this is heartbreaking, screamed sniff

[tongari]

I read Moominsummer Madness recently and there was this one scene which I'll type up when I get home, I can't stop thinking about it.

Comments

[motorbike]

When I'm off to Moscow next week I am going to dig up all my old moomin books so that I can reread them! You're very right about the way they put down complex concepts in a single image or line. The moomin world is so sad sometimes, but it's a cozy kind of sadness that I miss ❤

[tongari]

haha yesss most of the really eccentric characters are aware they're 'not ok' by society's standards, but for the ones who are comfortable, it is enough

I just cried through all of the moomin book where everyone wants to visit them but they are not at home. it feels like a metaphor for the end of the series / childhood's passing ;_;

[bladderwrack]

inorite, Tove Jansson's work makes me despair of my own creative output, but at the same time I'm so glad it exists. It is so spare and so vivid, the way she pulls up feelings that most people forget because they do not have the words to describe them. T_T

[bladderwrack]

bah I meant to use the moomins icon (I hope motorbike does not mind, come to think of it)

[tongari]

she makes me want to live on an island, in the snow, amongst fjords!

very often I wonder what kind of person she was to have those thoughts and ideas and express them so clearly (although I don't know if she was the kind of writer who expressed herself or other people in her work)

I do think a big part of the appeal is how her characters are flawed, sometimes almost to the point of cliche, yet you still feel somewhat sorry for them (like the anxious fillyjonk, and the stiff hemulens. the jury is still out on sniff though)