Final Report from Sabbatical Land, or What the Moomintrolls Have Taught Me

So this is it: the end of sabbatical and the beginning of regular old summer. And yes, I have been keeping up with my reading, including the very amazing Finn Family Moomintroll as recommended by Lara Farina. This is a novel for “all ages,” as the cover says, and if you like magical hats one minute and unexplained gloom the next, then you’ll love this book. And yep, that’s them (above), as made in the 1950s by Atelier Fauni, “probably the first original Finnish troll maker” (!).

Anyway!

I’m not entirely sure that I’m following the plot (I’m a poet, after all; plot is not my main concern), but I do know that the muskrat, a philosopher who is reading a book entitled The Uselessness of Everything, fell out of his hammock and was very embarrassed. Also, the Moomin family and their friends found a sailboat and christened it The Adventure and sailed off to Lonely Island where the earless Hattifatteners just happened to be. A ruckus ensued and Hemulen (I can’t explain who he is, so don’t ask, but I do know that he used to collect stamps until, sadly, he collected them all) took the Hattifattener’s prize barometer as a war trophy.

See what I mean? You can’t really follow this, can you? And yet you want to know more. And no, I’m not making any of this up. The book really is a page-turner.

So what have the Moomintrolls taught me? Um. That was pretty much just a teaser. Or, better answer: this book is time-release, just like all truly important experiences, including sabbatical. I’m sure I’m learning things—I just don’t know what yet. Ask me again in a few months... by then, I’ll have written the poems that will answer all your questions.