“Was not their mistake once more bred of the life of slavery that they had been living?—a life which was always looking upon everything, except mankind, animate and inanimate—‘nature,’ as people used to call it—as one thing, and mankind as another, it was natural to people thinking in this way, that they should try to make ‘nature’ their slave, since they thought ‘nature’ was something outside them” — William Morris


Wednesday, August 20, 2014

mOOOminland



One of the greatest things about having small children is:

On the other side of the lamp someone had dug herself a cozy hole, someone who lay looking up at the serene winter sky and whistling very softly to herself.

“What song is that?” asked Moomintroll.

“It's a song of myself,” someone answered from the pit. “A song of Too-Ticky, who built a snow lantern, but the refrain is wholly about other things.”

“I see,” said Moomintroll, and seated himself in the snow.

“No, you don't,” replied Too-Ticky genially and rose up enough to show her red-and-white sweater.

“Because the refrain is about the things one can't understand. I'm thinking about the aurora borealis. You can't tell if it really does exist or if it just looks like existing. All things are so very uncertain, and that's exactly what makes me feel reassured.”

She lay down in the snow again and continued looking up at the sky. It was quite black by now.

Moomintroll put up his nose and looked at the sparkling northern lights that probably no Moomin before him had ever seen. They were white and blue and a little green, and they draped the sky in long, fluttering curtains.

“I think it exists,” he said.

Too-Ticky did not reply.

--Tove Jansson

I think perhaps this is one of the greatest things I ever read.

3 comments:

cgerrish said...

As ff Alphonso Lingis wrote children's books.

conor wilson said...

I love Tove Jansson too, having read her as a child and, since, to both my boys. My favorite is 'Comet in Moominland' (still have my childhood copy, which cost 20p!)

It manages to be a delightful children's adventure and a gentle satire on the excesses of scientists and philosophers. To wit:

‘I don’t bother myself over things like cakes,’ said the Muskrat, twisting his moustache solemnly. ‘I don’t see them, taste them or feel them in any way, ever.’

It turns out to be plastered all over his arse, as he has sat on it.

conor wilson said...

I love Tove Jansson too, having read her as a child and, since, to both my boys. My favorite is 'Comet in Moominland' (still have my childhood copy, which cost 20p!)

It manages to be a delightful children's adventure and a gentle satire on the excesses of scientists and philosophers. To wit:

‘I don’t bother myself over things like cakes,’ said the Muskrat, twisting his moustache solemnly. ‘I don’t see them, taste them or feel them in any way, ever.’

It turns out to be plastered all over his arse, as he has sat on it.