“And so Moomintroll
was helplessly thrown out in a strange and dangerous world and dropped up to
his ears in the first snowdrift of his experience. It felt unpleasantly prickly
to his velvet skin, but at the same time his snout caught a new smell. It was a
more serious smell than any he had felt before, and slightly frightening. But
it made him wide awake and greatly interested.”
Moominland Midwinter is the story of the winter in which,
unusually, Moomintroll wakes too early from his winter hibernation and so is
thrust into a terrifying yet exciting new world. For no Moomin before has
experienced winter.
If you haven’t experienced the Moomintrolls, let me explain
a little about them. These are the creation of Tove Jansson (who you may be
aware that I love, possibly), a family of hippo-like creatures and their
extended friends and family. I was unfortunate not to experience the Moomins as
a child, as all the Moomin books are magical reads. They are gentle and
endearing, yet never once do they patronise and it is, perhaps, this quality
which has resulted in those often-seen spin-offs like Moomintroll’s Book ofThoughts
In Moominland Midwinter, Moomintroll decides to strike out
on his own having awakened early from his winter hibernation. Consequently he
is thrust into a strange and uncertain land, filled with unusual creatures and
scary encounters. This is the classic ‘coming of age’ story in which the
protagonist must embark on some adventure of their own, to be challenged and
found wanting, to rely on their own skills and capabilities, in order to
discover themselves. In the beginning Moomintroll finds winter incredibly
frustrating. He is angry, angry at himself for being awake, angry at the
strangeness of the world, angry at the loneliness, the isolation, angry at the
absent sun. He is unsettled by a world that doesn’t make sense to him. As he
describes here:
“’Sing all you want,’
Moomintroll muttered, angry to the point of crying. ‘Sing about your horrible
winter with the black ice and unfriendly snow-horses, and people who never
appear but only hide and are queer!’
He tramped up the
slope, he kicked at the snow, his tears froze on his snout, and suddenly he
started to sing his own song.
He sang it at the top
of his voice, so that Too-ticky would hear it and be put out.
This was Moomintroll’s
angry summer song:
Listen, winter creatures, who have sneaked the sun away,
Who are hiding in the dark and making all the valley grey:
I am utterly alone, and I’m tired to the bone,
And I’m sick enough of snowdrifts just to lay me down and groan.
I want my blue verandah and the glitter of the sea
And I tell you one and all that your winter’s not for me!
‘Just you wait until
my sun’s coming back to look at you, and then you’ll all look silly, all of
you,’ Moomintroll shouted and didn’t even care about his rhymes anymore…”
Though Moomintroll wakes without his family, he is not
alone. He is surrounded, instead, by a fascinating cast of characters like the
wise and matter-of-fact Too-ticky, who is used to great effect here in helping
Moomintroll come to terms with winter, without sentimentality. Too-ticky has
the best lines, the greatest aplomb in the whole book and it is always wonderful
when Too-ticky appears. Like here, as Too-ticky watches Moomintroll carry out a
daring rescue:
“Too-ticky stood
looking on for a while, and then she went inside the bathing-house and put a
kettle of water on the stove. ‘Quite, quite,’ she thought with a little sigh. ‘It’s
always like this in their adventures. To save and be saved. I wish somebody
would write a story sometime about the people who warm up the heroes
afterwards.’
Or here as Too-ticky explains about snow:
“’Tell me about the
snow,’ Moomintroll said and seated himself in Moominpappa’s sun-bleached garden
chair. ‘I don’t understand it.’
‘I don’t either,’ said
Too-ticky. ‘You believe it’s cold, but if you build yourself a snowhouse it’s
warm. You think it’s white, but at times it looks pink, and another time it’s
blue. It can be softer than anything, and then again harder than stone. Nothing
is certain.’”
Nothing is certain is classic Moomintroll wisdom. Truths
delivered without window dressing, without dumbing it down. It is the
matter-of-factness about Moomin stories which is often so enticing, endearing.
Along with Too-ticky, Little My (who I think is my favourite) is an unexpected companion for Moomintroll, also waking unexpectedly
for winter. Little My is awesome! She is fearless, devilish, she does exactly
what she wants exactly as she wants to. Unlike Moomintroll who struggles to
accommodate winter’s strangeness into his comforting summer world, Little My
confronts it, teeth bared, eking every new experience out of it that she can.
Like here as she wakes from her winter sleep:
“Little My gave a snort
and climbed out of the cardboard box. She closed the lid on her sister, who was
still asleep, and went over and felt the snow with her paw.
‘So this is what it’s
like,’ she said. ‘Funny ideas people get.’ She squeezed a snowball and hit the
squirrel on the head with her first throw. And then Little My stepped out from
the cave to take possession of winter.
The first thing she
accomplished was to slip on the icy cliff and sit down very hard.
‘I see,’ Little My
said in a threatening voice. ‘They think
they’ll get away with anything.’
Then she happened to
think of what a My looks like with her legs in the air, and she chuckled to
herself for quite a while. She inspected the cliff and the hillside and thought
a bit. Then she said: ‘Well now,’ and did a jumpy switchback slide far out on
the smooth ice.
She repeated this six
times more and noticed that it made her tummy cold.
Little My went back
into the cave and turned her sleeping sister out of the cardboard box. My had
never seen a toboggan, but she had a definite feeling there were many sensible
ways of using a cardboard box.”
Winter is not all Little My takes possession of!
Nothing very much happens in Moominland Midwinter. The
threats aren’t really very threatening and the adventures nothing striking
either. There is, however, a sense of Moomintroll entering a world that is
strange and different, confronting a form of life of which he has no experience
and in which he doesn’t belong. Through the darkness and cold of winter,
Jansson shows us a child entering the adult world, facing the difficulties and
responsibilities, confronting change and finding it emotionally difficult. It
is a gentle and yet extraordinarily honest story, heaped with wisdom and
unvarnished truth. In the end, Moomintroll makes winter his own, just as a
child enters the adult world, through ordinary adversity and the aid of good,
and wise friends.
Moomintroll Midwinter, along with all the Moomin books, is a
fabulous read for children. Good for the independent reader, perhaps 8 years
and older, or good for a bedtime story over several nights for the younger
listener. And great for parents too, who may appreciate some of the
complexities being explored through these delightful, soulful creatures.
