Perfectly Realized: On Tove Jansson’s ‘The Summer Book’ at 50

When a friend asked what I thought was the most perfectly realized novel, I hesitated, almost said To the Lighthouse or Joyce’s Ulysses, but my heart overruled my brain, and I said what I really thought: Tove Jansson’s The Summer Book. Writing during an idyllic summer on a rocky island off the coast of Finland, Jansson managed to enter that trance-like zone of creation where effort becomes effortless and the deepest truths seem to come unbidden from one’s pen.

Now, on the 50th anniversary of its 1972 publication, continues to quietly win over legions