Tove Jansson's criticized illustrations of The Hobbit (2023)
tovejansson.com
Tove Jansson's criticized illustrations of The Hobbit (2023)
1–10 of 129 posts
Re: Tove Jansson's criticized illustrations of The Hobbit (2023)
#2The dragon is just great. These are so charming.
Re: Tove Jansson's criticized illustrations of The Hobbit (2023)
#3As someone who loved the Moomintroll illustrations I find this both familiar and hilarious. I suppose I might have a different opinion if I'd actually read any of Tolkien's works.
> "She even made some of the characters especially tiny to elevate the landscapes." wish there were more examples of this in the images shown in the article.
Re: Tove Jansson's criticized illustrations of The Hobbit (2023)
#4I... actually really liked these. And yes, sure, they aren't completely obedient to Tolkien's descriptions of the characters, but the atmosphere feels right.
But then again, I grew up with the Moomins.
Re: Tove Jansson's criticized illustrations of The Hobbit (2023)
#5These are lovely. I knew about the Moomins of course but I didn't know about the other stuff she did, some of which I really like. I wish the website had more of the illustrations but I guess there might be copyright issues.
I'd be particularly interested in seeing more of her illustrations for Alice in Wonderland and The Hunting of the Snark (the latter is a great poem if you haven't read it: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/29888/29888-h/29888-h.htm)
Re: Tove Jansson's criticized illustrations of The Hobbit (2023)
#6I'd have to see more to have a final thought.
As presented, Gollum is badly off, I reckon - missing the books textual description. The flowers are out of line.
The dragon scene is wonderful and captures the situation.
The dwarves are a bit dopy looking but I think could cohere with the early introduction in the Hobbit.
Re: Tove Jansson's criticized illustrations of The Hobbit (2023)
#7I'd have to see more to have a final thought. As presented, Gollum is badly off, I reckon - missing the books textual description. The flowers are out of line. The dragon scene is wonderful and captures the situation. The dwarves are a bit dopy looking but I think could cohere with the early introduction in the Hobbit.
> As presented, Gollum is badly off, I reckon - missing the books textual description. The flowers are out of line.
This is addressed in the article. "Paul Gravett writes in his new book about Tove Jansson: ‘Her Gollum towered monstrously large, to the surprise of Tolkien himself, who realized that he had never clarified Gollum’s size and so amended the second edition to describe him as ‘a small, slimy creature’."
We have Jansson to thank for the clarification, it seems!
Re: Tove Jansson's criticized illustrations of The Hobbit (2023)
#8I... actually really liked these. And yes, sure, they aren't completely obedient to Tolkien's descriptions of the characters, but the atmosphere feels right. But then again, I grew up with the Moomins.
Moomins don't depict anything like saving the world, it's a whimsical universe dealing with whimsical non-issues.
I can see why Tolkien lovers are upset at these even though I'm not really one of them.
Re: Tove Jansson's criticized illustrations of The Hobbit (2023)
#9I... actually really liked these. And yes, sure, they aren't completely obedient to Tolkien's descriptions of the characters, but the atmosphere feels right. But then again, I grew up with the Moomins.
Moomins don't depict anything like saving the world, it's a whimsical universe dealing with whimsical non-issues. I can see why Tolkien lovers are upset at these even though I'm not really one of them.
The Hobbit is also a whimsical children's book, and doesn't have anything to do with saving the world (a world that Tolkien had not developed anywhere near the state in we see in LoTR when he wrote The Hobbit almost 20 years earlier).
Re: Tove Jansson's criticized illustrations of The Hobbit (2023)
#10I... actually really liked these. And yes, sure, they aren't completely obedient to Tolkien's descriptions of the characters, but the atmosphere feels right. But then again, I grew up with the Moomins.
Moomins don't depict anything like saving the world, it's a whimsical universe dealing with whimsical non-issues. I can see why Tolkien lovers are upset at these even though I'm not really one of them.
Somewhat whimsical, yet somewhat grappling with dark undertones, possibly due to the trauma of the war.
The moomins starts with a great flood that washes them all away to live in a new place (I think this is a parallel to the Finns moving out of Karelia after the war. I believe this was the largest migration of people that had occured at the time, and it has been described as causing generational trauma to the Finnish).
In addition I believe MoominPappa deals with issues of depression or something?