Letters from Tove

by Tove Jansson

Film-Takahashi: Refers to the first Japanese animation of the Moomin cartoons, which was shown on Japanese TV 1969–70 but never approved by TJ for broadcast outside Japan.

  the magical date: 5 December 1969 was the date the The Moomins TV series was first shown in Sweden.

  That book I tried to write last summer: The first version of Sent i November (Moominvalley in November).

  God knows if I shall get that week: TJ did get her week at Pellinge in November; it is mentioned in Greta Gustafsson’s contribution to Resa med Tove in 2002.

  PARIS FEB. 75

  Darling Vivica,

  [ … ] When we first came here, I was pretty scared – I knew I was “a blank”, washed out by the past year’s scenes, some of them cleared up, some of them such classic faux pas, too much, too different, too many people, and I thought a whole spring in the Cité and I shan’t be able to work at all, and that will take its toll on Tooti of course and she’s never been in greater need of a refuge [in English or French] so she can find her way back to her lithographs.

  It was terribly difficult at first. I pretended to work, writing, but nothing came. Then I remembered Lars Löfgren’s request, which I’d long since turned down, and it was something to latch on to, an assignment (rather like an essay at school), and the fact that I wiped out the whole world in my haste may possibly have had something to do with that initial anguished spell in the Cité.

  Just think. One of Tooti’s best working periods happened precisely here, 6–7 years ago, – and when she was young, another, lasting five years. Fixation with a particular place, entirely natural. You can imagine how happy she was to get started on her printmaking after a break of several years, not a thought of going out with her cine camera, she hid herself from everything and just worked. She’s produced ten exquisite lithographs, something entirely new. And not abstract, but with a warmth to them.

  The building is ghastly, like an oversized Lallukka, bare, narrow corridors with black doors, the furniture black plastic, the rest a dirty yellow, and down below the typewriters squat among interminable glass walls and the whole place is heated by hot air, hissing up day and night through rigid grilles so your eyes run and your head is bursting every morning, the sound – a torrent, like endless lashing rain, has driven lots of people away. We try to block the damn thing off with scrunched-up paper but it doesn’t help, so we feel seriously tempted to get ourselves a tent to sleep in. What an indescribably stupid situation.

  Apart from that we honestly are happy and on very amicable terms with one another. When I couldn’t write (and it truly is awkward, pretending to be creative with someone always watching), I started to paint out of sheer desperation. And I’m persevering doggedly. Tooti’s relief is touching. And before I knew it, I found myself interested. Something might just be starting to stir. I certainly can do it, I know that after a life as long as mine, I can even see sometimes, but the element beyond price, and scarcely within reach any more, is the urge. That’s what I’m waiting for, the only thing that really matters.

  Sometimes I think I catch the scent of it, just a little.

  The exhibition in Hvitträsk has gone to Gothenburg. (minus comic strips, posters and commercials, just the illustrations) They wired and asked me to come, but I shan’t, I know you understand that if I lose my grip on painting at this point I shall never try to paint again, this is my last chance. I don’t know whether it’s really all that crucial and I’m not going to think too hard about it. The exciting thing is that right now I don’t care about my future audience. It’s me trying to see and to reclaim the urge, and I’m not doing it for Tooti’s sake any more.

  She’s cheerful. I haven’t seen her as cheerful in years. She works regularly and brings home books and music. This trip was exactly the right step. We’ll gradually start seeing people of our own accord, once we feel confident.

  Moune is singing at a club and our plan is to make contact by going there to listen to her. I shall write to Hilde in the next day or two.

  I had a letter from Gunnel who was very enthusiastic about the performance of Kirsten’s Troll-in-the-wings.

  We’ve had a few invasions here, compatriots, folk from London (publishing types) and those romantic materialists from Japan. But it’s still starting to feel like freedom; all those gaffes back home are fading, I’m getting used to this horrible building and feeling my way towards the aforementioned rekindled urge, I know Tooti is happy, what more can one ask?

  Tooti and I embrace you both –

  Bye,

  Tove

  Lars Löfgren: Director, head of TV theatre at Swedish Television.

  Hilde: Kirsten Sørlie’s daughter.

  Gunnel: Gunnel Malmström, TJ’s Norwegian translator.

  WORK AND OTHER PROJECTS CONTINUED TO BE TOFSLAN and Vifslan’s common concern over the years. Sommarboken (The Summer Book) was eventually filmed for TV under the title “Sommarön” (The Summer Island), directed by Britt Olofsson, and shown on Swedish TV in spring 1979. The radio plays, meanwhile, were turned into short stories: “The Woman Who Borrowed Memories” and “The P.E. Teacher’s Death” are among the stories in the 1987 collection Resa med lätt baggage (Travelling Light) and “The Daughter” was published in the 1998 collection Meddelande (Messages).

  APRIL –76

  Hugs to you, Vivica, and it was so nice to see you!

  The only thing we didn’t talk about was forthcoming jobs – and that felt good – but now I want to fill you in on some facts.

  I called Gunilla, who’s been very noncommittal about the film potential of The Summer Book, partly because of its lack of continuity. I was ready to pull out of Britt Olofsson’s project, but she now seems to have written a synopsis that Gunilla thinks is very good. That’s a relief.

  Both of them are now coming over at the start of May for discussions.

  “The Woman Who Borrowed Memories” seems to have hit some snag even though they’ve agreed to take it in principle. I know it didn’t “appeal” to you. I shall try again over the summer, though I’m rather tired of the whole “Woman” now.

  But I hope you might be interested instead in “The P.E. Teacher’s Death”, which I think I will offer to Finnish Radio. And you know I won’t have a breakdown if you don’t want to work on him.

  Lars Löfgren wrote one of his charming letters and gave me his critical opinion of “The Woman”, which largely coincided with my own.

  He was interested in the P.E. Teacher – I’d talked about it at the Stockholm lunch.

  So although those are radio plays rather than TV, and in this case I’m thinking of Finnish and not Swedish Radio, I’ve asked Gunilla to pass on her copy to him for the fun of it.

  I didn’t tell you that the Finnish Telephone Service is holding a competition for its jubilee and I wrote two short radio plays for it, on the subject specified: Telephone Call. I enjoyed doing those.

  We’ll have to see if anything comes of it. You should hear the daughter with the guilty conscience who rings her lonely mother every day! Ugh!

  So there you have it, my business report. I can save the rest for next time. Bye!

  Tove.

  Gunilla: Gunilla Jensen, dramaturge at Swedish Television.

  Britt Olofsson: Director, producer and actress.

  “Do we really appreciate how lucky we are …?”

  LETTERS TO TUULIKKI PIETILÄ 1956–1968

  Tuulikki Pietilä in her studio.

  MEETING ENGRAVER AND ARTIST TUULIKKI PIETILÄ PROVED A turning point in Tove Jansson’s life. They found one another at the Artists’ Guild Christmas party in Helsinki in 1955, at the gramophone where the two of them were looking after the music, and their relationship gradually developed in the course of the following spring. “At last I’ve found my way to the one I want to be with”, Tove Jansson wrote in one of her first letters to Tuulikki Pietilä in the summer of 1956. They had spent a few days on Bredskär and their love was deepening. I feel like a garden that’s finally been watered, so m
y flowers can bloom, Tove Jansson confided to her beloved, who had gone to teach at an “artists’ colony” in Korpilahti for a few weeks. Tove Jansson was left alone on the island, but she felt calm and full of confidence.

  The letters to Tuulikki Pietilä contain a succession of love metaphors about blossoming and abundance, imagery that also recurs later on, in a poem to “Tooti” in 1985. Here she is likened to an orange tree.

  I would compare you to this sturdy tree

  lovely to live with in all its finery

  and all the fruits that its branches do adorn

  are your desires for projects yet unborn!

  In the summer of 1956, Tove Jansson drew a picture of “a new little creature” in one of her letters and Tuulikki was transformed in the name of love to “My Too-tikki”. In the sixth Moomin book Trollvinter (1957, Moominland Midwinter), the name took on its Moominesque form of Too-ticki. Large parts of the book were written during the winter she spent with Tuulikki Pietilä at the latter’s studio on Nordenskiöldsgatan in Helsinki. Privately and within their close circle of friends, Tuulikki Pietilä was known as Tooti. She and Tove Jansson lived together for forty-five years.

  They had already encountered one another a few times in their earlier lives. Both were studying at the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts (Ateneum) in 1938, and in 1951 their paths crossed at the famous Monocle nightclub in Paris. Tuulikki Pietilä had been living in the city for a few years and Tove Jansson was on her way home from travels in Italy and North Africa. Paris assumed a special significance for the couple; it was the city they loved above all others.

  Tuulikki Pietilä (1917–2009) was born in Seattle but moved back to Finland (Åbo) at the age of four. She was the daughter of Frans and Ida Pietilä (née Lehtinen). Her brother Reima Pietilä (1923–93) became one of Finland’s best-known architects. Tuulikki Pietilä herself attended the Åbo Academy of Fine Arts (1933–36) and then went to Helsinki to study at the Ateneum (1936–40). In the war years she was in East Karelia and later worked in Sweden, looking after child evacuees from Finland (1944). After the war she lived in Stockholm while she trained in etching at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (1945–49). On moving to Paris she took tuition at various establishments including Académie Fernand Léger and studied with the eminent engraver Louis Calevaert-Brun. She also taught for a time. She did not return to Helsinki until 1954, after almost a decade abroad. She went on to teach engraving at the Academy of Arts (1945–60), and wrote a textbook on metal engraving. Her exhibitions can be numbered in the hundreds. Tuulikki Pietilä was awarded a professorship in 1982.

  In Tuulikki Pietilä, Tove Jansson found a traveller, seeker and freedom-lover just like herself. This was something new. In her youth she had travelled alone, later with Ham (and with Faffan a few times), and occasionally with friends. But now she had a travelling companion on equal terms. “Tooti is fantastic, of course, she always is – but a Travelling Tooti is something exceptional”, Tove Jansson wrote to Maya Vanni from Vienna (23.4.1982). The short-story collection she published five years later, Resa med lätt baggage (Travelling Light) was dedicated “To Tooti” (1987). Interviewed at some length by Helen Svensson for the book Resa med Tove (2002, Travels with Tove), Tuulikki Pietilä talked about life on their many trips. They journeyed as the fancy took them, never booking hotels in advance.

  On their first trip together, in 1959, they visited Greece and Paris (see Letters to Signe Hammarsten Jansson). Accounts of their subsequent journeys can be found in letters to various recipients in this volume. They also travelled separately, and Tove Jansson would write to Tuulikki Pietilä. Sometimes she would be on the island while Tuulikki Pietilä was in the city and sometimes the other way round. In later years there was no need for them to write to one another. As they grew older, they increasingly both lived in Tuulikki Pietilä’s studio flat at Kaserngatan 26 C.

  The letters to Tuulikki Pietilä are all about love and work, recent and present, but a shared future is in their sights from the outset: “I love you as if bewitched, yet at the same time with profound calm, and I’m not afraid of anything life has in store for us” (26.6.1956). As the years passed, the narrative of their lives seen unfolding in the letters changed and evolved, but its basic premise remained the same. On the island they lived together (often in a tent), but in town they lived their own separate lives, albeit under the same roof. In the early 1960s, Tuulikki Pietilä moved to a flat in the same building as Tove Jansson’s studio – the building was on a corner – and they simply walked across the attic to see one another. The letters reveal their life on Bredskär, increasingly preoccupied with family and friends as time passes, and subsequently on Klovharun – their island – once Bredskär grows overcrowded and starts to feel claustrophobic. They quite literally built their life, piecing it together with work and love, but the process was not painless. Anyone who lived with Tove Jansson also had to live with her family. After Viktor Jansson’s death, Signe Hammarsten moved to Lars Jansson’s, but she spent the weekends with Tove Jansson. Relations were distinctly strained at times and, in a letter to Vivica Bandler in the summer of 1964, Tove Jansson wrote of the need for a break. Tuulikki Pietilä would install her new lithography equipment at Kaserngatan and then go to Venice to supervise an exhibition; “she needs her own surroundings and the stimulation that a new working technique can provide”, wrote Tove Jansson, citing “the old Ham friction” that was bound to set in again before long.

  It is another Tove Jansson we encounter in the letters to Tuulikki Pietilä, open and sharp yet also trusting. She writes about her parents in a way she never does in any of the other sets of letters in this volume. Tuulikki Pietilä also receives some unusually frank comments from Tove Jansson about her Moomin work – everything from merchandise to texts and illustrations – sometimes including hilarious accounts of her growing fame and everything that goes with it, book tours, public appearances, trips and huge numbers of encounters with people of many different kinds.

  “All things are so very uncertain, and that’s exactly what makes me feel reassured”, says Too-ticki in Trollvinter (Moominland Midwinter). Life with Tove Jansson brought changes for Tuulikki Pietilä as an artist, too. The letters clearly show that collaborating on projects played an important role in their lives. They worked on the world of the Moomins, constructing Moominhouses and tableaux with their friend Pentti Eistola; they mounted a joint exhibition (Jyväskylä, 1969); and they published a book in words and pictures about their life on Klovharun, Anteckningar från en ö (Notes from an Island) in 1996.

  Quite a number of Tove Jansson’s literary works can be traced back to her life with Tuulikki Pietilä, from Trollvinter (Moominland Midwinter) to the novella Rent spel (1989, Fair Play), a portrayal of two women’s life together. One is an artist, the other an artist and writer. In the final chapter, “The Letter”, the artist has been awarded a scholarship to go to Paris, yet is hesitant about leaving her partner and making the trip alone. But, for someone who is “blessed with love”, as the final words of the story have it, solitude presents its own opportunities.

  * * *

  26.6.56. [Bredskär]

  Beloved,

  I miss you so dreadfully. Not in a desperate or melancholy way, because I know we shall soon be with each other again, but I feel at such a loss and just can’t get it into my head that you’re not around any more. This morning, half awake, I put a hand out to feel for you, then remembered you weren’t there, so I got up very quickly to escape the emptiness. And worked all day.

  The science fiction synopsis is done now, it took about 15 more strips.

  This morning I roused the social conscience of the whole of Viken and wrote an application to the county sheriff on behalf of seven penitents without fishing licences. Then I was at Odden and admired all Anna-Lisa’s planting and concreting and other curious arrangements, and was given a whole basket of little plants that I’ve popped into the ground, dotted around the Island.

  The Island looked very so
lemn without you when I arrived here at sunset. It had turned in on itself and I felt like a virtual stranger.

  It was only when I got up to the house that it looked friendly and alive again. The wagtails were yelling in great agitation, complaining volubly because the copper jug we had our midsummer leaves in had fallen down and clearly frightened their babies out of their wits. They probably got a dousing as well. Now the idyll has been restored and the mother is so tame she stays perched on the top of the flagpole even as I go in and out of the house. I brought some mud for the swallows from Anna-Lisa’s bay – but they continue with their furtive visits and seem reluctant to commit to family life.

  Late one night I started off some kilju in the “best water bucket” and supplemented the recipe with all our raisins.

  It was a fine night, calm and quiet, and I still couldn’t take it in that you weren’t here, kept half turning round to see what you were doing or to say something to you.

  Today there’s a strong south-westerly blowing and we would have found it hard to get over to Viken.

  So I assume you’ve now plunged deep into the all-engulfing life of the city and are dashing about getting hot and resentful so everything’s ready for your departure.

  That first day in town is always such a horrible contrast to life out here on the island. Everything that’s been lying in wait for you comes tumbling in like one big shock and at nights you miss the sound of the sea and feel totally lost.

  Wherever I go on the island, you’re with me as my security and stimulation, your happiness and vitality are still here, everywhere. And if I left here, you would go with me. You see, I love you as if bewitched, yet at the same time with profound calm, and I’m not afraid of anything life has in store for us. This evening I filled the tub with water from the big rock hollow and tried to pick out the dreadful Sea Eagle Waltz on the accordion. I’ll play it for you! Now I’m going to read Karin Boye and then go to sleep – good night beloved.