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Kind: News, Opinion Music Genre: Vocal Categories: Books, Celebrities, Japan Published: December 14, 2009

The Real Moomin by Tove Jansson Most Popular

By TOMOKO YAMASHITA & JOHN A. PHILLIPS

Eight years after Swedish-Finnish novelist and painter Tove Jansson passed away, and the uprise of the Moomin novels and music, the original Moomins continue to be the choice for more people than ever. The popularity can be seen in the number of excursions to Moominvalley in Naantali and the Moomin Museum in Tampere, Finland when searching for the source of witty Little My or the comfort of Moominmamma. But more importantly, many who in their childhood were exposed to the animated series created in Japan, now prefer reading the original novels for themselves and their children, and believe the original books and comic strips are stronger in quality than the TV adaptations. Similarly, the simple music by Japanese Sumio Shiratori has been replaced by the original Moomin music of Jansson and Finnish pianist and songwriter Erna Tauro, which were written for the theater plays in the 50s and 60s.

Tove Jansson wrote her first Moomin novel, The Moomins and the Great Flood in 1945, but had earlier drawn comic strips about little trolls. She said she mainly wanted to amuse herself by creating stories around her pictures, and the stories just went on and on. The style of her books changed as she wrote more of them. Many include supernatural events, such as flying in clouds, and often Moomintroll's wonderment about the world and its size. Jansson's slight sarcasm toward society's opinion about heroic men can be read in The Exploits of Moominpappa, where Moominpappa writes his memoirs about his adventurous youth. (His life in the other books is not so adventurous.) Jansson also likes to contradict herself, and always introduces exceptions. Moominland Midwinter is about Moomintroll waking up by accident from hibernation while the others sleep. He discovers a whole new white world of snow. The later books explore deeper human thoughts and especially Moominvalley in November is often considered not to be a book for children at all. In that last book the Moomins are absent until the very end.

These books were a starting point for Jansson when she wrote theater plays for performances in Helsinki and Stockholm. The Swedish troubadour tradition with songs by Evert Taube and Olle Adolphson were close to the hearts of the Swedish people, and they asked for music in the theater as well. Jansson and Erna Tauro wrote six songs for the first play and continued writing several more later. They were, however, only performed in the theater and never recorded. A complete set of all songs were released in after Jansson's death. In Swedish in 2003 called 'Moomin Voices' with Johanna Grüssner as the singer. But after the audience in Jansson's native Finland demanded a translated version, much like they did for the books earlier, a Finnish version, called 'Muumilauluja', with Mirja Makela and Eeppi Ursin as the performers, was released.

These CDs created lots of attention in Scandinavia right away and a few years later, the Japanese audience woke up to this music and has loved it continuously ever since. The animated series has played an important function, since they popularized Moomin in Japan for a whole generation. But to get to the real source and feel of the material, a trip to Finland with stops in Naantali and Tampere in addition to the capital, Helsinki, is strongly recommended. To get started, it is a good idea to read a few of the Moomin books and listen to the music.

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