Moomin History

“…when I discovered the library, and wanted to read every damned thing. I went absolutely through it. I went not knowing they were sexy novels, but read sexy novels and Tove Jansson and Just William. I read anything that I saw…”

When Terry Pratchett died in 2015, the door closed on a whole universe. Aside from the publication of his final book, The Shepherd’s Crown, his daughter was adamant that there would be no more books forthcoming. No compendiums of uncompleted works and most certainly nobody carrying on the torch.  We’re a bit luckier with Tove Jansson. Although Moominvalley in November was ostensibly the final book, the comic strips continued for another five years courtesy of Lars, and archive material does leak out from time to time (hence this blog).

Pratchett was a voracious reader and skilled at inserting wry homages into his work. His love of Sci-Fi legend Larry Niven is evident from his second novel, Strata, which is essentially a parody of Niven’s classic, Ringworld. Even in Going Postal, there is an analogy of a golem’s belief that time is circular and his patience in waiting for it to come around and repeat itself; much like Seeker’s quest for the Base of the Arch in the same Niven book. The Moomin references are more subtle but they’re there, they’re there…

Perhaps the most evident one is in Thud! Where a demonic entity called The Summoning Dark heralds its arrival with a recurring symbol, an eye with a tail. First appearing as a sign scratched in the blood of a dying dwarf, the symbol pops up repeatedly throughout the book; here as a fallen hosepipe and an onion, there as an assortment of toys in a nursery, again as fallen pieces on a gaming board. Undoubtedly, there’s a parallel with the appearance of the star-with-a-tail symbol in Comet in Moominland.

In Making Money, Moist von Lipwig’s brush with death whilst scaling the wall of the Ankh-Morpork Post Office echoes Fillyjonk’s narrow escape from peril in Moominvalley in November; and Wee Mad Arthur’s barking instructions to Sergeant Colon whilst sitting on his head in Feet of Clay (‘Someone landed on his helmet and kicked it like a man spurs on a horse. “Right turn! Forward!”’) is a riff on Little My marching Moomin across the ice floes in Moominland Midwinter.

I daresay that I’ve missed a few. That’s a good excuse to re-read the entire Pratchett canon, isn’t it?