Stories from the Moomin Valley

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Stories from the Moomin Valley (original title: Det osynliga barnet ) is the seventh of the Moomin books by the Finnish-Swedish writer Tove Jansson . It was published in 1963. The structure of the book differs from the other Moomin books because it is not a novel, but consists of nine independent stories. Some stories are about the Moomin family, others focus on supporting characters in the series or entirely new characters. In particular, the story that gave the title to the Swedish original, The Invisible Child , achieved fame beyond the book.

action

The spring melody

The Schnupferich is on its way back to the Mumintal after one of its lonely hikes. He is happy in his loneliness and composes a melody that he wants to play to Moomin. He meets a small animal that reveals itself to be an admirer and follows him obtrusively. It declares that it admires the Schnupferich for its independence, creativity and far-traveled travel, and asks him to play him a song or tell a story and come up with a name for it, since it does not yet have one. The Schnupferich is annoyed because he has forgotten his melody because of the disturbance and would rather be alone. He treats the animal so dismissively that it finally says goodbye in disappointment. To alleviate the discomfort of separation, the Schnupferich gives the animal the desired name: Ti-ti-uu. The next morning he regrets his rudeness. He goes to Ti-ti-uu and offers to play something or tell him something. Ti-ti-uu refuses. Since it got a name, it has moved from home, made a name tag for its own future house and "started to live". It is now completely occupied with this new life as a fully fledged person, so it says goodbye briefly and disappears into the heather. The Schnupferich enjoys the loneliness again and begins to compose a new melody.

A horrible day

With his self-made scary stories, an imaginative little Homsa scares his little brother and shocks his parents. The well-meaning but simple parents misunderstand his creative storytelling as lies and feel challenged to take educational penalties: He has to go to bed without eating. The Homsa is not conscious of any guilt; to him the conjuring up of exotic death threats seems to be the most normal thing in the world. He runs away from home embittered. The difference between reality and his fantasies of hot bombs, mud snakes and ghost cars, which has just been debated, puts him in dire straits in the swamp in the evenings. Frightened, he flees to a house where little Mü is visiting her grandmother. Mü proves to be a superior master: She continues to develop his show in even more scary threat scenarios without being particularly impressed by it herself. The Homsa is finally in fear and horror and is only too happy to confess that everything was only made up - but that is no longer of any use in view of the unleashed idea of ​​the inexorably approaching, overgrown sticky fungi. When his father picks him up, he is relieved. He complains indignantly about this "terribly flickering" effort, the father expresses mild understanding, and family harmony has been restored.

The Filifjonka who believed in disasters

A Filifjonka lives in a too big and uncomfortable house on an inhospitable coast, where she looks after her family's heirlooms and tries in vain to make it more homely by furnishing and decorating. She lives in constant fear of a great, nameless catastrophe, and even the friendliest summer day seems depressingly ominous to her. The visit of her acquaintance Gafsa, planned as a piece of normality and an opportunity to talk about what burdens her, fails completely: The dry and conventional Gafsa can neither with the excited conversation nor with the hysterical revelations of the Filifjonka start something and is just embarrassed. When a storm actually destroyed the Filifjonka's house during the night and she escaped outside, her feelings of panic, at first, were calm. In the morning she feels changed, but remains torn between the intense desire to simply give up her ruined possessions and the feeling of obligation to all that has been inherited and achieved. The decision is made for her by a kind of tornado that tears the house, furniture and knickknacks into the sky without a trace. Relieved and happy, the Filifjonka bathes in the sea at sunrise. All she has to do is ridicule Gafsa, who rushes over with a guilty conscience and wants to console her for her losses.

The story of the last dragon in the world

Moomin catches a tiny dragon that he tries to tame and bind to himself. With his love for the distinctive but indifferent creature (“Oh my little Bubu-lubu-dubu.”), He doesn't exactly cut a good figure. The dragon prefers to follow the independent Schnupferich, and Moomin suffers agonies of jealousy. The dragon flees from Moomin, spends the day highly satisfied on the hat of the fishing snuff and shows that he intends to stay there forever. Out of consideration for Moomin's feelings, the Schnupferich puts the sleeping dragon in his coffee pot in the evening with slight regret, which he hands over to a Hemul passing by in the boat together with his hat. In exchange for the day's catch, he instructs the Hemul to feed the dragon, release two or three days' voyage away, and set up the hat there as a nest for him. To Moomin he expresses himself dismissively about the notorious unreliability and flightiness of dragons in general and pretends not to know anything about the kite's whereabouts. Already half comforted, Moomin begins a conversation about fishing.

The Hemul who loved the silence

A Hemul works in an amusement park, where he controls the tickets. He doesn't enjoy his work and would prefer a quieter workplace, but he doesn't want to disappoint his noisy, insensitive, but good-natured family who run the park. So he longs for his retirement day in and day out. When a storm destroys the park, the Hemule build an ice rink instead and want to employ the titular hero as a ticket controller again in the opinion of doing something good for him. He finally takes heart and reveals to his family his desire for a quiet place. His relatives are amused by such an absurd wish, but willingly give him the key to an abandoned park that had belonged to his grandmother. The Hemul moves in there and enjoys the peace and quiet. But then multitudes of sad children come who have saved parts and ruins of the hype and want to rebuild it. The destruction of the amusement park may have been a relief for the Hemul - it was a disaster for the children. Hemul's grief spoils his contented hermitage. Reluctantly at first, and finally with growing joy, he and the children transform grandmother's park into a surreal amusement park and allow them to play in it - provided that they are quiet. Contrary to the expectations of the Hemul family, the children enjoy the deliberation and secrecy of their new playground. The Hemul finally even notices that he is a little worried about the prevailing silence, and he decides to allow the children “to laugh and, if they feel like it, maybe to hum a little to themselves. But not more."

The story of the invisible child

Tooticki, a friend of the Moomins, brings a girl named Ninni to Moomin Valley. She was raised by her aunt, who treated her with cold irony. This made Ninni invisible. Tooticki hopes that the Moomins' care can make them visible again. Ninni is surprised by the Moomins, but interested and positive. They integrate their guest into the family, and the Moominmother treats Ninni with a home remedy for invisibility that her grandmother has secretly mixed in her coffee. The Moomin mother interprets the fact that Ninni is slowly becoming visible again as a success of this treatment. Ninni joins the Moominmother closely. Always polite, obedient, devoid of humor and ideas, but as a playmate for Moomin and Mü she is a bitter disappointment. There is no progress for a long time, Ninni's face remains invisible, and the Moominmother gives up treatment with the home remedy. Little Mü thinks that Ninni lacks the ability to get angry and that she therefore doesn't have a face of her own. This assumption is confirmed in the final scene: When the Moominfather for fun pretends to push the Moominmother off the pier into the sea, Ninni, who sees her beloved Moominmother threatened, bites his tail in anger. Then her snub-nosed face becomes visible to the general enthusiasm. When Moominfather falls into the water, she has a wild fit of laughter. Tooticki is astonished to notice that Ninni is even more malicious than little Mü. The Moominmother feels strengthened in her belief in the infallible effectiveness of grandmother's home remedies.

The secret of the Hatifnatten

Moominfather feels a longing to travel. He decides to find out the secret of the Hatifnatten, restless, mute creatures who travel around on sailboats. He sails with the Hatifnatten for a while, trying to develop a relationship with them. But he realizes that the Hatifnatten are by no means the free, unconventional adventurers they always appeared to be, but empty, callous, driven people who only get a touch of liveliness from the electricity of a thunderstorm they experience together. The Moominfather realizes that it is his own thoughts and feelings, including the unpleasant ones, that make him a happy man / troll, and that his family does not restrict him, as he said at the beginning, but liberates him: “The Moominfather became homesick his family and his porch. It suddenly occurred to him that only there would it be possible for him to be as free and adventurous as a real father should be. "

Cedric

The Schnüferl is giving away his beloved plush dog Cedric - apparently Moomin misunderstood it, who had told him that you would get what you gave away “ten times over and then feel wonderful”. Of course, it immediately regrets the loss. The Schnupferich tries to comfort him by telling him the story of his great aunt: She collected beautiful and valuable things all her life and lived without friends in a splendidly furnished house. When she got sick and believed that she would soon die, she realized how different she had imagined her life to be in her youth and how little comfort her property was ultimately for her. With the exception of a large bed, she gave away everything she owned in the form of surprise packages to her relatives and friends. She had so much fun giving and her house gave her so much more space that she became happier and more relaxed. She began inviting others, made friends, and eventually recovered. Then she set about realizing some of her childhood dreams and finally embarked on the longed-for trip to the Amazon, which ends the story. The Schnüferl does not understand the moral of the story and is alternately bored because he suspects the pedagogical intent of the narrator, and horrified at what, in his opinion, the tragic fate of the great-aunt: the aunt gave away her property in vain because she had not died after all . The Schnupferich surrenders to Schnüferl's unshakable naive greed and tells him that the remaining bed was made of pure gold, "diamonds and carnelian". In a follow-up note in italics, the reader learns that Cedric would have got the Schnüferl back, albeit quite damaged.

The fir tree

The Christmas tree is a humorous Christmas story. The Moomins are awakened from their hibernation on Christmas Day. Amazed, they watch the other creatures of the Moomin Valley in their busy, almost panicked preparations. From the general excitement they conclude that "Christmas" must be an approaching catastrophe. They try to imitate the observed behavior, decorate a tree in the snow-covered garden and wrap gifts in the hope of being able to stop the catastrophe. While the family is anxiously waiting for “Christmas”, they are joined by a small Knütt with his relatives. These shy and puny beings are overwhelmed by the beauty and splendor of the Moomin family's Christmas decorations, though they cannot help but notice that everything is not entirely up to date. Finally, the Moomin family leaves the tree, feast and presents to the Knütt family and retires to the Moomin house. They realize that everything seems to be going well, agree that the other beings in Moomin Valley must have misunderstood something, and go back to sleep.

Figures and themes

Tales from the Moomin Valley has the largest range of characters of all Moomin books. Both the main characters of the Moomin series play a role as well as a few other characters who only appear marginally or not at all in the other books. Filifjonkas and a Homsa already appeared in a storm in the Mumintal ; but these are not identical to the characters in stories from the Moomin Valley . Hemule appear in several books and are usually characterized as unsympathetic law enforcement officers. In The Hemul, who loved the silence, a Hemul is in the foreground as a figure of identification for the first time. Tove Jansson expressed her own wish for a quiet place to live, which she finally found on the island of Klovharu . The desire to be left alone is also expressed in the story The Tannenbaum , in which the Moomins prefer to simply continue their hibernation.

In The Spring Melody , the snuff is at the center of the plot for the first time. While in the other books he is seen through Moomin's eyes, here his relationship with Moomin is examined from the point of view of the Snuff. It becomes clear that the Schnupferich knows how much Moomin suffers from its absence. Nevertheless, he has to maintain his independence and occasionally be alone for long periods of time. In it he reflects Tove Jansson's relationship with her former partner Atos Wirtanen . The Schnupferich also appears in the story as an artist who has to learn to deal with his fans. Tove Jansson, who had attracted increasing public interest in the years before the book was published, describes in this story the danger of hindering the creative process by being forced to talk too much about it. The snuff as an artist reappears in Cedric . Here, too, his creative process - in this case storytelling - can be followed. As in Moominfather's wild youth , Tove Jansson makes not only the story itself the topic, but also the different approaches of different age groups to the same story, which repeatedly played a role in the public discussion about the Moomin.

The pleasant loneliness of the Schnupferich is opposed to the oppressive loneliness of the Filifjonka. In Die Filifjonka, who believed in disasters, the main character lives in constant fear and feels misunderstood by others. Jansson describes the depression from which she suffered from time to time. In the end, Filifjonka realizes that the real danger is not the storm outside, but the crampedness of her own house and the restrictive social norms that she has adhered to all her life.

Finding one's own identity is the subject of the story of the invisible child and in The Spring Melody . The girl Ninni in The Story of the Invisible Child - in the Swedish original the cover story - offered Jansson an important figure to identify with. She wrote in 1966 that she too hoped to find her own face one day by not putting up with everything. The characters who most help Ninni to become visible again are the Moominmother and Tooticki, who represent Jansson's mother Signe Hammarsten-Jansson and her partner Tuulikki Pietilä . Jansson had previously worked intensively on developmental psychology . The story of the invisible child was for its part received in child psychology .

The secret of the Hatifnatten anticipates parts of the novel Moomin's wondrous island adventures by focusing on the Moomin father, who follows his longing for the sea. A similar trip by the Moominfather was mentioned in Moomin's long journey . In this story, the self-image of the Moomin family comes to light: The Moomin mother is not worried about the Moomin father, because she is sure of his return and only then can all family members enjoy maximum freedom without having to feel guilty.

The unwillingness of the beings of the Moomin Valley to be tamed is a recurring element in the Moomin books. The story of the last dragon in the world bears a resemblance to the failed attempt to tame the kitten by the sniffer in Comet in Mumintal .

Publication history

The Christmas tree was the only story in the collection that had appeared before. Jansson wrote it in 1956 for the Svenska Dagbladet Christmas supplement .

With the compilation of short, completed stories, Tove Jansson chose a form for the stories from the Moomin Valley that was also formative for her adult books . She also continued to involve adults in her target group through the choice of topics. The Swedish-language publisher took this orientation into account by adding the note "for all ages" to the book. By contrast, the German-language blurb identified the book as a children's book due to its focus on the “little Moomintroll”. The adult character of the book was also discussed in the German media. The book received widespread media coverage in Germany, not least because Tove Jansson received the internationally acclaimed Hans Christian Andersen Prize shortly before the German translation was published.

While Tales from the Moomin Valley in the original version was the seventh book Moomin series, it was published in Germany in 1966 as the fifth volume in a translation by Dorothea Bjelfvenstam . Many of the smaller illustrations have been left out in the German edition. In the GDR , stories from the Mumintal were published by the children's book publisher. In this edition, Tove Jansson's illustrations have been replaced by a completely new illustration. In the double volume The large Moomin Book , the stories from the Moomin Valley appeared together with Moomin's wondrous island adventures . At times both books appeared together under the title Moomin's Island Adventure . A new translation by Birgitta Kicherer was published in 2005.

In 2007 the Sauerländer publishing house published an audio book version read by Dirk Bach .

A charity special edition with The Story of the Invisible Child and The Christmas Tree in English was published in 2017. Most of the proceeds go to Oxfam charity projects for women and girls.

Awards

In 1964, Tove Jansson was awarded the Anni Swan Medal for Stories from the Moomin Valley .

Adaptations

The Christmas tree , The Filifjonka, who believed in catastrophes , The story of the last dragon in the world and Cedric were processed in the Polish-Austrian stop-motion series The Moomins . The Japanese animation series Moomins also used The Story of the Last Dragon in the World and The Christmas Tree, as well as The Invisible Child and The Spring Melody .

A theater adaptation of the stories from the Moomin Valley was performed at the Oslo Nye Teater in 2015 .

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. 298-299.
  2. ^ A b 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. 301.
  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. 183-184.
  4. ^ 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 , p. 163.
  5. ^ 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. 172-173.
  6. ↑ a b c 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. 266-268.
  7. ↑ Ulf Schöne: Individualism and Melancholy in the Moomin Books. In: Lance Weldy (Ed.): Crossing Textual Boundaries in International Children's Literature. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne 2011, ISBN 978-1-4438-2679-2 , p. 520.
  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 , p. 355.
  9. ↑ 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. 173-174.
  10. ^ Mareike Jendis: Moomin's miraculous adventures in Germany. To the reception of Tove Janson's Moomin books. Dissertation 2001, p. 94.
  11. ^ Mareike Jendis: Moomin's miraculous adventures in Germany. To the reception of Tove Janson's Moomin books. Dissertation 2001, pp. 165-166.
  12. ^ Mareike Jendis: Moomin's miraculous adventures in Germany. To the reception of Tove Janson's Moomin books. Dissertation 2001, p. 113.
  13. ^ Mareike Jendis: Moomin's miraculous adventures in Germany. To the reception of Tove Janson's Moomin books. Dissertation 2001, p. 57.
  14. ↑ Oxfam and Moomin Characters launch The Invisible Child campaign to empower women and girls on the official Moomin website moomin.com (English), September 26, 2017, accessed on September 29, 2017.
  15. ↑ Prize winners of the Anni Swan Medal ( Memento of the original from July 7, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Finnish), accessed January 3, 2017. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / ibbyfinland.fi
  16. ↑ Theater plays based on the original work of Tove Jansson on the official Moomin website moomin.com, accessed on January 7, 2017.