Review of The Summer Book by Tove Jansson

Finland done.

Lovely little book about a six-year-old Sophia and her grandmother.

Twenty-two stories that take place on the family's island in the East Nyland region in the Gulf of Finland. Sophia, her grandmother, and her Papa spend their summers on a small island and we get to look into their lives through short stories written by Jansson.

While reading my copy I marked parts of the book where I either really liked the writing or I thought the writing hinted at Sophia's mother's death. There were fourteen in total.

During one of the short stories Sophia and her grandmother are playing a game and Sophia wanted her grandmother to pretend to be her mother. When the grandmother tells Sophia that she is in fact her grandmother and the only person she is 'Mama' to is Sophia's father Sophia gets upset and yells "Why is he the only one who gets to say 'Mama'?" It is never explicitly stated that Sophia's mother is dead if my recollection is correct but there are these moments in the book that Jansson includes that show the pain and sometimes anger that Sophia has that her mother has passed and it is just her Papa and Grandmother.

Another time where we see this frustration from Sophia is when she says 'Jesus' and is told not to take the Lord's name in vain by her grandmother. Sophia then throws her playing cards on the floor and says "I don't care about His old family! I hate families!" She hates families because families often bring pain and suffering? Maybe her mother went through a long battle with cancer and she had to witness the whole thing.

The final hint at the death of the mother that I will include goes as follows: Sophia is dictating to her grandmother a book about worms and is talking about how certain animals die and wont let you help them. "She stood up and shouted, "Say this: say I hate everything that dies slow! Say I hate everything that won't let you help! Did you write that?" Maybe I am reading into things but I think that Sophia's mother had a long drawn out battle with cancer and Sophia couldn't help at all and just had to watch her mother slowly die in front of her and now this is how she processes the grief. Or maybe not who knows.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Tranquil and peaceful it was to read. Imagining the small laps of waves hitting the rocky beaches while Sophia and Grandmother sit near the water and chat while Papa is working at his desk is quiet nice.

 

A Review of "Promise me You'll Shoot Yourself": The Mass Suicide of Ordinary Germans in 1945 by Florian Huber

Soviet soldiers and officers look upon the dead bodies of two German woman. 1945.

The title caught my eye at first. "Promise me you'll shoot yourself." Who would ask someone to promise that to them? Then I remembered about reading about how German women would kill themselves before the approacing Red Army arrived to spare themselves being raped. 

"Promise me You'll Shoot Yourself": The Mass Suicide of Ordinary Germans in 1945 by Florian Huber is a haunting tale of how thousands of Germans took their own lives in 1945 and after. 

In the city of Demmin in the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in modern day north east German was the site of one of the largest mass suicide in Germany. Hundreds of men and women took their own lives, the lives of the loved ones, and children as the Red Army was at the gates of the city. Poison, bullets, drowning, rope, and knifes were the instrument in which these people ended life. Men would kill their wives and children  before killing themselves. Mothers would wade into the nearby Peene, Tollense and Trebel rivers with their babies at the breast and drown themselves and their children.

Truly horrible images to picture. 

Rivers and ponds choked with the dead. Men and women swinging from their necks in the meadow.

When you are pumped full of propoganda about what the enemy will do to you once he gets his hands on you you start to think that the only way out is to kill yourself. That is what these Germans did. Instead of being butchered or raped or both they killed themselves. 

Of course not all Red Army soldiers were rapists or murderers, but the fear was there. However, it is hard for me to feel bad for these Germans. I know that they were often simple shop keepers, housewives, or too young to be Nazis. But still it is hard for me to feel sorry for them. The Wermacht killed millions of Soviet civillians during their brutal campaign in the east and people want me to feel sorry for Germans who had anger taken out on them? It is nearly impossible for me to do so. As far as I am concerned Soviet soldiers never rounded up ordinary Germans into barns and lit the barns on fire. The German soldier did that. 

Bombed out Berlin. 1945.

And of course the Germans post-war wanted sympathy. As if they were not the ones who just tried to take over and enslave a whole continent. It makes me sick. The Germans were the ones who started the genocidal campaign against "inferior" races and yet they complain that their cities were bombed and they are living among rubble. 

"The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. … They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind."- Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris.

"Bomber" Harris by William Little

I know I am going off a tangent but it really makes me sick.

Good book. I would reccomend it.