The Book About Moomin, Mymble and Little My, Tove Jansson (365 Books, Day 210)

[rushthatspeaks]

This is an early Moomin picture book, notable for two reasons: its divergences from the way people are in the novels (the Hemulen loves housecleaning and the Fillyjonk is kind of creepy, which is brainbreaking), and its absolutely amazing use of cutwork and holes in the book.

You don't have to like the Moomins or know who these people are to appreciate the illustrations. The simple story involves Moomintroll looking for Little My, whom everyone believes is lost; he and the Mymble travel through forests, mountains, and caves, and each double-page spread has a different set of cutouts in the paper. All of the cutouts work both with the page after and with the page before. Some of them go down multiple layers.

So you'll get a spread of a dark forest path, in which the spaces between two trees are cutouts that show the next page, which is the meadow just outside the forest-- you can see the space outside the forest through the trees just as you would in real life. And there's a further cutout you can see just a part of, going down a second page, which gives you just one ray of sunshine.

Flip the page, and you get the meadow; the tree cutouts are now looking back into the picture of the dark forest we just left, and the full extent of the sun cutout is revealed, so we can see the whole meadow bathed in sunlight.

Every single illustration in the book is that well planned, or better. The compositions are arranged such that bits of the picture you didn't know were significant pop into relief in the cutout the second you flip the page.

It is such a tour de force that it almost feels petty to mention that the translated text is terribly rhymed and scanned, and also doesn't make very much sense. Honestly, I'd ignore it entirely-- you can follow what plot there is perfectly well from the pictures. And should. This is one of those picture books everyone can examine and be dazzled by.

Comments

[q10.livejournal.com]

i've never heard of this ‘Moomin’, and, when i first saw the title of this post, in the split-second before i processed the letters in the right order, i somehow got ‘Book of Moom*n’

and i was wondering if somebody had written a humorous retelling of the Book of Mormon in which all of the characters were domestic bovines.

my brain finished with the letters and the moment passed.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

... you've heard about the current Broadway musical The Book of Mormon, yes? No bovines, but.

You might like the Moomin books. They are lovely and complicated and melancholy and very, very Finnish. One of those things I hadn't known was missing in my life until I read them.

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

Where ought one start with them, for best effect?

-Nameseeker

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

I started with Finn Family Moomintroll, and think it is the correct place to start; from there I'd go to Moominsummer Madness, and after that anywhere. My favorite is Moominland Midwinter but I think it works better if you know who the people are.

[deliasherman.livejournal.com]

Yes, I love that one. Last year in Finland was a Moomin/Jansson extravaganza for me. I'd loved the Moomins kind of abstractly, remembering library books (I don't even know which ones) read when I was small, but I didn't own any or remember details. Now, I'm read everything I can get my hands on--adult stuff, comics, illustrated books. Sometimes the translations are lame as one-legged ducks (as is this one), but the pictures always save the day.

Have you read Fair Play? I'm looking for that next.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

I have not read Fair Play. The only Jansson I've read are the Moomin novels, though I am acquiring a copy of The Summer Book pretty soon.