This isn’t where the story of my discovery of Tove Jansson’s work starts, but it’s where my blog begins — on a snowy Montreal day, in a small apartment overlooking Square Saint-Louis.
Thirty centimetres of snow have accumulated overnight, on the ground, in the trees, and on the roofs of the Victorian houses that surround the square. Since last night, I’ve been watching pedestrians walk single-file along the narrow path cleared at the edge of the square, in silence, it seems from up here.
I feel that I could look at this quiet, snow-covered corner of the Plateau-Mont-Royal neighbourhood forever, but I’m a bit of an interloper: the window is only mine for a week.
Nevertheless, I am a regular visitor to this part of Montreal, and I’m always buoyed and nourished by the vibe of the Plateau neighbourhood, which seems centred on the values of creativity and community.
These values are also at the heart of writer and artist Tove Jansson‘s personal motto: Labora et Amara: “Work and Love,” in which “work” stands for the creative endeavours that informed her life.
As long as she could draw, write and paint, and see her family and friends, she was usually content.
From The World of Moominvalley, written by Philip Ardagh
As Philip Ardagh writes in The World of Moominvalley, Jansson “took pleasure in the simple things in life — a good view…a comfortable bed. As long as she could draw, write and paint, and see her family and friends, she was usually content.”
This approach to life infuses Jansson’s internationally acclaimed series of Moomin books. “Like Tove, the Moomins appreciate simple comforts and are able to find joyful moments in everyday life. Theirs is a philosophy of love and friendship above all else,” Ardagh writes.
It seems fitting, then, that one of the books I brought with me to Montreal this time around should be a copy of the special collector’s edition of Moominland Midwinter released by UK publisher Sort of Books in October 2017. This special edition was “lovingly produced” to “recreate the look that the first Moomin readers treasured” when the book first appeared in English in 1958.
The Moomins, in case you didn’t know, are kind, philosophical creatures with velvety fur and smooth round snouts, who…sleep all through the winter months, waking up when spring arrives.
From the Sort of Books website
Moominland Midwinter tells the story of Moomintroll who, in an unprecedented development, has woken up early from hibernation while his family continues to sleep.
He has never experienced winter, and “finds himself stranded and alone in a mysterious world blanketed with snow.” Gradually, with the help of a community of friends, he “overcomes his amazement and isolation and…begins to explore the glittering new landscape.”
In this book, Jansson captures the same winter magic and mystery that I am exploring in Montreal, not for the first time, but with the welcome sense of something that is never twice the same.
The great care that went into the design of this gorgeous edition of Moominland Midwinter — the beautiful endpapers, irresistible pull-out map, and pages of Tove Jansson’s original artwork — recall the very values that informed Jansson’s vocation as an artist, and that bring me back to this city.
Work and love; creativity and community.
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Catalogue 