Talk:Tove Jansson/Archive 1

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Orientation

It's clear that her partner is a woman from both the category "lesbian artists" and the fact that Tuulikki Pietilä inspired a female character in the Moomin books; but since the name isn't obviously female to a non Finnish reader there could be some confusion.

I know it doesn't really matter, but the article might as well state her sexual orientation clearly. --Starwed 06:33, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Good point, I'll try and track down a reference and then I'll add it. Might take me a few days though. Hiding talk 10:21, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree...I read this article and I was thinking, "life partner..." does that mean she was, really, romantically/sexually involved with this person Tuulikki? It's unclear from the article as it stands.--Zaorish 04:07, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Sourcing

I forgot all about this, sorry, thanks for the prod, Zaorish. It's citable that she had a female lifelong companion, [1], [2], [3], [4], that they were girlfriends, [5], [6] and the British Film Institute describe her as a lesbian in this pdf press release [7]. I think there's enough sources there to support it. I would add it appears it was something of a secret, albeit perhaps an open one, in Finalnd: [8], but I can't cite a better source for that as yet.

  • I think the way the article reads reflects the sources pretty well, if you ask me. Hiding talk 10:37, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

The way it reads and why I'll change it just a bit

Hiding, you're right that it's not a big deal, and that it's pretty clear as it stands. However, at least from my USA perspective, famous gay people have long been described in encyclopedias and history books, eupehmistically', as living with "companions" or "partners" or "romantic friends." (Even the woman who wrote one of our national anthems, Katharine Lee Bates.)

In the USA this has begun to change, only very recently, and historians have slowly begun to accept homosexuality for what it is. I hope you will see this not as USA bias, but rather increasing clarity, for American readers as well as other English speakers.

So I feel this article should be just a little more explicit. I will do this myself in a bit.--Zaorish 11:34, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

No, I fully appreciate that; in fact it seems to have happened with Jansson in Finland and elsewhere. That's what I meant when I stated that the article represents the sources; the sources are just as inexplicit as the article. It was extremely hard to find a source that explicitly described her as a lesbian. However, one was found and I'd support the article describing her as such. I just wish we had a better source for the fact that it was an open secret; that would be relevant, I can't think of any biographies of Jansson off the top if my head, but I will stay on the hunt. Hiding talk 11:58, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Oh, ok, so the source is still unclear. I'm sorry, I was confused--you said that the article, as it exists faithfully reflects the ambiguity of the sources. In that case, then let's not jump to any conclusions. I will go do some googling myself. Thanks for your patience in discussing this edit!

Thinking for a moment now, I come suddenly to the realization the putting hard boundaries on certain peoples' homosexuality, especially for women, is also a somewhat recent development. When I look, I will keep an open mind for such ambiguities.--Zaorish 02:51, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
Cool. Any help you need don't hesitate to ask. Sorry to have confused you. I'm not sure there's any ambiguity about her sexuality, there just isn't much to actually cite regarding it, so it doesn't seem wholly relevant. It's also worth noting there's a reliable source which talks of her being engaged in her early twenties, so would we then describe her as bisexual? I sort of take the view that sexuality is something of a fluid affair, or a sliding scale, and unles a person's sexuality is notable in its own right, I always ponder if it is therefore necessary to discuss it in great detail. I'm not convinced Jansson's sexuality is important to her work, as such, although I can see an argument in listing Jansson as a lesbian in categories and lists where such lists have encyclopedic value. However, YMMV, and that's cool. Hiding talk 09:38, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
I see everyone agrees it should be more clear that she's a lesbian, but I never saw that anywhere in the article. I only recently even found out her partner was a women too which confused me a bit. Especially as I knew they were what Too-Ticki was based on and in the old cartoon (not the anime) Too-Ticki is referred to as a guy. It was only thanks to this talk page that all my confusion has finally be sorted out. But where is this info in the main article? Did I just miss it?--TailsClock (talk) 21:19, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
No, I think the article is just as it should be unless there is a specific and clear source demonstrating that she had sexual relationships with women. If we don't know that for sure, it would be wholly inappropriate to just surmise it--that would be speculation not information, even if the speculation is extremely well grounded. Her choice to live her life with another woman does not concretely demonstrate that they also had sex, so the article should not list her as a lesbian without clear proof of that (she and her partner may have both been asexuals who preferred female companionship, for instance). As it stands, the article discusses the facts and readers can make surmises if they want--that is as it should be.24.36.51.213 (talk) 17:41, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Comic strips

The page on Finnish Wikipedia seemes to state that there are nine volumes in the series, not seven as the article here states. But I don't speak Finnish, so maybe I got it wrong. Could someone check, please? Jashiin 09:14, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

This could well be correct, that there are nine volumes. The Swedish volumes I have only mention seven, so that's what I quoted. The list on the Finnish page does look like there are nine, but someone really is going to have to check, since those publishing dates are nowhere near the ones in the two Swedish books I have. It could be that the Finns decided to release the cartoons split up differently than the English or Swedish books.
(The main reason for adding this reference was in large part to alert English readers that there's some very interesting English Moomin material that they might not be aware of.) Regards. Alpha Ralpha Boulevard 23:16, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
I see. I think you're right and the Finns simply have a different edition. There's a webpage on the Finnish Wikipedia specifically about the comic strips, maybe it explains this, but we'll have to wait for someone Finnish to check it :) Thanks for your reply! Jashiin 09:35, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
Drawn & Quarterly are confusing the issue even further, collecting the works in five volumes according to this press release. [9]. Hiding Talk 10:17, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps the ideal way to deal with this is write a separate article on the comic strips, listing them all and then explaining that different editions are available. This is actually easier than it sounds, given that the Finnish page for some reason lists all English titles. Jashiin 10:20, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
If we can get someone to translate that page, that would be even more of a benefit. Hiding Talk 10:36, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
I made a request at Wikipedia:Translation/Moomin comic strips, I figure we can always move the article to a better name after the translation if needs be. Hiding Talk 10:47, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
Thans for making that request! I was thinking about doing it myself, but I'm really no good in most things Wikipedia except just article editing (I know, I have to learn..), so I was kind of hoping someone else would do it :) Jashiin 21:44, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
It seems the Jansson cartoons are "canonical", if I can use the jargon, being in that they have the same artist, same characters, same writer. I.e., they are in some ways an extension of the books. Whereas a Batman or Tintin movie spinoff is quite different from the original artist's presentation, and belong on a different page? Alpha Ralpha Boulevard 10:49, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
Yes, but we have separate pages for the books, and this is just following summary style. If we break out a separate article, we can summarise it back to both this article and the parent Moomin article. Does that make sense and/or address your concerns? Hiding Talk 11:10, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
That works for me. As long as we let Moomin book readers know there's something they are quite likely to be interested in. By which, I mean, the local bookstore asked me to bring in my albums so they could see them. They're seen as being part of the original concept. Contrarily, none of the Batman or the Tintin videos had the same "feel" as the originals. Anyhow, we wouldn't want to change the general Wiki format for this one exception. Jansson is close to unique. Alpha Ralpha Boulevard 11:50, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
When/if the article gets translated, we can simply put a concise description on this page, so that people know that Jansson herself drew the strips, and add a link to the separate page ("Main page: Moomin comic strips", or a similar mention). Like Hiding said, its common practice. Jashiin 21:44, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
Ok, I happen to have here the the ninth book of the Finnish edition, and indeed it contains as it's first story the "Fuddler's Courtship", the last strip drawn by Tove, followed by the "Moomin's Lamp", the first strip drawn by her brother Lars. The total number of volumes in this series is 24, all the latter ones were drawn by Lars. I don't have any Swedish versions available, but I can see from internet that the total number volumes in Swedish is 24 as well, and cover art seems to be identical, so I presume that applies to the contents as well. Otherwise, the books themselves have no names, just numbers. The names of the stories are translated already (my assumption is that they are from the original English language newspaper strips, translated by Lars Jansson himself) on the linked wiki page. Rxyz (talk) 22:54, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Also, to my knowledge, there are two different series of strips in Swedish, one consist of larger boks with four strips or something on each page, the other series only have one strip on each page. I wouldn't be surprised if these series differed wildly in numbering. 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * (talk) 02:10, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Cultural Heritage

I think "legacy" would be better than "heritage" here. --Nasorenga (talk) 19:58, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

finlandssvensk

The minority of Finns who speak Swedish and live in the south and west of Finland, the finlandssvenskar or suomenruotsalaiset are called at least 4 different things in English. As it happens, the WP article is called "Swedish-speaking Finns" which is a plain and sensible choice for both that article and perhaps this one. That article immediately goes on to say "(often called Finland-Swedes, Finnish Swedes, Swedish Finns, see below)". Dear friends, it really doesn't matter which of these 4 terms we use, or indeed any of the other terms including "Finland Swedes" which soundd closer to finlandssvenskar but is now less commonly used. Tove Jansson was a wise and deeply peaceful woman. She would have wished us all to remain civil about this tiny matter. I doubt there is any "right answer", unless we all get used to finlandssvensk (that's the singular), of course. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:13, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Use of any of these equivalent terms (including the term "Swedish-speaking Finns") is perfectly acceptable to me if it is discussed on the talk page. Sadly the Jansson/Moomin articles collectively have been the target of a great deal of nationalism-motivated editing. Edits which are made solely to the citizenship, race, or national origin of Ms. Jansson or to the language or national origin of her novels are controversial due to the efforts of these problem editors to push their POV. Consequently, such edits must be discussed and they must gain consensus before they are adopted in the articles to which they were made. Of course consensus is capable of change but such change must be motivated by the merits presented in the discussion leading to new consensus, not by nationalism and edit-warring. The default position that I think is most helpful is to retain the current (original) wording for all issues of nationality/race/national origin until discussion changes consensus. -Thibbs (talk) 13:51, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
With regard the current edits, I say that if there is a good reason to change "Swedish-Finnish" to "Swedish-speaking Finn" (or even "finlandssvensk") then let us hear it here. I have no prejudice against any of these terms. My only prejudice is against un-discussed edits to these controversial areas of the article. -Thibbs (talk) 13:51, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

The Blagger's Guide To: Tove Jansson

The Blagger's Guide To: Tove Jansson (published 24 June 2012) in The Independent seems to be very close (in parts) to the content of this article. There are numerous unverified claims in this article here on Wikipedia. Here's the 22 June 2012 version, for reference. I'm dropping this note here to inform others that the Independent piece may possibly not be a reliable source, should anyone consider citing it. -- Trevj (talk) 12:34, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Refimprove

-- Trevj (talk) 12:58, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Encyclopedic?

Sorry, but this is not encyclopedic:

  • "It is a work of charm, subtlety and simplicity," describing one of her books. We do not give oppinions, we quote other notable and relevent people's opinions.

IceDragon64 (talk) 19:53, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

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She said

She said later that the war had depressed her and she had wanted to write something naïve and innocent. - she meant the Winter War, not WWII in general. [10] Xx236 (talk) 11:40, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Nationality in the infobox

Let me just start with saying that I have no wish to bring about a heated dispute or drive an agenda. I welcome every helpful input to solve this minor, but perhaps tricky, problem!

In the infobox, Jansson's nationality is given as Finnish. Thing is, "Finnish" is wiki-linked to Finns, and this article does not seem to cover the Swedish-speaking minority that she belonged to. (It defines "Finns or Finnish people" as "a Finnic ethnic group"). So it seems that the wiki-link here is misleading. And to just remove the link is perhaps not the optimal (long term) solution?

We know that Jansson is a Swedish-speaking Finn. The article on Finland-Swedes states that they can be seen "either as a separate ethnic group, while still being Finns, or as a distinct nationality." The article on Finland distinguishes between Finns and Finland-Swedes: "88.7% of the population is Finnish and speaks Finnish [...] next come the Finland-Swedes (5.3%)" (second section). The disambiguation page for Finnish gives the two relevant meanings "someone from Finland" and "[someone belonging to] the Finnish people, the primary ethnic group in Finland".

Perhaps we could change the wiki-link so that it directs to Finland (since she is Finnish in the first, but not the second, respect), and add a clarifying "Finland-Swede" in parantheses (since it's at least relevant to nationality ("can be seen as a distinct" one))?

All the best! St.nerol (talk) 16:57, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Oh not this again, it has caused bar brawls and general rancour in other places. Let's wikilink as you say right away. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:00, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

A Winter Book vs Meddelande

I'm hoping to improve A Winter Book and have hit an issue: the current stub and this article both describe it as a 2006 translation of Meddelande (1998) - sv:Meddelande. Noveller i urval 1971-1997. But, from what I can gather, Meddelande is a collection of 31 stories chosen by Jansson. The 20 stories in A Winter Book were chosen by Ali Smith after her review of Summer Book (translated 2003)[11]. Can someone confirm that they're different collections? Mortee (talk) 20:55, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Well, you've answered part of it already. There are 31 stories in Meddelande, many of them taken from earlier collections such as Dockskåpet (Art in Nature, 5 stories) and Resa med lätt bagage (Travelling Light, 4 stories). There are only 20 stories in A Winter Book so the books don't match 1:1, and are selected differently, but 2 are directly from Meddelande (first published there) and some happen to be in both collections (first published elsewhere). Having read many of Jansson's stories in Swedish and English, in different collections, I kept on getting confused by finding that something felt oddly familiar, and of course that was because I'd seen the story in another language in a differently-titled collection with a different selection of stories. In short, it's a remarkable mess. If I'm feeling strong I'll make a list for you. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:38, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

A Winter Book (M = in Meddelande)

Snow

  • The Stone (from Bildhuggarens dotter)
  • Parties (from Bildhuggarens dotter)
  • The Dark (from Bildhuggarens dotter)
  • Snow (from Bildhuggarens dotter)
  • German Measles (from Bildhuggarens dotter)
  • Flying (from Bildhuggarens dotter)
  • Annie (from Bildhuggarens dotter)

Flotsam and Jetsam

  • The Iceberg (from Bildhuggarens dotter)
  • Albert (from Bildhuggarens dotter)
  • Flotsam and Jetsam (from Bildhuggarens dotter)
  • High Water (from Bildhuggarens dotter)
  • Jeremiah (from Bildhuggarens dotter)
  • The Spinster Who Had an Idea (from Bildhuggarens dotter)
  • The Boat and Me (Båten och jag, from Meddelande) M

Travelling Light

  • The Squirrel (Ekorren, from Lyssnerskan) M
  • Letters from Klara (Brev från Klara, from Brev från Klara) M
  • Messages (Meddelande, from Meddelande) M
  • Correspondence (from Resa med lätt bagage)
  • Travelling Light (Resa med lätt bagage, from Resa med lätt bagage) M
  • Taking Leave (extract from Anteckningar från en ö)
That's fantastic, thank you! I've split Meddelande and A Winter Book in the article. While I was trying to get to the bottom of it I encountered The Woman Who Borrowed Memories [12] too. I don't know if that's a translation of Meddelande or another separate collection. If it's separate, perhaps that and A Winter Book should be listed apart from the others on her list of works. Either way, thank you again for the list. Mortee (talk) 15:15, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
Varsågod! Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:05, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

"...and was the last Moomin book to be translated into English"

this statement does not make sense to me Brownturkey (talk) 18:48, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

  • Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen (the original title of The Moomins and the Great Flood) was written in Swedish in 1945, so chronologically it was first Moomin book in the Moomin series. As time has passed, various titles were translated for English audiences. The most recent book of the Moomin series to be translated into English is The Moomins and the Great Flood (translated in 2005). To understand the line quoted above, you have to read it in context. Here the article seems to be saying that because all of the other books in the series were translated into English prior to The Moomins and the Great Flood, credence is lent to the claim that "The book was not a success". Why else, as the text suggests, would the earliest book not have been translated earlier? -Thibbs (talk) 19:07, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Even if the claim is technically correct it doesn't make sense to readers who don't know that The Moomins and the Great Flood wasn't translated into English until long after the other Moomin books. - Tom | Thomas.W talk 19:18, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
  • But isn't that just what this sentence tells them? Andy Dingley (talk) 19:20, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
  • No, that is IMHO not how the average reader would understand it. - Tom | Thomas.W talk 19:23, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
  • So what do you think it means? And why have you already deleted it? The fact that one of these books (let alone the first) wasn't translated for so long seems highly relevant. Was it for Jansson's own wish? (I note that it wasn't published in English until after her death.) Andy Dingley (talk) 19:28, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
  • I would have no objection to it if it said "...and was, since it wasn't translated into English until 2005, the last Moomin book to be translated into English", but as it stood it was just confusing people. - Tom | Thomas.W talk 19:31, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
  • How so? It was written early (in fact the first published Moomin work), but just wasn't translated to English for 60 years, even after Jansson's death. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:19, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

Tove Jansson's birth

The article used to read:

Tove Jansson was born in Helsinki, then in the Grand Duchy of Finland, a part of the Russian Empire.

I changed this to:

Tove Jansson was born in Helsinki, in the Grand Duchy of Finland, a part of the Russian Empire at the time.

The way it previously read felt like Tove Jansson was born twice, first in Helsinki, and afterwards in the Grand Duchy of Finland. JIP | Talk 19:53, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Citizenship

The article presently states Jansson initially had Russian citizenship. Is there a source for this, as none is cited in the article? Her parents were Finnish and she was born in Helsinki, so it appears fairly unlikely she'd have been naturalized in Russia at age zero to three years old. The Grand Dutchy of Finland had a separate citizenship which limited e.g. eligibility to certain public offices to Finnish citizens. -- 88.115.4.184 (talk) 09:14, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

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