Customer Reviews

The True Deceiver (New York Review Books Classics)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the great Finnish writer Tove Jansson at the height of her powers in a haunting novel which invites comparisons with Australia's Elizabeth Jolley.
Being able to read Jansson's work in English is like "discovering buried treasure", according to the introduction to the novel by Ali Smith. And while I agree, I suggest you read this after you've finished the story, not before. It's a spoiler.
Two outcasts in a blue-eyed, snow covered world are yellow-eyed Katri Kling and her slow lumbering brother Mat who live in a single room above a shop with a fierce dog Katri doesn't bother to name.
The wolfish Katri sets her sights on wealthy old Anna Aemelin, a children's book illustrator who lives alone in a mansion. Anna paints the forest floor and fills her exquisite illustrations with flowery rabbits. And so the wolf and the bunny begin a dance over the long dark winter months, so skillfully evoked by this master storyteller.
Anna is careless about money; Katri a penny-pincher who contrives for herself and her brother to live with the artist and create a dependency. Clever Katri soon shows arty Anna how everyone is cheating her. But honesty without compassion is indeed brutality.
"For the first time in her life, Anna became distrustful. She went around brooding about all of them - neighbours, publishers, innocent little children."
Anna loses her treasured peace of mind and her child-like trust. She can no longer find creative inspiration instead she sees betrayal everywhere, even in the letters of her once cherished parents.
Katri takes Anna's old furniture and leaves it in a huge pile on the snow, waiting for the spring melt to claim it. It sits there like a menace in the woods.
But who is lying to whom? And does the ends justify the means?
This is a perfect book.

Months of snow, endlessly falling, piling up, being shoveled, falling again. A cover over everything and a symbolic blanket over all the people in the village whose true feelings lie buried beneath its icy threads. Only one villager seems to remain true to her inner self: Katri Kling. She has yellow eyes and keeps company with a silent wolfish dog who stays at her side and obeys only her. Her one soft spot is her love of her innocent slow-witted little brother Mats. She wants to give him something grand but needs money. Coolly calculating, Katri focuses on the rich lady artist living alone deep in the woods, in the rabbit house, Anna. Katri moves in, literally and figuratively. She uses her cold, brilliant mind to show Anna all the ugliness in people, and therein lies the struggle in this short, precisely written novel. Heavily laden with symbols and double meanings, this novel is a fine piece of literature, thought provoking, and well worth the brief time it takes to read. Highly recommended.

If you're a fan of psychological studies, you owe THE TRUE DECEIVER a look. Set in Sweden in the first half of the 20th century, the book offers a battle of wills that you don't even realize is happening at times, it's so subtle. Katri Kling becomes a care-taker for the famous children's book illustrator, Anna Aemilin, and it sets the small-town tongues wagging. "They make an odd couple, after all, so what's afoot?" seems to be the question of the moment.

Katri is logical to a fault and has little patience for the "games people play." She plays ice to emotional Anna's fire. In fact, not only is Anna well-versed in the games people play, she has practically written her own game. Throw into this face-off two wildcards: Katri's "simple-minded" brother, Mats, and her dog with no-name (which Anna initially fears and then wins over) and you have the cast for a mimimalist drama set against a relentless background of snow, ice, and winter.

Spring does come, however, and it plays a decided role in the denouement. When you reach it, you'll wonder how Tove Jansson pulls it off. It sure SEEMS like not much is happening -- and yet, all along, something is. A metaphorical chess match, in fact, one you have to sit back and admire because it could have come across as so melodramatic and treacly in the wrong hands. Best of all? The matter of who the "true deceiver" is remains subject to debate, even after the end. I love books like that, because they leave you thinking, engaging in your own internal debates. Good literature -- even smaller examples like this -- should do just that, no?

I found Jansson's The True Deceiver, penned ten years after her charming "The Summer Book," haunting and thought-provoking, its measured pace working to lure the reader into darker and deeper psychological realms.

It delves into the stunted psyches of a small, snowbound costal town. In Spartan prose she weaves the tale of the increasingly entwined lives of two women at opposite ends of the town's social scale, bringing into question the "truth" of their separate existences.

For me it raised fundamental questions: Which of our deceptions--including self-deceptions--are pragmatic and beneficent and which dysfunctional? Is the artist's "vision" a useful self-deception, a prism that makes things clearer albeit still distorted? Is kindness often a deception? What is the proper balance between truth and deception?

Jansson's taut prose, sharp characterizations and telling images work to expose the deceptions of the whole village in this compact and compelling novel. It is as dark and cold as "The Summer Book" is warm and comforting.

A little gem of Scandinavian literature, though succinct speaks volumes. An intriguing psychological perspective about Katri, an obscure woman talented in "the maths" and respected for her intuitive abilities who rejects monetary compensation to counsel villagers in financial and personal matters, and with her mentally encumbered brother Mats and her unnamed curious beast of a dog remain illusive outsiders in their small isolated village. Katri carefully constructs a stealthy plan to manipulate Anna, an ostensibly frivolous, though wealthy and talented illustrator of children's books in an attempt to secure financial and physical refuge for her brother and herself.

Tove Jansson's literary brilliance lies in her deft facility to utilize not only the harsh winter settings to embellish each character's personality and dialogue, but also as vivid pivotal contrasts in the dramatic transformations in Anna, Katri, Mats and even the unorthodox dog.

This is a story about the TRUST in human-nature.
An old female artist,who lives in a dreamland of her fantasy,and, a young woman who is very realistic and sophisticated,they become friends,then,conflict,even shattered each other's personality.
The old artist should be Tove Jansson's image!Although some people hurt her feeling,she choose to
trust in everyone simply as a child.
That young woman who is an orphan,she must fight for reality and count money,therefore she thinks the
artist couldn't face the music,that is,people deceive each other.
At last,they reach balance in their mutual love for their younger brother.

The scene in the book is incredible pure and poetic,as the landscapes in Scandinavia.
At first,it would be kind of hard to feel the transparent but misty atmosphere,however,the story itself is simple and beautiful!
I love Jansson's every side!

After reading Janssen's Summer Book I just had to have more. Am I ever glad I did! True Deceivers gave me a chill throughout; not be being 'scary', but by the author's setting and by her ability to take me to task about what and who is true deception. This little book makes me think. I would imagine that it would make a terrific book for a book club discussion.