Review Travelling Light by Tove Jansson

This book was a win from Simon from Stuck in a Book and I am very glad that I won this as it introduced me to an author who was hitherto unknown to me. Once I got the book I did a bit of looking around and found out what Jansson had written and found my ignorance of her appalling. Thats another story.

The book is a collection of short stories (originally written in Swedish) and published in 1987. Most of the stories involve a journey and very often a journey alone, fraught with questions, problems and which way to go. The reader is faced with characters who have to face unusual circumstances and decisions and all these characters just go with the flow. No one fights their circumstances or questions them, they just go with what is happening around them and adapt to whatever strange circumstance they are put into.

All the stories deal with isolation - either one is by circumstance isolated or pushed into it. It also shows that however much we may want to be alone, we can never really do so. There is someone or something that happens that prevents one from being absolutely isolated! The authors skill is also shown in the description of not just people but places and whether its Finland or Spain all descriptions are very cleverly done.

An unusual book - not one I would have picked up myself but I am very glad that I won this. It opened to me a style of writing which was different.