Jansson is absolutely one of my biggest literary heros too, and I'm always happy to hear from other people who've even heard of her! I mean of course she's very well known as a writer up here, but when I was in the UK it was really unusual to come across anyone who knew of anything more than the Moomins, and those usually via one animated series or another, not Jansson herself (and I... don't think the animated series can compare, they lose the depth). For her actual books, I'm not sure I'd even write all of the picture books off as "those children's books", let alone the main run of Moomin books, but it really can be hard to explain that sometimes. I certainly don't think either of the last two Moomin books are really for children, and it feels as though they've been growing gradually away from the usual realm of children's stories for quite a while before that. Which is one of the really interesting things.
Yeah, the difference between the originals of the early books and the edited versions is incredibly marked, and definitely the books as they're usually published now are far more in the style one would recognise from her books-for-adults... I always think of her as such a beautifully spare writer, but of course that's not how she started out!
& well, to be quite honest, I'm most familiar with her writing in English as well. I'm working my way through them in Swedish now, and it's slow, because in the original she writes in this combination of Finnish Swedish, Swedish Swedish and Tove Jansson Swedish which is basically unique, and a lot of the words aren't the ones I'd know for things. There is some interesting stuff I've learnt about the books already from looking at them in Swedish and talking to people here in Sweden about them, though, especially about characters' names. Possibly another post to be had there, maybe a bit later on when I'm a bit more proficient. :)
Yes, that's a really good point about the cynicism - but then one keeps going with her books for adults and she moves through it into something else, and while some of her books for adults are quite scary - I think especially of The True Deceiver, which was brilliant but a really uncomfortable read because she gets under the skin so - others feel really... well, they're melancholy in a way which creeps through quite a few things I've read and seen and heard from this part of the world, but they're sort of quietly optimistic too. Fair Play is like that, and is basically my favourite of her books overall for it, because it feels both hopeful and true, rather than too perfect.
Re: (via 3w4dw)
Yeah, the difference between the originals of the early books and the edited versions is incredibly marked, and definitely the books as they're usually published now are far more in the style one would recognise from her books-for-adults... I always think of her as such a beautifully spare writer, but of course that's not how she started out!
& well, to be quite honest, I'm most familiar with her writing in English as well. I'm working my way through them in Swedish now, and it's slow, because in the original she writes in this combination of Finnish Swedish, Swedish Swedish and Tove Jansson Swedish which is basically unique, and a lot of the words aren't the ones I'd know for things. There is some interesting stuff I've learnt about the books already from looking at them in Swedish and talking to people here in Sweden about them, though, especially about characters' names. Possibly another post to be had there, maybe a bit later on when I'm a bit more proficient. :)
Yes, that's a really good point about the cynicism - but then one keeps going with her books for adults and she moves through it into something else, and while some of her books for adults are quite scary - I think especially of The True Deceiver, which was brilliant but a really uncomfortable read because she gets under the skin so - others feel really... well, they're melancholy in a way which creeps through quite a few things I've read and seen and heard from this part of the world, but they're sort of quietly optimistic too. Fair Play is like that, and is basically my favourite of her books overall for it, because it feels both hopeful and true, rather than too perfect.
Now who's waffling? *wry*