I wanted to love this book. I've loved all the Moomintroll books. The characters are real to me, and I love them all, even the naughty ones, like Little My, and the control-freaks called Hemulins.(I think I might be a Fillyjonk, myself.) But I was really surprised to find out how distorted all my favorite characters were in these comic strips.
For example, in the second story, Moominpappa asks Moominmamma to run away with him in search of adventure, not tell anybody, and leave their son at home wondering what happened to them. Moominmamma has some qualms about leaving her son without a word, but Moominpappa wins her over by saying "He'll get along." So they leave, and then Moomintroll is frantic with worry that they've drowned.
This was a real shocker to me! Moominmamma was always the mother everyone wished they had. Soft, round and comforting, her love for her "own, dear Moomintroll" is one of the sweetest things about the books. She makes tea and sandwiches, gives hugs, and takes little lost creatures into her house and treats them like her own children. That she would sneak away from her son without saying a word was beyond belief, considering that Jansson spent eight books building her character as the world's sweetest mother.
In one story, timid little Sniff bullies Moomintroll and cheats rich Aunt Jane out of a lot of money. In another, Moominpappa and the Snork Maiden drag the family to the Riviera for champagne, gambling, and pretending they are rich nobility. By this time I couldn't recognize any of my old friends except Moomintroll himself.
There's nothing really wrong or harmful about this book... except that it's nothing like the original Moomintroll books. Three of the four stories are obsessively about large amounts of money, which is hard to take when you remember Moominmamma as the one who, when she came into a lot of gold nuggets, used them to decorate the edges of her garden. Very little of the action happens in the Finnish forests, with its cast of assorted creeps, woodies, tree-spirits and trolls. I really regretted spending the money to buy this book new.
For those of you who loved the book, don't be angry with me. Remember that Fillyjonks never take well to changes of any sort.