Letters From Klara

 

Letters from Klara / Tove Jansson
trans. from the Swedish by Thomas Teal
read by Indira Varma
Copenhagen: Saga Egmont, 2024, c1991.

I like Tove Jansson's writing, and found this collection of short stories that I hadn't yet read; I'm glad I picked it up because I really enjoyed it. It contains 13 stories, and they are reflective of Jansson's concerns and style. 

The stories tackle the awkwardness of relationships and of existing in the world - something I feel like she's particularly good at. I think it's her clear unsentimental look at people's weakness, foibles, and inner lives that I always appreciate. She can be sardonic and hard in some ways, but also has an eye for the wry humour of life, and never mocks her characters. 

I thought all these stories were strong, with characters to draw you in, even though there was no strong thematic line to the collection. The settings are mainly in Finland but there a few which range across Europe, depending on the story. There are artists, mothers and daughters, old women who are still insisting on being a person, young men with existential crises, old schoolmates reuniting (with resulting cringe), and more. Each story was compelling but there were a couple that really stood out to me. 

The title story was fun, although light - if you've read Virginia Evan's hit The Correspondent you'll appreciate this little story alongside that one. "Party Games" follows a group of women who reunite when one of them finds out that their girls school is closing - it's a handful of their classmates having tea at one person's apartment and it is as awkward as you might imagine, with, as Jansson puts it, "do you remembers" taking over a lot of the conversation. But their girlhood likes and dislikes also reappear. So understandable! "Trip to the Riviera" follows a cantankerous older woman and her daughter, who've gone on vacation to a cheap pension on the Riviera, where they are definitely fish out of water, but the older woman is determined to be herself. 

"Emmelina" was the one that I was most drawn into. In this one, a strange young woman inherits a flat from a woman who has just died. The man living below her is having a crisis and befriends Emmelina, although she seems to be there just as a receptacle for all his angst. But when he finally decides to move on from his depression and face life again, Emmelina leaves, telling him she won't be back for a long time. She's uncanny and this story was a delight, with the side characters being some of the best parts. 

There are never heavy plots to these stories, they are more about people just living a bit, vignette style. I enjoy this a lot, and this collection delivered. If you like more contemplative stories looking at a slice of life, often without any real conclusions to be drawn, you'll like this too.