What I remember about the article is that it said that Jansson was a famous children's author, Scandinavian, a lesbian, the inventor of goofy characters called the Moomins that have theme parks dedicated to them in Finland and Japan; that she led a happy life; that she died an old woman. It also described the plot of a an adult novel of hers, which was a kind of battle of the wills between two women artists living together: the younger one was more willful and overbearing, but the older one was an established artist, owned the house and was rich. So that she was the one who ended up "winning" in the end. Something like that.
Anyways, in the library, what I found was "Comet in Moominland", a children's novel about a mysterious comet that seems to be headed straight for Moominvalley, where a family of nice hippopotamus-like creatures called Moomins live together with other strange and whimsical characters that have funny names. The book follows the child Moomin character on his journey of discovery and aventure, venturing daringly far from his house, through the woods and to the seashore. There are lots of sweet and slightly surreal episodes, like when he escapes from the crocodiles who are distracted by his trousers or goes to the observatory in the Lonely Mountains to talk to the Professors or rescues the Snork Maiden from a deadly bush... But all the while the comet is approaching, ominously getting bigger and filling the sky...
The sense of eery foreboding that the approach of the comet gives to all of the charming adventure vignettes is very poignant and peculiar. The story quivers with a living charge of anxiety that feels so different than the safe blandness of most children's books. Indeed, "Comet in Moominland" was published in 1946, and, no doubt, recent memories of the war can account for the looming celestial threat on the Moomins... Unlike Hitler's Europe though, you will be glad to learn that, in the end, Moominvalley was spared.
In the collection of short stories called "Tales from Moomin Valley" that was also available at the library, there were these great little stories that all seemed to center on the issue of what attitude to adopt, when confronted with the vagaries, the dissapointents and uncertainties of life. No less! A deep and portentous topic that Jansson treats with grace and elegance: she never moralizes or preaches, but rather inventively illustrates — with great psychological insight, wry humour, and a vivid imagination — the subtle wisdom that leads to true independence and fullfilment and freedom. So very inspiring... and great fun!
My favorite story is that of the Fillyjonk, a neurotic female creature who lives alone in a rented seaside house that is simply too big for her and that she cannot manage to make cosy and welcoming, despite filling it with her beloved possessions. The house is just too big and her familiar knick-knacks and gew-gaws look all wrong in it. Since the morning, when she was washing her rug in the sea, the Fillyjonk has had a sense of foreboding. She is convinced something terrible will happen — despite the calm of the air and the bright sunshine. The Fillyjonk invites her stuck-up bourgeois neighbour Gaffie for a tea party, and she tries to talk about her feeling of dread to get some relief or perhaps reassurance, but the neighbour doesn't want to listen; she thinks the Fillyjonk's fears are ridiculous and unseemly. They argue and the neighbour leaves in a huff. After she has left, night falls and the Fillyjonk's fears seem to be fulfilled as a huge storm appears out of nowhere and in a crescendo of destruction rips through the house and scatters all of the Fillyjonk's favorite possessions. In a panic, she runs outside — but there, exposed to the storm, she discovers that her fear gradually dissapears... That she is not so bothered by the crashing inside the house or by her broken things. By morning, when the storm has blown over, carrying away the house's roof and all the knick-knacks she had obsessed over, instead of feeling crushed, the Fillyjonk is elated, and laughs out loud when the neighbour come to apologize for not taking her fear seriously and bemoan her loss. But the Fillyjonk feels no loss: at last, she is free from her obsessions!
Jansson explores our complicated moods — our fears and our expectations; through the her odd, idiosyncratic creatures, she sympathetically examines the difficulty of living together with others, of loving, of making sense of things, in the midst of the glorious, mysterious, dangerous natural world in which we live.
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