Fair Play

Title: Fair Play

Author: Tove Jansson

Number of pages: 127

Started: 23 November 2010

Finished: 24 November 2010

Opening words:

Jonna had a happy habit of waking each morning as if to a new life. which stretched before her straight through to evening, clean, untouched, rarely shadowed by yesterday’s worries and mistakes.

Read more of the book here.

Plot summary:

What mattered most to Tove Jansson, she explained in her eighties, was work and love, a sentiment she echoes in this tender and original novel. Translated for the first time into English, Fair Play portrays a love between two older women, a writer and artist, as they work side-by-side in their Helsinki studios, travel together and share summers on a remote island. In the generosity and respect they show each other and the many small shifts they make to accommodate each other’s creativity we are shown a relationship both heartening and truly progressive. So what can happen when Tove Jansson turns her attention to her own favourite subjects, love and work, in the form of this novel about two women, lifelong partners and friends? Expect something philosophically calm and discreetly radical. At first sight it looks autobiographical.

What I thought:

I am a big fan of Tove Jansson. This book had her usual lightness of touch and told the tale of two women growing old together through a series of chapters highlighting different tales from their life together.

I thought this book was a nice read, but did not quite measure up to some of the others that I have read. It was a decent read nonetheless.