The Woman Who Borrowed Memories is a collection of short stories by wonderful Finnish author and illustrator Tove Jannson spanning from 1971-1998. Jansson died in 2001 but over the course of her career, she wrote short stories, six novels, and articles, and also worked as an illustrator and graphic artist. She is best known for her Moomin children's books published in the 1940s and later turned into a beloved set of cartoons. She won the Hans Christian Anderson medal and was included in The Will Eisner Hall of Fame.

I first encountered Jannson when I read The Summer Book which kept popping up as a recommendation by fellow NYRB fans. I took that one on vacation on a beach, and to be reading a sweet simple story about a grandmother and granddaughter spending the summer at a shoreline cabin was a french kiss for my weekend away. I later followed that up with Fair Play her semi-autobiographical collection of vignettes about two senior artists living and traveling together. That book was a marvelous look at how we work, play, squabble, and love. That book was perfect for reading in the time of Covid as our quarters and families closed around us.

The Woman Who Borrowed Memories with an introduction by Lauren Groff is a collection of many stories, collected from other sources and with a number of translators. One of my favorite themes in this and all her books is Art as work. I've taught from Julia Cameron's The Artist Way and know a thing or two about the process of becoming an Artist. Jansson's work is about being an Artist in all its day-to-day activities. (Of course, Jansson was not only an artist but so were her parents).

One story, The Cartoonist, is about a young artist named Stein who takes over a beloved cartoon from an artist, Allington, who has retired. In this story, which was translated by Thomas Teal, Jansson cleverly reveals her process through the editor, "'You have to remember,' Fried said, 'you have to keep in mind the whole time that the tension has to mount. You've got a strip of three or four panels, five if absolutely necessary, but four's better. Okay. In the first one, you resolve the tension from the previous day. Catharsis, relief, the drama continues. You build up new tension in the second panel, increase it in panel three, and so on. I've explained that. You're good, but you get lost in the details, commentary, embroidery that gets in the way of the red thread. It has to be a straight line, simple and moves toward a peak, a climax, you see?'"

Stein goes about his daily work learning his role and wonders about the previous cartoonist, Allington as the office still retains both his essence and his sweaters. "It was a cartoonist who had worked here, and the sweater was his. Stein was curious and opened a drawer. It contained a mix of pencil stumps, tape, empty ink bottles, paper clips, all the usual junk. But maybe worse than usual. All of it had been stirred together as if in a rage. He opened the next drawer. It was empty,... It could have been Allington who'd had this room. Maybe he never worked at home, maybe he sat right here for twenty years and drew his Blubby." Stein is told repeatedly to do the work but to also take the Art and do "something of your own, but preferably no one will see the break."

How does one take over another's creative work and make it their own and why did Allington quit? Stein eventually decides to track down Allington even though no one in the office knows his whereabouts. He succeeds and visits Allington in a hotel in the suburbs and Allington is described as a "perfectly ordinary man, one of the invisible people on a bus." They meet and talk about the work. It ends with Allington offering to help Stein out, "I just thought," Allington said, "I just happened to think that, if you get stuck, I might be able to do a couple of strips. Sometime. If you'd like..." Ah, can an Artist really retire?

There are all kinds of stories in here and I love the glimpses of the Artist life and Scandinavian Summer Beach life. The cover even has a delightful photo of Jansson swimming in front of her cabin. Squirrel, also translated by Teal, is about the ups and downs of living in close quarters with wildlife. Another moment I'm sure we can all recognize from times of Covid. Maybe Scandanavians are built for isolation but Jansson is also good at showing the joys of the quiet life.

In the Artist's Way, Julia Cameron states, "The point of the work is the work." But there is also an emphasis on play. I can't help but feel a sense of joyful play when I read Jansson's work. I would recommend starting with one of her novels and then progressing to her short stories and then before you know it, Moomin books and then a Moomin coffee mug. ( )

All her short stories are more or less actually complete novels. I find it amazing that she packs so much in a few pages. I found it hard to understand initially but the sentence that ultimately endeared me to her work unfolded on page 44 in The Squirrel - "She didn't care about a dog anymore. Dogs are dangerous, they react to everything immediately, they're distinctly sympathetic animals. A squirrel was better." It's difficult to describe the magic but this sentence could explain how and why solitude figures so much in her short stories, and why her characters seem to constantly waver between unbridled sympathy born from genuine understanding, and the desire to distance oneself as a result of that understanding, and also how one distances in order to better understand themselves. Of course she livens everything up with a humour that twists and turns, appearing at places that you don't expect, which is what makes her stories so enjoyable. ( )

I couldn't help it. I compared every single story in this collection to the Moomintrolls. Sometimes multiple times per story. "Oh, this is just like the Moomintrolls!" "Hmmm, this is hardly anything like the Moomintrolls." It's a sickness, and it certainly distracted me quite a bit from these beautiful little stories. The upside was that reading these stories helped me to understand and articulate just why I love the Moomintrolls so dearly. Jansson has a talent for simplifying a story to its core, but no further. Others tend to either gloss over or wallow in the cruelties of childhood (and adult!) relationships. Jansson lets us revel in those savage moments, but always with such empathy, both for the one stung and the one hurling the abuse. I have always said that empathy and introspection were the strength of her characters, but reading "The Summer Child," which could so easily be transplanted into Moominvalley, was when I really could put into words my admiration for her way with cruelty. Tom's taunting of poor Elis was so like Little My torturing The Whomper from atop her wardrobe that I just couldn't help make Moomintroll comparisons for that story.)

I feel an intense need to take a trip to Finland. To spend a summer on an island. This book really is a series of open doors to another world and another way of life. I am so glad Jansson's work continues to gain international audience. ( )

Although I find it very unusual to like every story in a book of shorts, in this one I can say I did. There was something that attracted me to each of these stories. There were of course a few standouts, one of which was titled The Squirrel. The sense of urgency, the loneliness and desperation of this woman living alone on an island and how she was so happy to see the squirrel and so desperate to have it stay. There is a twist here because I never really could figure out if the squirrel was actually real or not or if it arose out of her terrible loneliness.

The other story was altogether lighter and called, Traveling Light, about a man who needed to share his optimism with others.

The clarity of the writing in this collection was amazing, the descriptions wonderful. Really allowed me to immerse myself in each and every one of these stories. Themes of loneliness, nature and creativity were all explored. A truly wonderful collection.

ARC from publisher. ( )