A beautiful book. Charming, convincing and a little whimsical, but with a dark undercurrent running through the book.

The story tells of a loner, Katri Kling, and her brother, and her efforts to secure their position within their small seashore village that respects, but mostly dislikes and only just accepts them. Katri tries to do this by inveigling her way into the life of another loner, Anna Aemlin, a highly successful children's illustrator, better liked by the villagers, but scarcely more accepted.

The darkness through the book is the darkness of the Scandinavian winter, but also of people's hidden motivations. The natural environment pervades the book to such an extent, it makes it feel that these two forms of darkness are interconnected.

The darkness within the characters is not an evil, more selfishness, pride, jealousy - petty motivations which cause people to act in strange ways, often against their own interests. This reminded me a lot of Knut Hamsun, and his attempts to depict the unpredictability of human behaviour.

Of course, The True Deceiver has more immediate, parallels with Jansson's Moomins stories. In both Nature is beautiful and engaging, but also unpredictable, dangerous and destructive; and even the Moomins will all fall prey to their darker feelings occasionally. Naturally The True Deceiver is a more adult take on these themes, but there's a consistency.

It's tempting to see elements of Tove Jansson in both the main characters - the lonely, resourceful survivor and the tense and demure illustrator. And to see the conflict and antagonism - despite which they manage to forge a mutual acceptance and functioning relationship - as indicative of internal conflicts within Jansson.

Whether that's true or not, it's a beautiful, immersive book. Every time I sat down to read it I felt transported to a timeless village, in the dark Scandinavian winter.
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I liked some aspects of this novel, set in a village during a deep snowbound winter, probably in Finland. The main characters are a young woman Katri, her brother, Mats, and Anna, an older woman who is an artist. When the story opens, Katri is scheming how to gain access to the 'rabbit house' that belongs to Anna, and thereby to gain sufficient money to be able to have a boat built from plans drawn up by Mats. Her brother is quite 'simple' but a genius with boats, it seems. Katri herself is extremely good with figures and organisation, and many villagers come to her for advice on financial matters, while disliking her cold, calculating and rude attitude. Katri is rather a sociopathic person, and sees the bad in everyone. Anna, by contrast, is naively trusting and it is this which Katri plays on.

As the story progresses, the two women influence each other, with Anna becoming suspicious and cynical, and Katri confused. Anna has agreed to various book and merchandise deals, based upon the cute rabbits which populate her picture books for children: it is clear that the painting of the 'ground' (the forest floor) in minute detail is what she excels at and loves, but she has somehow been persuaded to add fluffy bunnies with flowers in their fur, and the merchandising in particular revolves around these. Katri persuades her over time that she has been 'cheated' by these companies, and also by everyone else around her, including the shopkeeper who supplies her with groceries. (The shopkeeper probably is slightly crooked, and there is a hint that he has made an unwelcome advance to Katri.) Anna is beset by correspondence, including fan mail from children, but Katri gradually brings Anna to view the letters from children as greedy and imposing. However, Katri loses her singlemindedness and tries to backtrack on some of the negative things she has told other people. Symbolically, she also starts to lose her 'wolfish' character with the changes to her guard dog, never named, thanks to Anna's influence on the animal.

The cold and snow is almost another character in this story and forms an effective backdrop for the action.

By another writer, the tension between the main characters would have built to some crescendo of destruction, but instead it sort of peters out although there is a twist involving Anna's character at the end though I did wonder how she would earn a living if the bunnies were excluded. So all in all, I liked the story and am rating it at 3 stars. ( )

L’ossimoro nel titolo de L’onesta bugiarda ci da’ l’idea che le relazioni umane, oggidi’, oltre che pericolose (liaisons dangereuses), utilizzano geometrie del sovrappiu’, dell’eccesso. Il triangolo che ha oberato la letteratura ottocentesca (ad esempio L’eterno marito di Dostoevskij) e’ dimenticato.

Alcuni brani:

E quando tutti i veli furono svaniti, apparve la terra, umida e scura e pronta a cedere sotto la pressione di tutto cio’ che attendeva di poter crescere. (177)

Non vi e’ nulla che sia quieto e interminabile come una lunga oscurita’ invernale, che continua e continua, e’ come vivere in un tunnel dove il buio di tanto in tanto s’infittisce nella notte o diventa alba, si e’ separati da tutto, protetti e piu’ soli del solito. (16)

Anna prese a rileggere i propri libri, e d’un tratto le parve di avere una grande cerchia di amici che vivevano tutti piu’ o meno avventurosamente. (63)

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A sparse, wintry, jewel of a book. Two women have a battle of wills in a snowed-in village. I imagine I'll see new facets every time I reread it. ( )

Jansson's prose is magisterial, as cold and icy as the winter setting; the pace is also ingenious which mimics the slow melting of the ice as the winter transitions into spring. The psychological depth of the characters is very nuanced and potent here, and the dialogue is brilliantly handled and allows the narrative room to shift focus in a figural way. I look forward to reading more of Jansson's work after The True Deceiver. ( )