- Momo (novel)
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Momo 
Cover of recent English editionAuthor(s) Michael Ende Original title Momo Translator Doubleday & Company Inc. Country Germany Language German Genre(s) Fantasy Novel Publisher Thienemann Verlag (German), Puffin Books (English) Publication date 1 January 1973 Published in
English1974 / 1984 Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback) ISBN 0-140-31753-8 OCLC Number 12805336 Momo, also known as The Grey Gentlemen or The Men in Grey, is a fantasy novel by Michael Ende, published in 1973. It is about the concept of time and how it is used by humans in modern societies. The full title in German translates to Momo, or the strange story of the time-thieves and the child who brought the stolen time back to the people. The book won the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis in 1974.
Contents
Plot summary
In the ruins of an amphitheatre just outside an unnamed city lives Momo, a little girl of mysterious origin. She is remarkable in the neighbourhood because she has the extraordinary ability to listen — really listen. By simply being with people and listening to them, she can help them find answers to their problems, make up with each other, and think of fun games. The advice given to people "go and see Momo!" has become a household phrase and Momo makes many friends, especially an honest street-cleaner, Beppo, and a poetic tour guide, Guido.
This pleasant atmosphere is spoiled by the arrival of the Men in Grey, eventually revealed as a race of paranormal parasites stealing the time of humans. Appearing in the form of grey-clad, grey-skinned, bald men, these strange individuals present themselves as representing the Timesavings Bank and promote the idea of "timesaving" among the population: Supposedly, time can be deposited to the Bank and returned to the client later with interest. After encountering the Men in Grey, people are made to forget all about them but not about the resolution to save as much time as possible for later use. Gradually, the sinister influence of the Men in Grey affects the whole city: life becomes sterile, devoid of all things considered time-wasting, like social activities, recreation, art, imagination, or sleeping. Buildings and clothing are made exactly the same for everyone and the rhythms of life become hectic. In reality the more time people save the less they have; the time they save is actually lost to them. Instead, it is consumed by the Men in Grey in the form of cigars made from the dried petals of the hour: lilies that represent time. Without these cigars the Men in Grey cannot exist.
Momo, however, is a wrench in the plans of the Timesaving Bank thanks to her special personality. The Men in Grey try various plans to take care of her, derailing her from stopping their scheme, but they all fail. When even her closest friends fall under the influence of the Men in Grey in one way or another, Momo's only hope to save the time of mankind is the personification of Time Professor Secundus Minutus Hora (Second Minute Hour) and Cassiopeia, a tortoise which can communicate through writing on her shell and can see thirty minutes into the future. Momo's adventure will take her from the depths of her heart, where her own time flows from in the form of lovely hour-lilies, to the lair of the Men in Grey themselves, where the time people believe they save is hoarded.
Major themes
Like his well-known work The Neverending Story, Michael Ende uses fantasy and symbolism to deal with real world matters such as the nature and importance of time, the power of stories, friendship, compassion and the value of the small but pleasant things that make life more worth living. For these reasons Momo is a popular work of Ende, right after The Neverending Story.
The main theme of Momo can be seen as a criticism of consumerism and stress. It describes the personal and social losses produced by unnecessary consumption, and the danger to be driven by a hidden interest group with enough power to induce people into this life style. Michael Ende has also claimed to have had the concept of aging money in mind when writing Momo.[1]
Childhood is also an important subject in many of Ende's books. In Momo it is used to offer contrast with the adult society. As children have "all the time in the world", they are a difficult target for the Men in Grey: children can't be convinced that their games are time-wasting. The author uses a mockery of Barbie doll and other expensive toys as symbols to show how anyone can be persuaded, even indirectly, into consumerism.
Literary significance & criticism
An article by philosopher David Loy and literature professor Linda Goodhew called Momo "one of the most remarkable novels of the late twentieth century".[2] They further state that: "One of the most amazing things about Momo is that it was published in 1973. Since then, the temporal nightmare it depicts has become our reality."
Ende himself has said that "Momo is a tribute of gratitude to Italy and also a declaration of love,"[3] indicating that the author idealized the Italian way of life. Loy and Goodhew suggested that Ende's perspective on time coincided with his interest in Buddhism and that for example the deliberately slow character of Beppo might be regarded as a Zen master, even though Ende wrote the book long before his visits to Japan.[4]
When the book was published in the U.S. in 1985, Natalie Babbit from the Washington Post commented: "Is it a children's book? Not here in America."[5] Momo was republished by puffin press on January 19, 2009.[6]
Adaptations
- Momo was made into a film of Italian/German production in 1986, in which Michael Ende himself played a small role as the narrator who encounters Professor Hora (performed by John Huston) at the beginning of the film (and at the end of the book).[7] The role of Momo was performed by German actress and model Radost Bokel.
- There have been a number of stage adaptations, including an opera written by Ende himself and an English language version by Andy Thackeray.
- The story of Momo plays a central role in the Korean drama My Lovely Sam Soon.
- A German dramatized audiobook untder the title Momo (novel)|Momo (Karussell/Universal Music Group 1984, directed by Anke Beckert, narrated by Harald Leipnitz, music by Frank Duval, 3 parts on LP and MC, 2 parts on CD)
Translations
The book was published the first time 1973 in Germany as Momo. The original English translation The Grey Gentleman was published in 1974. The new English translation Momo was published in 1984.
There is also a Spanish translation: "Momo, o la extraña historia de los ladrones del tiempo y la niña que devolvió el tiempo a los hombres". It was made by Susana Constante in 1978 for Ediciones Alfaguara, being a great success in Spain and LatinAmerica, having dozens of reprints since.
Momo has also been translated into Persian and published several times (first time in 1988) by Zarrin Publishers in Tehran. At the time of publication, it enjoyed great popularity in Iran, but due to the absence of any new printings since 1992, it is now inaccessible to the Iranian children. This, along with a stop in publishing other children's books by German and other European writers, is part of an ongoing trend in publishing American and English children's fiction in Iran.
Momo has also been translated into Dutch, Russian, Japanese, Greek, Norwegian, Swedish, Icelandic, Serbian, Korean, Hebrew, Italian, Slovenian, Galician, Thai and Bulgarian.[9][10][11]
Sources
- ^ Michael Ende's last words to the Japanese.
- ^ Goodhew, Linda; and Loy, David, Momo, Dogen, and the Commodification of Time, KronoScope, Volume 2, Number 1, 2002, pp. 97-107(11).
- ^ Talk with Ende, Michiko and Fumi Koyasu, Asahi Journal, 1986
- ^ Goodhew, Linda; and Loy, David, Momo, Dogen, and the Commodification of Time, KronoScope, Volume 2, Number 1, 2002, pp. 97-107(11). See also "The Dharma of Time: Michael Ende's Momo," ch. 3 in Loy and Goodhew, The Dharma of Dragons and Daemons: Buddhist Themes in Modern Fantasy (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2004).
- ^ Momo Book Reviews
- ^ Lost Book Archives: Momo (review by Emily Mah, January 25, 2001
- ^ Momo (1986) at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ Momo alla conquista del tempo (2001) at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ http://gegnir.is:80/F/D8QKKPV92INCJK2VT17EXAGBAV4KX96U7FTN2HYV9YU4GDU8BV-36896?func=full-set-set&set_number=032214&set_entry=000007&format=999
- ^ http://cobiss6.izum.si/scripts/cobiss?ukaz=DISP&id=1004428757299912&rec=9&sid=1
- ^ http://www.bgbook.dir.bg/book.php?ID=5728
External links
Categories:- 1973 novels
- German fantasy novels
- German novels
- German children's literature
- Novels about orphans
- Fictional orphans
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