“It was August, and the weather was sometimes stormy and sometimes nice... no matter what happened, it was only time on top of time, since everything is vanity and a chasing after the wind.” – Tove Jansson, ‘The Summer Book’
Even as I slowed my reading down to a few delicious pages a day, the ending of ‘The Summer Book’ came too fast, and now that I’m finished, I feel the sadness that sometimes accompanies the end of an enjoyable read, especially one that dovetails so perfectly and meaningfully with the current season at hand. I wasn’t ready for book, or summer, to finish, but one already has, and one is well on the way.
“Every year, the bright Scandinavian summer nights fade away without anyone’s noticing. One evening in August you have an errand outdoors, and all of a sudden it’s pitch-black. A great warm, dark silence surrounds the house. It is still summer, but the summer is no longer alive. It has come to a standstill; nothing withers, and fall is not ready to begin. There are no stars yet, just darkness.” – Tove Jansson, ‘The Summer Book’
