811 The Storm- Tove Jansson

A woman is alone at home during a huge snow storm. She waits for a man to call her. As the storm gets stronger and the winds create chaos her despair grows. Why won’t he call? She is battered almost lost when he finally does. She lets herself sleep and when she wakes the world is again calm and covered in a beautiful blanket of snow.

The storm descriptions here are pretty good, as is the building of tension. 

Notable Passage: “And dreams, what are they? They dig up your fear and display it, enlarged by cruelty. There is no rest, there is no comfort!”

Rating: 7-6-7-6 Total= 26

#783 The Other- Tove Jannson

#783 The Other- Tove Jannson

An artist or a writer is suddenly stricken with inspiration. It comes in the form of a sort of out-of-body-experience. He is literally standing beside himself and he begins to draw letters, but not necessarily words or sentences. He likes the space and shape of the letters, so he lets the meaning come on its own.

“He usually started inking from the bottom up so that he wouldn’t be distracted by the meaning of he words.”

Then he can’t find it. The inspiration is gone and he stands alone. He misses the perspective he needs to create his art. Without it he wanders around avoiding all contact literally looking for himself. A very powerful metaphor for the artistic struggle.

Notable Passage: “His whole body burned with an enormous unused power.”

Rating: 8-9-8-8 Total= 33

#755 Black-White- Tove Jansson

#755 Black-White- Tove Jansson

This story is dedicated to Edward Gorey, the American illustrator. Like him, the man in this story drew dark and scary images for books. He has been commissioned to create the pictures for a terror anthology, the chance of a lifetime. When his wife, a talented designer critiques one of his drawings as too gray, he takes it to heart. 

The house she has designed for them is literally a glass house and is too light for the dark subject matter of his book. He moves to a different studio for a few months where he can wallow in darkness and create the proper level of black as the dominant element in his work. How dark is too dark? How far can an artist get lost in his work?

This is a nice homage to an artistic master. The imagery is stark, the black/white symbolism is obvious but handled well. 

Notable Passage: “The darkness crept away, and they stood side by side, throwing no shadows, and he thought, This is perfect. Nothing Can Change.

Rating: 8-8-7-7 Total= 30

#727 The Listener- Tove Jansson

#727 The Listener- Tove Jansson

The author eulogizes about her Aunt Gerda, the pillar of her family. She speaks about her life, mostly her later days where she began to lose her mental acuity, and began acting very different from the Aunt she remembered.

“When a person loses what might be called her essence—the expression of her most beautiful quality—it sometimes happens that the alteration widens and deepens and with frightening speed overwhelms her personality."

Once giving with her time and the writer of wonderful letters, Aunt Gerda was now very internal and keeps to herself. Knowing that her life was on the wane, she began a project to keep her mind sharp. She drew her life as a map, with planet like ovals, and satellites of her life, connected by her loves, and losses, her regrets and her family. By he end it is a beautiful creation, but she is afraid it is incomplete and false. She won’t destroy it but writes a note asking for it be burned, unread when she dies. We don’t know if her wish was granted.

In the introduction to one of her short story collections, Jansson writes: “I love the short story—concentrated and united around a single idea. There must be nothing unnecessary in it, one must be able to hold the tale enclosed in one’s hand.”

For this reason, this story is a success. It is a simple story, focused and complete. In style and art, it is wonderful.

Rating: 8-8-10-8 Total= 34