For twenty-six years, Finnish artist and writer Tove Jansson and her partner Tuulikki Pietilä spent summers on a bare platter of rock in the Gulf of Finland, a tiny speck called Klovharun, living their dream of art and isolation. Her “notes” in Notes from an Island are as spare and polished as the rocks she collected then returned to the waters in winter. With keen observation and droll humor, she writes plainly but richly of freedom, and flower blooms, and frequent guests like her nieces, who blew soap bubbles and enlivened their cabin studio. It might be a leap to put Notes on the shelf next to Pilgrim at Tinker Creek or The Living Mountain, but not much of one.
Sometimes it felt like unrequited love – everything exaggerated. I had the feeling that this immoderately pampered and badly treated island was a living thing that didn’t like us, or felt sorry for us, depending on the way we behaved, or just because.
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Tooti loves to pack, because she’s so good at it. In earlier years, whenever it drew on towards spring – even as early as February – she would start packing, a bit embarrassed at her own happy haste.
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