A review by lokster71
Moominvalley in November by Tove Jansson
5.0
This is a great book.
It looks like a children's book and it is. But it isn't. It has a depth to it that is totally deceptive. And there is an air of melancholy and loss about it although it never feels bleak. There is a warmth to melancholy that can be can be comforting.
This is a Moomin book without Moomins in it. They aren't there and their absence is at the centre of the book. So, the characters in the book are The Hemulan, Fillyjonk, Toft, Snufkin, Grandpa-Grumble and Mymble. They are all drawn, for various reasons, to the Moominvalley. They're looking for something, but the Moomin family are absent and the book is about how all the other characters cope with their absence.
Each of them deals with it differently and each of them comes through it in a different way, perhaps Fillyjonk is the most changed.
It feels like a story about grief. How you deal with loss. But sometimes I think I am looking too hard for patterns that don't exist. Whatever, it is a wonderful book and the illustrations are superb too.
I never read any Moomin books as a child and I feel that absence now. I wish I had children I could read them too. There's another absence.
Read it. Read it. Read it.
It looks like a children's book and it is. But it isn't. It has a depth to it that is totally deceptive. And there is an air of melancholy and loss about it although it never feels bleak. There is a warmth to melancholy that can be can be comforting.
This is a Moomin book without Moomins in it. They aren't there and their absence is at the centre of the book. So, the characters in the book are The Hemulan, Fillyjonk, Toft, Snufkin, Grandpa-Grumble and Mymble. They are all drawn, for various reasons, to the Moominvalley. They're looking for something, but the Moomin family are absent and the book is about how all the other characters cope with their absence.
Each of them deals with it differently and each of them comes through it in a different way, perhaps Fillyjonk is the most changed.
It feels like a story about grief. How you deal with loss. But sometimes I think I am looking too hard for patterns that don't exist. Whatever, it is a wonderful book and the illustrations are superb too.
I never read any Moomin books as a child and I feel that absence now. I wish I had children I could read them too. There's another absence.
Read it. Read it. Read it.