Michael Ende, 'Momo'

Michael Ende's novel 'Momo' is a work that gained fame when it appeared in the drama 'My Name Is Kim Sam-soon.' But I have good memories of it in that, since my parents happened to buy me this novel before it appeared in that drama, I read it with a fairly 'pure attitude.' This is something I feel after reading this novel several times, but it is not simply trying to talk about the concept of 'time.' 'Momo' is a novel that even carries a somewhat socially critical feel.

The situations where 'time' is split and split, one piece at a time, counted in units of 'seconds,' and then a 'value' is attached to it, making ordinary people subordinate to 'time'—these were truly hard for me at the age of a third-year middle schooler when I first read it. Because back when I was in the third year of middle school, my concept of 'time' was still vague, and it was a period when I didn't know it was this precious (now I do feel it's precious, though that's a somewhat different story from the 'preciousness of time' the novel speaks of). So to me, the saying 'the slower, the faster' began to seem like a truth.

The saying 'the slower, the faster' is itself a saying that is truly both right and wrong. (There is certainly two-sidedness to every saying, but if you start acknowledging two-sidedness because of that, there's no end to it, so this kind of saying is a bit dangerous.) I've felt many times, and actually seen, that doing something quickly is not necessarily good. But that doesn't mean being slow is necessarily good either. Because I remember times when, even when it was truly a moment to act quickly, the saying 'the slower, the faster' began to circle in my head and I didn't do the things I should have done in time.

As industrialization progressed, modern society was gradually becoming 'individualized.' 'Momo' expressed well, in a roundabout way, one aspect of this 'individualizing' society. The situation of people being chased by work and unable to do anything was not unlike today's society. Of course, the situation of the novel itself is not the year 2011. It gives the feeling that at least 10 years have passed. Only, it seems there was, to some degree, a hidden 'authorial intent' that this problem of 'individualization' itself would not have changed even back then. And the author spread that intent throughout the novel.

If you ask me what good listening is, I say, 'Listening like Momo is good listening.' Two friends—one a friend full of 'lies,' the other a friend with a 'philosopher's' temperament. These two tell stories to Momo. And they enjoy themselves, and Momo enjoys it too.

Actually, it hasn't been long since I got used to listening. When I became a college student I suddenly began to get used to listening, and later I was even thinking about what words to throw out when I wanted to draw out the other person's story, and there's no big difference now either. Only, I'm feeling that this year I'm trying to 'express' my own opinions a bit more. And by expressing my opinions, I try to obtain 'something' that I want. But Momo was very different from me. I'm not sure how it came to be, but Momo was someone whose own opinions hardly ever came out. (It's not that she doesn't speak in the novel, but Momo clearly speaks little.) The question of why Momo behaved like this... wouldn't leave my head. Is it that the 'species' that is me can't understand this kind of behavior? That's a matter worth contemplating on my own, but it's just a shame that I don't have the leisure to think about it right now.

The act of 'listening' is not simply 'hearing' someone's words. With what intent they speak, why they speak, how that person feels right now, whether they're saying these words because they want to—because these small things are dissolved into 'speaking,' most people come to know the speaker little by little as they 'listen.' I learned tarot reading. One of the reasons I learned tarot was that I wanted to make the 'other person' speak and listen to them. Of course I didn't do tarot for most of the people I know. I did it only for people I deemed 'worth doing it for.' From a young age, for reasons I didn't know, I had a delicate side and was easily hurt. It's true I've become numb to it now, but still there are times I get deeply hurt. That kind of hurt seems to get worse when I hear ill words about work I achieved by pouring in painstaking effort. So I don't readily tell others stories about these wounds. Because they're far too private an emotion of mine. But for someone truly trustworthy, I would tell them. About 5 people so far?? Telling them my precious stories, I felt a comfort of my own. And I wanted to let others feel this comfort too. That's how tarot became a part of me. And along the way, I naturally came to think about 'listening' many times.

My mother told me this kind of story many times. "Among my friends there are so many who love to talk that when I go to meet them, I (mother) just sit there and the other people do all the talking. I don't understand why they tell their own stories in such thorough detail, but I (mother) am the type who speaks little, so I often just come back having listened. So there's hardly any of your (my) story." As in this story, in modern times people increasingly want to tell their own stories and set their hearts on having someone listen. But there aren't that many people who can actually listen. So maybe that's why people like a 'listening friend.' And maybe that's also the reason my mother seems to meet her friends so often.