[TSS] Musings: The True Deceiver

Tove Jansson's The True Deceiver is one of those deceptive books.  It's written in very straightforward, plain language over the course of only 180 pages, but within those short sentences and each short chapter, we delve into issues such as reality vs. perception, trust vs. distrust, isolation vs. population, winter vs. spring and, a major theme, wolf vs. rabbit.

I must admit that I enjoyed this book but didn't understand all its subtleties and symbols until after I read the introduction by Ali Smith.  At that point, I had many "A-ha!" moments, and so in this case I can say that for me, at least, the introduction was a great help in comprehending the many levels of this novel.

Katri Kling and her brother, Mats, live in a very isolated town in northern Sweden.  They don't have many friends.  Katri isn't very friendly or polite, but she is honest and has a very good sense for numbers, so while people do not like her, they respect her.  The villagers think there is something wrong with Mats' mind, so they give him odd jobs to do around the village.  The two are close, but don't talk much.  They also have a large, silent dog without a name.

Anna Aemelin lives farther removed from the village, in a large house she inherited from her parents.  She is a well-known illustrator of children's books, in which she renders the details of the forest ground at spring in minute detail.  She also populates these pictures with rabbits that have flowery fur, which have made her very popular, but which she doesn't like very much herself. Katri has a plan to become necessary to Anna, insinuating herself and her brother into Anna's life until they no longer have to worry about money or other people.  But at what cost will this more comfortable life come?

This is a novel of slow brilliance.  It is written so simply, so starkly, that you don't even realize how powerful each word is.  The symbolism of Katri the wolf against Anna the rabbit, of someone comfortable with winter against someone waiting for spring, of someone who deals in facts and reality against someone who lives in a world of her own making, is fantastic.  And I don't mean to make it seem as though the wolf and winter and facts are inherently the villain and the rabbit and spring and fantasy are the victims- not at all.  The interplay between Katri and Anna is just that.  Sometimes one dominates and then the other one.  Neither is very easy-to-like, nor do they seem to like each other, but they continue to circle each other and play off each other.

I don't know what else I can say without giving something away, as the novel is so short. I read this at the height of summer, but I think if you were to curl up with it on a deep winter's night, when the snow is falling and it feels like spring will never come, that you'll have an even more atmospheric experience of being cold, isolated and cramped within a space defined by ice.  It's a huge success of a suspenseful story, and I look forward to reading more by Jansson.