Comet in Moominland (The Moomins, #2) in Around the World in 80 Books

Jul 29, 2007 Suvi rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: children, _europe-northern, 1940-1969, _book-shelf

Re-read 3.1.2025
(No change in rating.)
Believing in bliss and sweetness as long as it's possible, hoping that mothers can fix everything, dancing with strangers and eating marmalade sandwiches in the face of doom, and thinking how impossible it would be to live without forests, sea, wind, sunshine, grass, and moss.

Starting my year with an apocalyptic mood. An Earth-nuking apocalypse is pretty much the worst thing that could make my 2025 more horrible than 2024.

Re-read 2.4.2020
(No change in rating Re-read 3.1.2025
(No change in rating.)
Believing in bliss and sweetness as long as it's possible, hoping that mothers can fix everything, dancing with strangers and eating marmalade sandwiches in the face of doom, and thinking how impossible it would be to live without forests, sea, wind, sunshine, grass, and moss.

Starting my year with an apocalyptic mood. An Earth-nuking apocalypse is pretty much the worst thing that could make my 2025 more horrible than 2024.

Re-read 2.4.2020
(No change in rating.)

15.6.2014
Like so many Finnish children of a certain generation, I grew up watching the Moomins tv-series (there are still reruns every once in a while, and the magic has never faded) and visited Moomin World. Now, to honor Tove Jansson's centenary, I started a project of reading all her Moomin books. Maybe the rest of her body of work as well, if I have the time or enthusiasm.

When the 1992 animated movie premiered in Finland, my mom took me to see it. The part where Muskrat sits on the cake was funny, but mostly the oppressive mood stayed with me. I don't remember the happy ending, but I do remember the part where creatures big and small were hurrying away from Moominvalley with all their possessions, the frantic search for the kitten, and the red sky that reminded of the impending doom.

The book is very similar to the movie with minor differences (the change of the chump Silk Monkey into a kitten worked better in my opinion), and has echoes of nuclear explosions and their scorching power to destroy everything. Everyone in the valley has their way of surviving in the middle of an increasing dread of an uncertain future. Moominmamma just keeps going with her chores and bakes a cake, but Moomintroll and Sniff travel to the Observatory of the Lonely Mountains to find out more about the approaching comet. On their journey they meet other familiar characters who join the Moomin family.

The contrast between them all works great (Sniff is a selfish whiner, the fickle Snork Maiden is vain and loves beautiful things, and the practical Snork is obsessed about details and having meetings about everything). There's a little of them in all of us. Snufkin is my favorite, and here we meet him for the first time. He sees beauty even in the starkest of sceneries and proves to be a great asset to the group with his experience in adventures.

"It was a funny little path, winding here and there, dashing off in different directions, and sometimes even tying a knot in itself from sheer joy. (You don't get tired of a path like that, and I'm not sure that it doesn't get you home quicker in the end."

...more

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