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DEATH OF A VALLEY: "DOROTHEA LANGE PHOTOGRAPHING THE DESTRUCTION OF A CALIFORNIA LANDMARK" PIRKLE JONES // 1956 [selenium-toned silver gelatin print | 8 x 10"]

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Sunrise on Winnats Pass, Peak District.

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everyone in moominvalley: wearing beautiful and elaborate flower crowns

little my:

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i only want to live a moomin life. no major worries, growing vegetables, picking flowers, cooking and eating, drinking homemade fruit juices and going to the beach whenever i want. 🌱

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“The fairy-ring mushroom.” Edible. National Geographic. v.37. 1920.

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Gingko Leaves, Photo by Irving Penn, 1990

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The Grotto of the Nymphs, from Pierre Louÿs’ The Songs of Bilitis by Willy Pogany (1926)

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The Hobbit, illustrated by Tove Jansson

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Twisted tree trunks and birds. Die Pflanze in Kunst und Gewerbe. v.2. 1886?

Internet Archive

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Zapotec tiger god, Guide leaflet, 1901

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Hiroshi Yoshida Mt. Rainier. 1925 color woodblock

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Tim Curry aka Frank n Furter 

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Moomin books have many adaptations and one thing fans can always count on is that two adaptations are never alike. Both the environment and characters have many different interpretations. This is not helped by the fact that Tove Jansson herself was prone to adjusting details as best suited her current story and ideas. This means that first Moomin books are notably different than those that came after them, with Moominland Midwinter as a turning point.

Moominvalley itself has been subject of changes between books and adaptations. In the earlier books, it’s described as an almost tropical paradise with fruit trees, warm climate and animals like silk monkeys. It has things like mountains and volcanoes, too. Earlier maps included with the books show this. Later Tove Jansson decided to place her stories in Finland, which notably lacks such tropical nature, volcanoes and mountains (by most definitions, Finland does not have a single mountain). Moominvalley became filled with spruce trees, squirrels and other things familiar to northern nature. Warm climate turned into a cold Finnish November. She even went back and rewrote some of her earlier works, which included turning silk monkey into a kitten. She could not do away with the mountains however so they have stayed around the valley.

Many adaptations have hard time deciding which version of Moominvalley they should go with. In her comics, Tove used different settings depending on the story. She began working on the comic strips in 1954, when she also published her book Moominsummer Madness. By this point, she had not yet changed Moominvalley into the more Finnish version. This means earlier comics have all the lush flowers and fruit trees in the background. However, she also included very northern winter in one of the earlier comics. Eventually Moominvalley became more Finnish in the comics too and Lars Jansson has Moomin family explicitly state that they are from Finland (with many jokes made about this of course).

 Animated adaptation can also have varied takes on Moominvalley. The most popular and commonly known Moomin (1990 TV Show, Tanoshii Mūmin Ikka) had Moominvalley clearly set in Finland. Many things like flora and fauna are surprisingly accurate, even if clearly fantastical most of the time. However, many things like volcanoes and mountains remain, as do some exotic flowers and giant lizards which earlier books had. Many adaptations seem to aim for this kind of blending of elements and it remains to be seen how the upcoming animated series will portray Moominvalley.