My musings on Tove Jansson and Tuulikki Pietilä’s Notes from an Island

“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.”

Notes from an Island is an uplifting, deceptively simple collection of daily logs and passing observations recorded over twenty-six summers, which at first glance, appears to be a hodgepodge of casual jottings, but is in fact an enchanting, utterly unique portrait of two resourceful, gutsy women building a home together on a remote island in the Gulf of Finland.

Klovharun, also known as Klovharu (meaning ‘the split islet’), can be found in the Pellinge archipelago, a group of about 200 islands in Uusimaa within the borders of the city of Porvoo. We learn from the Publisher’s Note that the then forty-something women migrated to this “fierce little skerry” in 1963 with the assistance of “a maverick builder-fisherman called Brunström.” Life there was “precarious and austere,” yet they were both “energised by it,” relishing “the storms that would lash the granite rocks, marooning them for days” on end and obliging them to catch fish in order “to supplement provisions.” It was here they built their summerhouse, though initially they slept in a tent.

First published in 1996 under the title Anteckningar från en ö, the words in this slim volume are predominantly those of the celebrated Swedish-speaking Finnish author and artist Tove Jansson, while the copperplate etchings and wash drawings were contributed by her devoted life partner, Tuulikki Pietilä (fondly known as ‘Tooti’), an American-born Finnish graphic artist and professor.

Told without bombast or embellishment in the form of “diary entries, lists and vignettes,” in addition to “extracts from a logbook sent to Tove by Brunström” – who is described here as “a man so laconic that ‘he uses no adjectives in everyday speech’” – we are invited to observe the trials and triumphs of their (mostly) isolated existence. It was a significant chapter in both their lives that proved mutually productive and surprisingly eventful, their long days a combination of practical tasks, cerebral activities and high jinks as they chopped wood, carried out structural maintenance and worked on their separate projects.

“We dreamed about what our new cabin would look like. The room would have four windows, one in each wall. Towards the south-east we’d need to see the big storms that rage right across the island, on the east we’d see the moon’s reflection in the lagoon, and on the west side a rock face with moss and polypody ferns. To the north, we’ll keep watch for approaching boats so we’ll have time to get ready.”

I was particularly moved by Tove’s recollections of Pellura, an elderly seagull, which may or may not have been the same friendly bird known to her father during the family’s time on the nearby island of Bredskär. Told in her casually understated way, we learn that unlike its dive-bombing, chick-gobbling brethren, this individual “strutted back and forth on […] the veranda outside [her] window,” occasionally tapping on the glass and putting on “a kind of show.” The bird, which came when whistled, was “pretty old” by this point and had a problem with its throat but would sit on a mast watching the women go about their business. However, despite Tove’s best efforts it regularly refused to fly home at night, even when on one occasion a terrific gale blew in from the south-east (“why is it always south-east when something bad happens?”). Its lifeless body was discovered the following morning and thrown into the sea.

Tove and Tooti continued to spend their summers on the island until they “reached their mid-seventies” and “the exhilaration they [once] felt at storms and rough seas” began to wane and they started to struggle in the “harsh environment.” The couple agreed to “relinquish the island before age and anxiety forced the issue,” and in 1991, they “signed a gift deed” permitting “hunters and fisherfolk” to make use their cabin, after which they never returned. Such was the wrench at leaving, it was almost four years before Tove could bring herself to speak of Klovharun.

These days the cottage is managed by the local heritage association (Pellinge Hembygdsförening) and is rented out to artists during the warmer months.

In conclusion, I found this memoir (of sorts) an affecting and affectionate tribute to two extraordinary rocks: one a sea battered outcrop, the other an emotionally sustaining, creatively symbiotic relationship between two exceptional people.

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My copy of Notes from an Island is a hardback edition from 2021, translated into the English by Thomas Teal and published by Sort of Books. The cover illustration is the work of Tove’s mother, Signe Hammarsten Jansson (1882-1970). I purchased my copy from Blackwell’s with the express purpose of reading it for the Tove Trove project. Also, because I very much wanted to.

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SOUNDS OF THE ISLAND

In 2021, the Scottish composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist Erland Cooper released The Island 1961 EP containing music inspired by Tove and Tooti’s book. It is read by her niece Sophia Jansson with field recordings by Kirsi Ihalainen.

At the time, Erland was unable to visit Klovharun due to COVID restrictions, nevertheless, in an interview with Ninni Lehtniemi for the Finnish Institute UK + Ireland, he commented: “I imagined being there on her island, how the weather and natural elements control your day, week, month and year. I thought: wouldn’t it be great if you could hear the sound of an island? I looked at a lot of photographs from Tove’s island and started writing tones, the shape and key of the sounds as well as occasional melodies.”

You can listen to The Island 1961 here.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tove Jansson was born in Helsinki on 9th August 1914, the daughter of a Swedish-Finnish father who worked as a sculptor and a mother who was a graphic designer. She first trained as an artist and made a name for herself in her homeland as a painter and cartoonist. She became internationally famous after creating the Moomins. She later went on to write novels and short fiction for adults. She worked in her Helsinki studio, moving to a tiny island in the Gulf of Finland during the summer months with her partner, Tuulikki Pietilä. She died on 27th June 2001 at the age of 86.

“All birds are pretty, but few have a face like the eider – elongated, solemn, long-suffering and patient. She doesn’t move from her nest when you walk past, she stays where she is, looking self-controlled and inscrutable.”

All images © Moomin Characters™

Categories: Biography / Memoir, LGB, Tove Jansson, Translated Literature

Tags: #ToveTrove, Baltic Sea, Diaries, Erland Cooper, Finland, Finnish Literature, Journals, Klovharun, Memoir, Nordic Literature, Sophia Jansson, Tove Jansson, Tove Trove, Tuulikki Pietilä