Patronatskinder No 16 und No 17
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| Lübbe |
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| Patronatskind Mai |
Tove Jansson
The Summer Book
New York Review of Books Classics, 2008
with drawings by the author
translated by Thomas Teal (Sommarboken, 1972)
introduction by Kathryn Davis
"It was an early, very warm morning in July, and it had rained during the night. The bare granite steamed, the moss and crevices were drenched with moisture, and all the colours everywhere had deepened. ... "The bond between this island and its inhabitants, six-year-old Sophia, and her grandmother, leads to what Kathryn Davis describes in her introduction as an "unusual point of view, which hovers above and around the island and seems not so much to move from grandmother to granddaughter as to share them, inhabiting both sensibilities in the manner of weather". Indeed the book has something existentialist, nothing cute or sentimental, but a kind of grim humour and matter-of-fact attitude.
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| Das Original mit der Titelillustration von Tove Jansson |
"In the middle of the gravel was a large sign with black letters that said PRIVATE PROPERTY – NO TRESPASSING.... and thus begins a chapter that deals with socializing and acclimatisation, with the venture to live in close communion with nature and to respond appropriately to fellow human beings, at the same time a veritable adventure with thrills and funny breaks and with thoughtful observations.
'We'll go ashore,' Grandmother said. She was very angry. Sophia looked frightened. 'There's a big difference,' her grandmother explained. 'No well-bred person goes ashore on someone else's island when there's no one home. But if they put up a sign, then you do it anyway, because it's a slap in the face.'"
This summer with Tove Jansson is full of such treasures. Enjoy.
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| Penguin |
The Snow Leopard
Penguin Classic
"At sunrise the small expedition meets beneath a giant fig beyond Pohara - two white sahibs, four Sherpas, fourteen porters." - starting September 28, 1973 it will be a journey with his travel companion GS - that is, field biologist George Shaller - of more than two months in search for the snow leopard. The snow leopard with his
"pale frosty eyes and a coat of pale misty gray, with black rosettes that are clouded by the depth of the rich fur. An adult rarely weighs more than a hundred pounds or exceeds six feet in length, including the remarkable long tail, thick to the tip, used presumably for balance and for warmth, but it kills creatures three times its own size without much difficulty. It has enormous paws and a short faced heraldic head, like a leopard of myth; it is bold and agile in the hunt, and capable of terrific leaps; and although its usual prey is the blue sheep, it occasionally takes livestock, including young yak of several hundred pounds. This means that man might be fair game as well, although no attack on a human being has ever been reported."But it is not just the elusive leopard Peter Mathiessen tries to find. He also hopes to find his way into the Buddhist view of the world. As Pico Iyer explains "The haunting beauty of the book" in his introduction:
"The drama, the excitement of any classic record of an adventure comes from giving us the heart-pounding sense of traveling to some state, inner and outer, that few people have had the chance to see before; and yet what gives that a larger resonance here, and placed it inside an elegant frame, is the sense, too, in every moment, that excitements fade, that everything moves on, that even the epiphanies and discoveries that seemed so exhilarating yesterday will soon be forgotten as the world flows on. You can't hold on to anything."Whoever holds this book and opens it and reads Matthiessen's beautiful prose is holding on to this journey of a far away time and place, to the sights and sounds and smells, to the sense of the snow leopard's realm. Peter Matthiessen died in April. This is also a rewarding way to keep alive the memory of this much-awarded writer.
