The Moomins. A funny company

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The Moomins. A droll society (original title: Trollkarlens hatt ) is the third of the Moomin books by the Finnish-Swedish writer Tove Jansson . It was published in 1948. It was published in German translation in 1954 as the author's first work and was therefore long considered the first volume in the series in German-speaking countries.

action

The novel tells several loosely connected events of a summer in the Mumintal. At the beginning of the book, the Moomin family prepares for hibernation. A hundred days later, Moomin is awakened by the first cuckoo call. Apart from him, only the Schnupferich has got up so far. Little by little, all the other family members wake up and enjoy the first day of spring.

During a trip into the mountains Moomin, the Schnupferich and the Schnüferl find a top hat that they bring home without knowing that it is a magician's hat. It soon turns out that everything that gets into the hat changes into something else: eggshells turn into clouds, Moomin temporarily turns into a dry creature with huge eyes and ears, sand turns into water, and that into the hat for testing purposes curled terrible ant lion crawls out again as the "smallest hedgehog in the world". Worried about this unpredictability, the Moomin parents try to get rid of the magic utensil. Moomin and the Schnupferich save the hat and hide it in their cave by the sea. There, however, he transforms the muskrat's false teeth into something namelessly terrible, panics the muskrat, who has nodded off in the cave, and ultimately ends up back in the family home.

The extended Moomins family goes on a boat trip to an island. There she survived a heavy thunderstorm and an encounter with the Hatifnatten, electrified by the thunderstorm, who cost the snorkel girl his fringes, and returned home with all sorts of beach finds.

In the hottest summer, Moomin and his friends spend the night in their cave, where the snuff tells them the story of a magician who travels through the universe on his black panther, always looking for a precious stone, the "royal ruby". It rains at night, and in the morning you decide to go on a fishing trip, which is crowned by catching the gigantic "Mamluk". When the company comes home with the giant fish, the hat in the Moomin house has let some dead plants grow so much that the whole house is overgrown. However, the Moomins also come to terms with this change, and the children play in the Tarzan house . At sunset the vegetation dries up and the family turns the leftovers into a large campfire over which the Mameluk is roasted.

Two new beings appear in the house in August. Tofsla and Vifsla speak “foreign” and thus cause a bit of confusion, but they are immediately accepted into the family. However, the Morra also followed them into the Moomin Valley - a frightening creature who freezes everything living where it is. The Morra pursues Tofsla and Vifsla, who have stolen something valuable from her that they do not want to show anyone. The Moomin family stages a court hearing under the direction of the conscientious Snorker, during which the claims of both sides are carefully weighed. The Morra reclaims her property, but eventually accepts an exchange deal and instead takes the wizard's hat with her.

Soon afterwards, Tofsla and Vifsla, who are not that particular about their property, steal the Moominmother's handbag in order to use it as a place to sleep. When they later learn how sad the Moomin mother is about the loss of her essential accessory, they give her the bag back. The Moominmother is delighted to host a big summer festival in honor of the two, to which all beings from the area are invited. The festival reaches its first climax when the touched Tofsla and Vifsla allow everyone present a glimpse of their secret treasure, which is the royal ruby. The radiant light of the ruby ​​shines up to the moon and calls the magician onto the scene. The initially a little frightening guest, mildly tempered by the Moominmother's pancakes, willingly accepts that the royal ruby ​​bought by Morra now rightfully belongs to Tofsla and Vifsla. He kindly fulfills a wish for every family member - including practical, meaningful, selfless, somewhat silly and very thoughtless concerns. Tofsla and Vifsla want a faithful copy of the ruby. In the best of spirits, the magician who is presented with it fulfills the wishes of all party participants by morning, you eat, drink, dance and are in a happy mood.

At dawn after the festival, Moomin and his mother go home happy and think about the coming autumn.

characters

The canon of characters introduced in Komet im Mumintal also shapes the plot in this book. Moomin's circle of friends, consisting of the Schnupferich, the Snork and the Snorkfräulein, the Schnüferl and the Hemul, has established itself as a permanent group. The muskrat also continues to live with the family, but stays with the adults during Moomin's activities and does not take part in most of the adventures. At the end of the book, the Schnupferich leaves the valley, but announces his return and thus prepares his role as an occasional figure, which he will keep in the following books.

New additions to this book are Tofsla and Vifsla - called Tofslan and Vifslan in the original Swedish version. The two inseparable beings are based on Tove Jansson herself and her friend Vivica Bandler , from whom their names are derived. The two women had a secret love affair at this time. Since homosexuality was a criminal offense in Finland, they could not speak openly about their relationship in the presence of others and communicated using codes of their own choosing. This is reflected in Tofsla and Vifsla, who are the only characters in the Moomin books to speak their own language, which is difficult for others to understand. Tove Jansson identified herself and Vivica Bandler so much with the characters that she addressed Vivica in her letters as “Vifslan” and signed “Tofslan”. The counterpart to Tofsla and Vifsla, the Morra, can be read as the external threat Jansson felt from strict social norms and repressive laws. The Morra wants to take Tofsla and Vifsla the ruby, their symbol of beauty and love. In contrast to the Moomin Mother's handbag, which Tofsla and Vifsla willingly return, in this case they are not ready to give up their treasure again and defend their conquest against all attacks. Her greatest wish is not to have to hide her treasure any longer and to be able to show it to the whole Moomin Valley.

Tofsla and Vifsla no longer appear in the following Moomin volumes. But you have another appearance in Jansson's 1977 picture book The Dangerous Journey . The Morra, on the other hand, plays a role in three other Moomin novels and two picture books.

subjects

The Moomins. A Funny Society is the first book Jansson wrote in peacetime. In contrast to her first two books, it is not marked by a catastrophe threatening all living beings, but is an adventure story with magical elements.

The episode about the boat trip to the island, which interrupts the storyline about the magic hat, is about a central theme in Tove Jansson's life: the dream of seafaring and life in the archipelago , where Jansson and her family spent the summers. Also in Moominfather's wild youth , stories from Moomin Valley , Moomin's wondrous island adventures and the picture book Who comforts Toffel? sea ​​voyages and island life play a role.

The Moomins. A funny society also deals with complex social issues. For example, the Moomin family grapples with questions of legal philosophy about law and justice when they discuss who the ruby ​​should belong to: the Morra, who only wants to own the stone on principle and knows nothing of what to do with it, or Tofsla and Vifsla, who have appropriated it without permission, but they appreciate it for its beauty and also allow others to participate.

Publication history

Jansson's previous publisher, Söderström, found the manuscript to be good, but did not want to publish the series any further because of the low sales figures for the first two books. Jansson reached an agreement with a new publisher, Schildt's, but first had to assert himself against cuts in text and illustrations. The Moomins. A funny company received good reviews, especially in the Swedish and Finnish-Swedish media. However, it was also criticized for not having any educational claim and for not being classifiable as a children's or adult book clearly enough.

The Moomins. A funny company was Jansson's first international literary success and brought her for the first time a lot of media attention and requests for usage rights. In many countries, including the German-speaking and English-speaking countries, The Moomins. A funny company marketed as the first book in the series. Hence the deviating title (in English: Finn Family Moomintroll ), which was supposed to introduce the previously unknown Moomin family to the audience, for which the original title Trollkarlens ( The Magician's Hat ) did not seem suitable. The Finnish-speaking majority in Jansson's homeland did not become aware of the book until much later, as a Finnish translation was not published until 1987. Although the book is apparently suitable as an introduction to the series, as its international success proves, this reading order lacks the background of the characters and the story of their meeting. The presence of the different beings in the Moomin House must be accepted as a matter of course. Only when Komet appeared in Mumintal in 1961 did the German-speaking audience learn how the characters got to know each other.

The Moomins appeared in Germany . A funny company in 1954 in a translation by Vivica and Kurt Bandler . Your first translation was changed in many places at the instigation of the Benziger publishing house and thus deviated greatly from the original. Among other things, the publisher wanted to adapt the books to its Catholic -oriented publishing program by including the fact that the Moomins prayed before bed. For the version revised by Tove Jansson, which was published by Ravensburger Buchverlag in 1968 , the Bandler translators were able to obtain a new, more faithful translation. In contrast to Komet im Mumintal , Jansson barely revised the book's content, but mainly linguistically. The language became more abstract and is therefore rated as "more mature" than that of the first version. In 1990 a new edition was published by Arena Verlag . In 2001 a new translation by Birgitta Kicherer appeared in the same publishing house .

In 2006 a slightly shortened audio book version was published by Verlag Sauerländer , read by Dirk Bach .

Adaptations

The Moomins. A funny company served as the basis for the puppet show The Moomin Family , which was staged by the Augsburger Puppenkiste and first broadcast on television in 1959. It was the first film adaptation of a Moomin book. The plot also served as the basis for the first five episodes of the Polish-Austrian stop-motion series The Moomins . A Russian cartoon adaptation is loosely based on the plot of the book. In the Japanese animation series Moomins , the first eight episodes are based on the book.

In April 2017, the Finnish National Ballet performed the ballet Moomin and the Magician's Hat in Tokyo and Osaka on its Japan tour . The composition by Tuomas Kantelinen and the choreography by Kenneth Greve are based on the story of The Moomins. A funny company .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Tuula Karjalainen: Tove Jansson. The biography. From the Finnish by Anke Michler-Janhunen and Regine Pirschel. Urachhaus, Stuttgart 2014, ISBN 978-3-8251-7900-7 , pp. 122–124. 169-171.
  2. ^ Boel Westin: Tove Jansson. Life, Art, Words. The Authorized Biography. From the Swedish of Silvester Mazzarella. Sort Of, London 2014, ISBN 978-1-908745-45-3 , p. 198. 207.
  3. ^ Tuula Karjalainen: Tove Jansson. The biography. From the Finnish by Anke Michler-Janhunen and Regine Pirschel. Urachhaus, Stuttgart 2014, ISBN 978-3-8251-7900-7 , pp. 297-299.
  4. ↑ a b c d Tuula Karjalainen: Tove Jansson. The biography. From the Finnish by Anke Michler-Janhunen and Regine Pirschel. Urachhaus, Stuttgart 2014, ISBN 978-3-8251-7900-7 , pp. 168-172.
  5. ↑ Layla AbdelRahim: Children's Literature, domestication, and Social Foundation. Narratives of Civilization and Wilderness. Routledge, New York 2014, ISBN 978-0-4156-6110-2 , pp. 105-108.
  6. ^ Boel Westin: Tove Jansson. Life, Art, Words. The Authorized Biography. From the Swedish of Silvester Mazzarella. Sort Of, London 2014, ISBN 978-1-908745-45-3 , pp. 206-207.
  7. ↑ a b History of the Moomin Books on the official website moomin.com, accessed January 6, 2017.
  8. ^ Boel Westin: Tove Jansson. Life, Art, Words. The Authorized Biography. From the Swedish of Silvester Mazzarella. Sort Of, London 2014, ISBN 978-1-908745-45-3 , pp. 300-301.
  9. ^ Mareike Jendis: Moomin's miraculous adventures in Germany. To the reception of Tove Janson's Moomin books. Dissertation 2001, pp. 61. 63-74.
  10. ↑ Riitta Oittinen: Translating for Children. Garland, New York et al. a. 2000, ISBN 0-8153-3335-8 , pp. 119-120.
  11. ↑ Film adaptations on the website "Moomin Research", accessed on January 6, 2017.
  12. ↑ Finnish National Ballet to tour Japan with the specifically designed Moomin ballet , blog of the official website moomin.com on October 31, 2016 (English), accessed on January 2, 2017.