Art in Nature by Tove Jansson – review

Almost all the stories in this collection seem perversely inconsequential. The first story, "Art in Nature", turns on the idea that "it's the mystery that's important", and perhaps that's the manifesto under which these enigmatic shreds of fiction were written. In "The Cartoonist" the creator of a successful comic character, Blubby, has gone awol and another, younger draughtsman must take up Blubby's storylines in order to keep the merchandising money rolling in – Jansson worked as a strip cartoonist and perhaps had direct experience from her Moomintrolls franchise of how such a creation can become a monster for its maker. In "The Doll's House", by contrast, creativity becomes all-consuming and stifles real life. But while these themes are interesting, they come in such flimsy, insubstantial wrappers that enjoyment of them is fleeting. First published in the 1970s, these stories include both gay and lesbian characters without it being a big deal – testimony, perhaps, to enlightened Scandinavian attitudes, always seemingly ahead of our own.