The standout for me is “The Iceberg.” A little girl and her parents head to an island for the summer. En route, they pass an iceberg. Later the little girl sees it bumping up against the rocks: “It was waiting for me and was shining just as beautifully but very faintly.”
The two seem well suited for one another. The iceberg contains a small impression, which she calls a “grotto,” “made for a little girl who pulled up her legs and cuddled them to her.”
Now the girl is faced with a difficult decision: jump on board, or let it pass. Reflecting on the agony of indecision, she later realizes that “if one doesn’t dare to do something immediately, then one never does it.”
Instead of jumping, she tosses her flashlight into the grotto. As the iceberg floats away, it emits an otherworldly glow. The girl imagines the iceberg melting, the flashlight illuminating the bottom of the sea.
In “The Squirrel,” an old woman living alone on an island starts to go a little mad: “The prospect of living an entirely silent life seemed tempting, if she could achieve it voluntarily and not merely because the island was silent.” In the mirror, she is dismayed to discover fine lines sprouting above her mouth. With winter approaching, she knows she should head to town for supplies, but she keeps putting it off. It’s the people, not the difficulty of the trip, she seems to be avoiding. Routine sustains her: sweeping the floor of her cabin, a little writing at her wooden table. And a few swigs from a bottle of wine—for medicinal purposes, naturally.
One day, a squirrel washes ashore on a piece of refuse. Aside from the screeching gulls overhead, it’s the island’s only sign of life. Its presence throws the woman’s solitude and isolation into sharp relief. She becomes fixated on it, bending her routine to accommodate its preferences and resenting it all the while. It isn’t company she wants, exactly. She wants to be alone, not lonely. One morning, she wakes up and finds her boat gone, washed out to sea—with the squirrel on board. “‘You damn squirrel,’” she said, softly, in admiration.” Admiration, not annoyance—that’s pure Jansson.
