What is a Meerschaum Tram?
November 29, 2011 12:36 PM   Subscribe

What is a meerschaum tram?

Tove Jansson writes of Moominpappa having a "meerschaum tram". Moominpappa mentions it frequently as one of his prized possessions.

I know what meerschaum is, and I know what a tram is, but this thing is described as being more like a tapestry than anything else. So, my thinking is that either Jansson is just being sweetly surreal, OR (more enticingly still) I am just missing some Finnish/Swedish cultural reference.

Please help.
posted by everichon to Writing & Language (3 answers total)
 
Best answer: It is a model of a tram made out of meerschaum.

Later in the book Salome the Creep sleeps in the Meerschaum tram and the Moomins use it to store small items. I think there is even a picture of Salome in the tram at some point in the book.

Just finished re-reading it to the kids -- it is one of their favorite books!
posted by LittleMy at 12:40 PM on November 29, 2011


Response by poster: Aha! I just found corroboration in an excerpt up at Powells: "It lay, as usual, under the little meerschaum tram car, and it was very much like the other spring letters that Snufkin had left behind when he went off to the South each year in October." (Emphasis mine)

Thank you!
posted by everichon at 1:03 PM on November 29, 2011


Ha, that puzzled me too when I read it in pre-google days.

Now... does anyone know what a preserved smoke ring is?
posted by Sebmojo at 6:57 PM on November 29, 2011 [1 favorite]


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