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Sunday, October 30th, 2005
Our bedtime story tonight was "The Fir Tree", the final story in Tales From Moominvalley, which Ellen and Sylvia picked up the other day at Scandinavia House. Sylvia requested this story because the picture on the first page of the story is of a young Woody, who looks kind of like the Dweller Under the Sink from Moominland Midwinter. The DUS is a mysterious creature who does not speak the same language as the Moomins, and when Moomintroll tried to talk to him, he got angry and said "Radamsah!" which Sylvia found just hilarious. So, we read this story with Sylvia specifying that I call the Woody "Radamsah", which substitution I did make most of the times his name came up. (When I failed to make it, Sylvia was quick to correct me.) (This occasionally happens when we are reading a story, that Sylvia asks me to make some substitution -- for instance when we read Moominland Midwinter, the instruction was always to refer to Too-Ticky with masculine rather than feminine pronouns. -- Note that this is kind of interesting in a weird way as Too-Ticky was modeled on Jannson's female partner, maybe Sylvia is picking up on an intentional gender confusion?) "The Fir Tree" is a wonderful Christmas story, one of the best ever I think. To summarize: The Moomin family normally hibernates through winter and so do not know about Christmas; but this year the Hemulen wakes them up because he is resentful at their sleeping peacefully away while everyone else works so hard at celebrating Christmas. He doesn't bother to explain what's happening though, and the best the Moomins can make out from their fractured interactions with various Hemulens and Gaffsies, is that some kind of dangerous creature named Christmas is coming when it gets dark, and they need to find a fir tree and decorate it, and cook a dinner and set out presents to placate the monster. They end up setting up a very nice Christmas jubilee for the Woody and his small friends and relations, who are impoverished. And then go back to sleep, still not really understanding what is going on. While we were reading the part where the Moomins were arriving at their conclusion that "Christmas" is the name of some monster, Sylvia observed, "like the Dr. Seuss Christmas monster, who takes all the presents away." Yes, nice parallel to find.
posted evening of October 30th, 2005: Respond
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Friday, May 26th, 2006
I'm very happy to see that Drawn and Quarterly will be bringing out five volumes of Tove Jansson's Moomin comic strips. First one is due in September!
posted afternoon of May 26th, 2006: Respond
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I am reading Dickens' Bleak House now -- it is a book that has been on my shelf for many years, one that was spoken of very highly on the Pynchon-l and that I've always been resolved to read sometime. It's proving easier going than I expected, with plenty of laughs and a plot that is only occasionally obscure. But there are so many characters! It's a little hard to keep track of who, say, Mr. Guppy is, who has not been mentioned in the past 50 pages or so, when he pops up. So the Unofficial Moomin Characters Guide has given me an idea -- a general purpose, web-based database utility for keeping track of characters in a book or series of books. I don't think this would be very difficult to do and it seems like it would come in handy.
posted evening of May 26th, 2006: Respond
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Wednesday, November 15th, 2006
A new Moomin book arrived today -- it is the newly published Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip, Book One. Sylvia and I looked at the first story, "Moomin and the Brigands", this evening -- I was impressed by how well Sylvia is reading -- this was her first experience with hyphens but she seemed to get it pretty well after I explained. Here is a preview of the book. Just beautiful artwork -- the dialog (in the first few pages at any rate) is not as interesting as it is in the books though.
posted evening of November 15th, 2006: Respond
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Monday, February 26th, 2007
Watching Wild Strawberries tonight for the second-and-a-half time. At the opening scene I am hit by the realization that Dr. Borg is based (in part) on the same archetype which underlies Moominpappa's character. (I am rereading Comet in Moominland to Sylvia for bedtime stories this past week or so.) Also Sara reminds me of the Snork Maiden. Funny... I wonder how much Bergman and Jannsen are coming from the same place culturally.
posted evening of February 26th, 2007: Respond
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Friday, August third, 2007
I am reading Sylvia Moominsummer Madness for bedtime stories now, not sure if this is the first or second time we have reread it. Last night, she was absolutely loving the bit with Snufkin getting his revenge on the Park Warden, it seemed like she remembered it very clearly from last time (at least a year ago). Anyways, I want to put together a Moominpost for KIDLIT but I haven't figured out quite what yet. It seems to me like reading diaries belong on this site -- after all that is the primary purpose I had in mind when I created READIN -- and that site is more for analysis. There should be analysis of this particular book and of the series in general; I'm not quite sure yet, where to start.
posted morning of August third, 2007: Respond
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Tuesday, October 9th, 2007
OMG! Comet in Moominland is being produced in NYC! And Ellen is trying to get us tickets! Got my fingers crossed, that would be too much fun. ...And rats, it is sold out. Oh well, some other time I guess. (Kind of a nuisance for the Times to review the play at the end of its run rather than near the beginning...)
posted morning of October 9th, 2007: Respond
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Friday, October 26th, 2007
I've been thinking a lot lately about translation of poetry and how difficult it is, and whether it is worth doing. I'm glad to say that tonight I read an utterly sublime specimen of the genre. It is Tove Jansson's Book About Moomin, Mymble, and Little My, translated by Sophie Hannah and Silvester Mazzarella -- it might be better to say something like "translated by Mazzarella and composed by Hannah" -- in any case they have done a phenomenal job. The book was written in 1952 and not translated until 2001. (In any case this version came out in 2001, and no reference is made to any earlier translation.) The text is integrated flawlessly with the illustrations -- whoever did the lettering ought to have been credited -- the result looks sort of like Dr. Seuss, sort of like Walt Kelly, sort of like Edward Gorey, but mostly like Jansson. Many thanks to Redfox for recommending that I check out Jansson's picture books. I had known of their existence for a couple of years but never sought them out.
posted evening of October 26th, 2007: 3 responses
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Wednesday, October 31st, 2007
I always have thought of Moominpappa's Memoirs as the least interesting book in the series, worth reading only for the sake of completeness. But I have been reading it to Sylvia, at her request, for the past week or so; and this time around I am getting a fuller picture of it -- it is not just Moominpappa's boastful relation of his exploits, but rather his telling to Moomintroll (and Sniff, and Snufkin). There is a level of irony and distance that I wasn't really noticing before -- what I mean is, it was clear (in my previous reading) that Moominpappa was making a lot of stuff up to make himself look important -- that is an obvious part of the joke that's going on. But I thought that was the whole joke, and it's a kind of limited and corny one. Now I am picking up on the fact that Moominpappa is himself in on the joke and that he's winking at his audience -- this seems much more interesting to me than if it's just Jansson winking at me. Also: Sylvia says of the two Jansson picture books (Moomin, Mymble, and Little My and Who Will Comfort Toffle?) that "one is funny and one is serious", and that she prefers the funny one. (I kind of have to agree, though Toffle is pretty charming too.)
posted evening of October 31st, 2007: Respond
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Tuesday, December 25th, 2007
The rather silly Pied Piper of Hamelin video, with rhyming dialogue, was made worthwhile by the lovely actors and by Sylvia's observation that "If this were a play, Emma [the stage rat from Moominsummer Madness] would say 'It's all wrong.'"
posted evening of December 25th, 2007: Respond
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