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"I believe many of my readers will thoughtfully lift their snout from the pages of this book every once in a while to exclaim: 'What a Moomin!' or 'This indeed is life!'"

The Exploits of Moominpappa, Tove Jansson
Translated by Thomas Warburton

Date: 2007-04-04 02:07 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
In our household, 'moomin' is a term used for any human/animal who is not Trevor, and also specifically for someone who has just done something stupid ('You MOOMIN!'). Very unfair on moomins, if you ask me, but I didn't start it.

Date: 2007-04-04 02:08 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mevennen.livejournal.com
Sorry - this was me. LJ is a moomin!

Date: 2007-04-04 07:02 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] shewhomust.livejournal.com
It's hard to exclaim "What a Moomin!" without falling into that tone of voice. Though one thing we acquired from my stepfather is a tendency to use "poodle" or occasionally "cloggie" (I have no idea how you spell this in the singular).

Date: 2007-04-04 06:35 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] steepholm.livejournal.com
I think, on due consideration, that this is my favourite Moomin book of all.

Date: 2007-04-04 07:57 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] shewhomust.livejournal.com
I'm having real trouble persuading LJ to accept an answer to this comment, and hope I haven't been spamming you with blank replies: but I've been trying to say that I am now warming to Moominpappa - as a child I regarded it as distinctly inferior to the other books!

Date: 2007-04-04 09:07 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] steepholm.livejournal.com
I think I can see how that might happen - though I only discovered the book as an adult, so can't say for sure. But I think the child-me might have found Moominpappa's portentousness, and the fact that he's only fitfully able to get a distance on his younger self, a bit offputting. I'd have liked a slightly more reliable narrator. Now I find it all rather delightful. Besides, he's not boastful in the way that, say, Toad is boastful, because his self-importance is so clearly borne of a kind of literary insecurity.

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