Welcome to my commonplace blog

The goal of this blog is to preserve a few ideas and quotes from books I read. In the old days when books were not so readily available, people kept "commonplace books" where they copied choice passages they wanted to be able to remember and perhaps reuse. The idea got picked up by V.F.D. and it's common knowledge that most of that organization's volunteers have kept commonplace books, and so have Laura and I.

I'm sure there are many other Internet sites and blogs dedicated to the same idea. But this one is mine. Feel free to look around and leave comments, but not spam.

03 September 2010

Finn Family Moomintroll (Tove Jansson)

Finn Family Moomintroll (original Swedish title Trollkarlens hatt, ‘The Magician's Hat’) is the third in the series of Tove Jansson's Moomins books, published in 1948. It owes its title in translation to the fact that it was the first Moomin book to be published in English, and was actually marketed as the first in the series until the 1980s. (Wikipedia)

A nice book, perhaps a gentler introduction to the world of the Moomins than "Coment in Moominland", but still, if you read "Comet" first, you get to know most of the main characters as Moomintroll did.


Quotes:

Far out to sea lay the Hattifatteners' Lonely Island, surrounded by reefs and breakers. (Once a year the Hattifatterners collect there before setting out again on their endless foraging expedition round the world. They come from all points of the compass, silent and serious with their small, white empty faces, and why they hold this yearly meeting it is difficult to say, as they can neither hear nor speak, and have no object in life but the distant goal of their journey's end. Perhaps they like to have a place where they feel at home and can rest a little and meet friends.)

Moomintroll was left alone on the bridge. He watched Snufkin grow smaller and smaller, and at last disappear among the silver poplars and the plum trees. But after a while he heard the mouth-organ playing "All small beasts should have bows in their tails," and then he knew that his friend was happy. He waited while the music grew fainter and fainter, till at last it was quite quiet, and then he trotted back through the dewy garden.

No comments:

Post a Comment