My latest contribution to the Tove Trove Library is a substantial collection of letters written by Tove Jansson to her closest friends and loved ones during her life

“I find myself talking to you about all the great joys, all the agonies, all my thoughts…
– Letter to Eva Konikova, 1946. 

On my second reading of Letters from Tove, I spent nine months slowly poring over every page and taking copious notes for posts to come – some now completed, others still forming.

The collection has proved an excellent reference resource, with useful footnotes scattered throughout, but it unfortunately lacks an index of Jansson’s works, though mercifully an index of people does appear at the back. 

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“[…] my urge to dance will persist until my dying day. I often do it on my own in the studio, with or without Pipsu.1 And have such fun. But my exhibitionist streak shouldn’t be denied or scorned, should it?”
– Letter to Tuulikki Pietilä, 1968

In their introduction, its two editors2 discuss the immense importance of letter‑writing to Tove and explain their reasons for including certain recipients – among them the most significant people in her life with whom she corresponded between 1932 and 1988, including close friends Eva Konikoff and Maya Vanni; lovers Atos Wirtanen and Vivica Bandler; family – in particular her mother, Hammarsten Jansson – the Swedish editor Åke Runnquist, and, most importantly, her soul mate of some 45-years, Tuulikki Pietilä.

The letters reveal her innermost thoughts, her trials and triumphs, her passionate beliefs and wildest imaginings. They offer insight into her life within Helsinki’s bohemian and lesbian circles and her experiences of significant historical events – but, vitally, they give us a front‑row seat to her evolution as an artist and writer, her wit, her humour and her profound wisdom.

Some of the letters she wrote to her family in the late 1930s, while travelling alone, are among the most enjoyable. This bygone, pre‑war period was one of the happiest and freest of her life, a time when she embraced independence, worked passionately on her art and found easy companionship with locals and fellow wanderers.

The war years, by contrast, were dark and difficult for Tove, and the trauma of that period never quite left her. There are cheerier times, too – moments of high-spirited shenanigans, intense creativity, romantic bliss, solitary contentment –  but the lows in her life, such as when her initially passionate, all-consuming relationship with Vivica Bandler failed to endure (though they became friends for life and creative collaborators), could be debilitating. At such moments we see her at her lowest ebb and sense the depth of her insecurity.

There is a striking openness and raw honesty in her letters to both Eva and Maya – the kind that only close female friends seem able to share. By contrast, when writing to Atos (in the early years, at least), she can at times seem over‑excitable and eager to please, especially when set against the often profound yet wonderfully playful letters she sends to the many women in her life. And though I detest the word, her conversations with boyfriends are apt to slip into a girlish register that can, on occasion, diminish her considerable intellect and practical nature. Only when she crosses over to the “ghost side”3 do her most intense emotions fully surface. Moreover, when she falls in love and settles into a permanent relationship with Tuulikki (affectionately known as Tooti), she appears to be at peace with herself for the first time in her life.

We glean many fascinating snippets of information about her along the way, not least the books she reads. At various times we find her picking up the latest Karen Horney,4 Ray Bradbury,5 Karin Boye6 and, in the case of the Danish writer Thorkild Bjørnvig,7 she describes The Pact, about his friendship with Karen Blixen,8 as “a remarkable book”.

As a true Tovian, I lapped up this fascinating collection – there is so much here for someone like me, eager to explore her life in detail – though I would caution general readers to familiarise themselves with at least some of Jansson’s works before tackling this tome – it will make the experience immeasurably more rewarding.

“The darkness on an island such as this9 is like standing at the end of the world and all the night sounds are intensified, giving an impression of utter solitude – nature no longer frames one’s existence, but hurls it to the periphery and imposes its sovereign domination. Suddenly it’s just the sea and vast, dramatic autumn skies.”
– Letter to Maya Vanni, 1967

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Published in English by Sort Of Books in 2019, my copy of this hardback edition of Letters from Tove is enlivened by black‑and‑white Moomin sketches decorating the inside front cover. It is 496 pages in length (including Sources/Credits and an Index of People) and was translated from the Swedish by Sarah Death. It was a gift from my mother a good few birthdays ago.

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 USEFUL LINKS 

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 REFERENCE LIST

  1. Tove’s cat.
  2. Editors Boel Westin and Helen Svensson (both experts on Tove Jansson’s life and work). They were, incidentally, first introduced to each other by Tove.
  3. A “group that’s few in number is the lesbians. The ghosts, as we call them – and as I shall call them in my letters from now on” (writing to Eva Konikoff, 28 February 1952, page 238). She later remarks: “I haven’t made the final decision, but I’m convinced that the happiest and most genuine course for me would be to go over to the ghost side.” (Page 239)
  4. Karen Horney (1885–1952) was a German psychoanalyst practising in the United States whose theories challenged several traditional Freudian views, especially those concerning sexuality. She is credited with founding feminist psychology in response to Freud’s theory of penis envy. In a letter to Maya Vanni dated 1 September 1967 (page 457), Tove remarks: “I’m reading the new Karen Horney and trying to think my way through to what’s right. It’s very exciting and a bit lonely.”
  5. Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) was an American author and screenwriter working in a variety of genres including science fiction, fantasy horror and mystery. He is most widely remembered for the novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953). She mentions having read a great deal of this author’s work in a letter from Paris to Maya Vanni, dated April 1975 (page 464).
  6. Karin Boye (1900-1941) was a Swedish poet and novelist, best-known internationally for her dystopian science fiction novel Kallocain (1940) – written in response to the ongoing horrors of the Second World War. In a letter to Tooti, dated 26 June 1956 (page 333), Tove concludes with the words: “Now I’m going to read Karin Boye and then go to sleep – good night beloved.”
  7. Thorkild Bjørnvig (1918-2004) was a Danish author and poet, and the founder of Heretica, a conservative cultural and literary journal published in Copenhagen from 1948 to 1953. He was known to have had a four‑year intimate relationship with Blixen in the 1950s, and the book (filled as it is with personal detail) caused a sensation when it was first published in 1974. Tove describes the volume to Maya Vanni, in a letter dated simply 1983 (page 470), as “complex, almost fiendish in intensity”, and goes on to say: “Like you, I generally save books of that kind for when things are quiet around me.”
  8. Danish author Isak Dinesen (1885–1962) was the pseudonym of Karen Blixen – or, to give her full title, Baroness Blixen‑Finecke – who is most widely remembered for her memoir Out of Africa.
  9. Klovharun is a small rocky island in the outermost Pellinge (Pellinki) archipelago, in the Gulf of Finland, off the south coast of Finland.

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“I do so enjoy sitting down to chat to you about whatever occurs to me; it scarcely counts as a letter any more—no need to bother rounding it off properly, it’s as if you’re simply here with me for a bit, while I smoke my post-breakfast cigarette.”
– Letter to Ham, her mother

All images © Moomin Characters™