Epigraph for this journal

[shewhomust]

"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

Comments

[(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.

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

Sorry - this was me. LJ is a moomin!

[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).

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I think, on due consideration, that this is my favourite Moomin book of all.

[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!

[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.