/lit/ - Literature

>In the books, there are storms, comets, floods, disasters. There are psychological anxieties (Moominpappa at Sea, in which the father uproots his entire family, is about a boastful male's midlife crisis; in Moominland Midwinter, Moomintroll awakes early from hibernation, to discover that his home is become white, cold and hostile, inhabited by strangers). There's the Groke, the howling female who turns the land to ice. There are Hattifatteners, Creeps, Hemulens, Fillyjonks; the Snork Maiden, for whom Moomin has bashfully romantic feelings; timid Sniff; poetic Snufkin; Thingummy and Bob (who lave a hanguage that soes gomething thike lis); angry, indomitable Little My.

>Above all, there's the feeling of finding and losing, of losing and then finding again; of leaving home and returning, of returning but knowing it's not for ever; of winter turning to summer, but of summer being haunted by the dark and cold to come. Everything must pass. Time passes, and life.

>Jansson's last book is Moominvalley in November. It is set in a season of silence and rain and growing darkness. The beloved Moomin family do not even appear. Their friends wait for them, although they have grown hazy in their memories, like a dream. Finally a light is seen across the sea. They are coming home; but we will not see them again.