Michael Ende

In the darkness, light is seen, like a miracle. I see a light, but I don't know from where. Either he is far away, or as if - right here ... I don’t know what the name of that light is. Only - whoever you are, star - You, as before, always shine on me! Irish children's song

Part one. MOMO AND HER FRIENDS

Chapter first. BIG CITY AND LITTLE GIRL

In ancient, ancient times, when people still spoke languages ​​that are now completely forgotten, large and beautiful cities already existed in warm countries. There rose the palaces of kings and emperors; wide streets stretched from end to end; narrow lanes and alleyways meandered; there were magnificent temples with golden and marble statues of the gods; noisy colorful bazaars, where they offered goods from all over the world; there were wide squares where people discussed the news, made or simply listened to speeches. But above all, these cities were famous for their theaters.

These theaters were similar to the current circus, only built entirely of stone. Rows for spectators were arranged in steps one above the other, as in a huge funnel. And if you look from above, then some of these buildings were round, others formed an oval or half a circle. They called them amphitheatres.

Some of them were huge, like a football stadium, others could hold no more than two hundred spectators. Some were luxurious, with columns and statues, others were modest, without any decorations. The amphitheaters had no roofs, all performances were given in the open air. However, in richer theaters, gold-woven carpets were stretched over the rows to protect the audience from the heat of the sun or sudden rain. In poorer theatres, reed or straw mats served the same purpose. In a word, there were theaters for the rich and theaters for the poor. Everyone attended them, because everyone was passionate listeners and spectators.

And when people, with bated breath, followed the funny or sad events that took place on the stage, it seemed to them that this only imagined life in some mysterious way seemed more truthful, true and much more interesting than their own everyday life. And they loved to listen to this other reality.

Millennia have passed since then. Cities disappeared, palaces and temples collapsed. Wind and rain, heat and cold, polished and weathered the stones, leaving ruins of the great theaters. In the old, cracked walls, now only the cicadas sing their monotonous song, similar to the breath of the sleeping earth.

But some of these ancient cities have survived to this day. Of course, their lives have changed. People travel in cars and trains, they have telephones and electricity. But, sometimes among the new buildings you can still see ancient columns, an arch, a piece of a fortress wall or an amphitheater of those distant days.

This story happened in one of those cities.

On the southern outskirts of the big city, where the fields begin, and the houses and buildings are getting poorer, the ruins of a small amphitheater hid in a pine forest. Even in ancient times it did not seem luxurious, it was a theater for the poor. And in our days. that is, in those days when this story with Momo began, almost no one remembered the ruins. Only connoisseurs of antiquity knew about this theater, but it was of no interest to them either, because there was nothing to study there. Sometimes two or three tourists wandered in here, climbed the stone steps overgrown with grass, talked to each other, clicked cameras and left. Silence returned to the stone crater, the cicadas began the next stanza of their endless song, exactly the same as the previous ones.

Most often there were nearby residents who had known this place for a long time. They left their goats to graze here, and the children played ball in the round area in the middle of the amphitheatre. Sometimes couples in love met here in the evenings.

Once there was a rumor that someone lives in the ruins. They said it was a child, a little girl, but no one really knew anything. Her name was Momo, I think.

Momo looked a little strange. It had a frightening effect on people who valued neatness and cleanliness. She was small and thin, and it was difficult to guess how old she was - eight or twelve. She had wild, blue-black curls, which, obviously, neither comb nor scissors had ever touched, large, amazingly beautiful eyes, also black, and feet of the same color, because she always ran barefoot. In winter, she occasionally wore boots, but they were too big for her, and besides, they were different. After all, Momo either found her things somewhere, or received them as a gift. Her long, ankle-length skirt was made from colored pieces. On top, Momo wore an oversized old man's jacket, too large for her, the sleeves of which she always rolled up. Momo did not want to cut them off, she thought that she would grow up soon and who knows if she would ever again come across such a wonderful jacket with so many pockets.

Under the weedy theatrical stage, there were several half-collapsed closets, which could be entered through a hole in the wall. Here Momo made a home for herself. One afternoon people came to Momo, several men and women. They wanted to talk to her. Momo stood and looked at them in fear, afraid that they would drive her out of here. But soon she realized that they were good people. They themselves were poor and knew life well.

“So,” one of them said, “do you like it here, then?”

“Yes,” Momo replied.

“And would you like to stay here?”

- Yes very.

“Is there no one waiting for you anywhere?”

“I mean, don’t you want to come home?”

“My home is here,” Momo replied quickly.

– But where are you from?

Momo waved her hand in a vague direction: somewhere far away.

- Who are your parents? the man continued to ask.

Slightly raising her shoulders, Momo looked at the questioner in bewilderment. People looked at each other and sighed.

"Don't be afraid," the man continued. “We are not driving you out of here at all. We want to help you. Momo nodded timidly.

Why is the reader, content with 1984, Brave New World, 451 degrees, not looking for new dystopias that would be based not on totalitarian control of society, but on something else? I, who read these books, was interested in looking at the structure of the state from the inside, looking for errors, shortcomings, and I was ready for some time to become the hero of such a book, to whom the author, perhaps, left the opportunity to raise a rebellion and rebellion at least within himself and fight the enemy. The clear realization that all the desperate attempts of the hero who challenged the state are doomed to failure, because any system that controls thousands must, no matter how difficult it may be, be able to subjugate a unit, did not prevent me from hoping for success, but the enemies of Momo, depriving her teammates seemed to have stolen from me all the enthusiasm with which I would rush into battle against them, and I could only wait and hope that Momo could deal with them alone.

The worst thing that the Gray Lords did was to deprive people of time. Yes, they did it technically, and it no longer looks like a dystopia, but like a fairy tale, but still, attempts to attract free and hardworking people to their side and success, which I was not surprised at all, no longer look like a fairy tale, but like a dystopia. Everyone who used to find pleasure in his work, which brought great benefit to others, as, for example, in the case of Beppo the Sweeper, for whom every sweep of the broom was something like a ritual, if not more, well, each of these respected by me the gentlemen, now deprived of time, paid pitiful crumbs of attention and love to all his affairs, justifying it like this: “times have changed”, “I don’t have time”, “I’m in a hurry”, “let’s talk tomorrow, okay?”. And all these excuses, the whole style of behavior of people who have changed so rapidly, is very well guessed today.

The lack of time has also led to the fact that from now on people have become interested exclusively in a surrogate produced in haste. Jigi, a former friend of Momo, churned out his previously amazing stories that attracted many listeners, who were now excitedly read by fools, without penetrating deep and not realizing the main thing. Nino, the innkeeper, now counted the money and was happy about the money, the reputation of his place for lightning-fast service, and the gloomy customers. Tasteless food only gave the appearance of satiety, but in fact only filled the rumbling stomach, not satisfying hunger; This was noticed only by little Momo, who still valued the unity of work and time in the same way that others had previously valued it. The gray gentlemen, having created special institutions, also took care of the children, who brought unnecessary problems into their “life” with their games, because the future of mankind depends on children, the gray gentlemen were going to knock out all the nonsense from them.

Yes, in some ways this book is terrible, probably in that Ende, who wrote it forty years ago, guessed how a person will gradually find something for himself that, being worthless, will turn himself into an idol.

Score: 10

Well, where we are not, there are tastier apples, and the sun is brighter, and cats are fatter; and what do we have - work, it eats up all the time, if it weren't for it - wow, what a life would begin! Real! Something luxurious and significant, as in the views of the modest hairdresser Mr. Fuzi ("Well, I'm a hairdresser - no one needs it_"). And here it is a dilemma: favorite activities, loved ones, or the ultimate saving of time, saving on everything - from immediate duties at work to reading, visiting relatives and feeding a parrot. Work, work, work, and now, by the time of retirement, the Savings Bank of Time will have accumulated so many hours that real life will begin. But what happiness is, the residents of the city understand only when they deprive themselves of the opportunity to dream, fool around, swear and put up, that is, to do things that have no direct material value, but without them life becomes dreary (“... but fell out of love he finally And scolding, and a saber, and lead"), turns into a routine, and a person falls ill with Deadly Boredom.

This opposition of "feelings and reason" was embodied in the confrontation between little Momo and the Gray Lords. After all, who, if not a child, needs friends - big and small, needs stories, dreams, time is needed.

It's strange, but when I read "Momo", I remembered Shukshin's freaks - kind, open, out of the routine, prose of life, somewhat naive and therefore misunderstood by others. Here is Momo the same weirdo with her ridiculous jacket and closet under the stage. And Momo also had a wonderful property: she, like a litmus test, showed that a person refused, was afraid, did not want to notice, understand. He felt real next to her. And after all, here it is - real life, in every minute, in every moment.

It seems to me that any reader will find his own in Momo, probably recognize himself in the characters. But in any case, this is a classically real fairy tale, in the sense that it is beautifully written for children, but no less beautiful for adults. The book was written in 1973, but it seems that our contemporary wrote it about us today; Truly, “I told you everything as if it had happened a very long time ago. But I could tell it like it's still going to happen."

Score: 10

In children's literature, perhaps, the temptation (and the consequences are especially catastrophic) to slip into teaching is especially great. Shamelessly use literature to proclaim their views of the world, and build a story, no matter how skillfully, only to prove its truth. The temptation is great, because parents who buy a book are just waiting for the book to teach their child something good. However, what if the author's instructions turn out to be wrong?

All these reflections, in general, have little to do with this wonderful book. This is a captivating, immeasurably kind story-tale by the brilliant Michael Ende about the importance of human communication and community. About the fact that in the race for ever-elusive profit, social status and influence, we forget about what really fascinates us, and, even more often, about ordinary humanity, kindness, ties of kinship and friendship.

In the center of the story is Momo, a little magical tramp girl with a pet turtle. What sets her apart from a lot of children's and young adult works is that her magic is both much more mundane and much more incredible: she's just a very kind and empathetic person - so much so that her presence can rally people with the incredible power of metaphor come to life. . The antagonists are the Gray People, insidious powerful beings who, almost like the Devil, playing on the weaknesses and strongest desires of people, take away the most valuable thing from them - their Time. Make their lives gray and lifeless. Forced to live day after day on autopilot.

And yet, what is written at the beginning has something to do with this book. Her description of the psychological difficulties of life in modern capitalist society is very accurate, vivid and figurative. And yet, some one-sidedness of the view, the incompleteness of the described picture is detected while reading out of the corner of the eye and sometimes prevents you from enjoying the story. Of course, everything that the author describes as bad is bad. But the book's emphasis on Time makes precise observations somewhat less accurate and even fair. After reading the book superficially, it is easy to think that the only way to do your job responsibly, well and with a sense of personal satisfaction is to do it slowly. And for all the temptation of such a point of view for such a lazy person as I, I cannot but call it controversial. And if you considered the previous conclusion to be a clear distortion of the thought of the work, then how will you react to the assertion that the exorbitantly fast pace of modern life is due not only to negative, but also to many positive factors - such as the achievements of scientific and technological progress, by no means all of which are useless - and, consequently, the presentation of the turtle (of course, it turns out to be a powerful magical turtle, but nevertheless the usual trail of associations trails behind it) as a positive role model for the reader smells of some reactionary? In the end, you begin to doubt whether a child today will be happy to read a book where fast food is not the last of the evils of civilization.

All this is all the more disturbing the more excellent, convincing and beautiful the book is written, and in terms of style, pace, tension and other characteristics of the narrative, it is something that many fiction writers should strive for. Gray people are really written out to be as obnoxious and threatening as possible. The scenes in the abode of the Lord of Time (perhaps his name was somehow different) are striking in scale and beauty - not everyone succeeds in conveying the feeling of the indescribable so well. Everyday details to the images of the main characters are also incomparable - descriptions of children's games led by Momo or stories invented by the Guide, I would read more and more. At this highest level of writing, a certain simplification of the concept stands out more.

All criticism, of course, would be obvious nit-picking and re-analysis if the book belonged to the pen of almost any other author, but Michael Ende has repeatedly shown that he is able to write for children without any discounts - wisely, deeply and bypassing the pitfall of unnecessary didactics. And so, - although the book more than once caused delight when reading, and it would be a gross lie to say that it does not capture or is not written excellently, but the aftertaste was not perfect, as if from an inspired lecture, where in a couple of places in the proofs were admitted inaccuracies.

Score: 9

Wonderful fairy tale by Michael Ende. Kind, magical, with interesting characters, a very sweet main character and an amazing world of time.

The author wrote a wonderful fairy tale, but I think it is rather written not for children, but for adults. After all, children never suffer from lack of time. But for adults, this fairy tale-parable will make you think about many things. In addition to work and money, there is something else in our life that is more important, for example: talking with friends, reading books, walking in the park - something that gives us joy.

I liked the story a lot, but there was still something missing. The middle, about the Master of the Chorus, is simply bewitching and magical, Michael Ende is great at describing inexplicable things. But the ending came out, in my opinion, too swift, and Momo almost did not need to do anything to defeat the Gray Lords. Yes, and she herself for the whole fairy tale, having experienced so many adventures, internally does not change at all.

Overall my rating is 9 out of 10.

Score: 9

The beginning is almost everyday - on the outskirts of a big city, in the ruins of an ancient amphitheater, a homeless orphan girl named Momo settles. Local residents, not rich people themselves, help her settle down. The girl makes her first friends, and then their circle only expands. Among them are not only children, but also adults. Among her two best friends is one generally an old man, the silent Beppo, nicknamed a sweeper (and also by profession), and the other is a brisk young man Girolamo "Gigi" "Guide". Momo, it would seem, is the most ordinary child, but she knows how to listen to others surprisingly attentively. People who share their troubles and problems with her suddenly clear their heads - what needs to be done. Children in the presence of Momo become inventive in games, they never get bored.

But then the story becomes magical. The Gray Lords appear, inciting people to deposit their free time in their Savings Bank, which they then allegedly can receive with interest, like money in a real Savings Bank. In fact, the Gray Lords appropriate other people's time and live off it. Only no one knows about this and no one would have known - if it were not for Momo, a girl in whose presence even a secretive thief of time can open up.

Once on earth there were beautiful cities with elegant doors, wide streets and cozy lanes, colorful bazaars, majestic temples and amphitheaters. Now these cities do not exist, only ruins remind of them. In one of these dilapidated ancient amphitheatres, which is occasionally visited by inquisitive tourists, a little girl named Momo settled.

No one knew whose she was, where she came from or how old she was. According to Momo, she is one hundred and two years old and has no one in the world but herself. True, you can't give Momo more than twelve. She is very small and thin, she has blue-black curly hair, the same dark huge eyes and no less black legs, because Momo always runs barefoot. Only for the winter the girl puts on shoes that are disproportionately large for her thin legs. Momo's skirt is made from multi-colored patches, and the jacket is no less long than the skirt. Momo thought about cutting off his sleeves, but then she decided that with time she would grow up, and she might not find such a wonderful jacket.

Once upon a time, Momo was in an orphanage. She does not like to remember this period of her life. She and many other unfortunate children were severely beaten, scolded and forced to do what they absolutely did not want. One day, Momo climbed over the fence and escaped. Since then, she has been living in a room under the stage of the ancient amphitheater.

Families who lived in the neighborhood found out about the appearance of a homeless girl. They helped Momo settle into a new home. The bricklayer laid out the stove and made a chimney, the carpenter cut out the chairs and the table, someone brought a wrought-iron bed, someone brought bedspreads and a mattress, the painter painted flowers on the wall, and the abandoned closet under the stage turned into a cozy room where Momo now lived.

Her house was always full of guests of different ages and different professions. If someone was in trouble, the locals always said, "Go visit Momo." What was so special about this homeless little girl? Yes, nothing special ... She just knew how to listen. She did this in such a way that the disappointed gained hope, the insecure - self-confidence, the oppressed raised above their heads, and the abandoned understood that they were not alone.

One day, in the city where Momo and her friends lived, Gray gentlemen appeared. In fact, their organization had existed for a long time, they acted slowly, carefully and imperceptibly, entangling people and establishing themselves in the life of the city. The main goal of the Gray Masters is to take control of human time.

Time is the biggest secret and the most valuable treasure that everyone has, but knows almost nothing about it. People have fixed the time in calendars and watches, but the present time lives in the heart. It is life.

The insidious plan of the Gray Masters was based on depriving people of the present time. For example, agent X with code number 384-b comes to an ordinary hairdresser, Mr. Fouquet, and invites him to make a contribution to the Savings Bank of Time. Having carried out intricate mathematical calculations, the X agent proves that by making daily deposits at interest, you can multiply precious time tenfold. To do this, you just need to learn how to use it rationally.

How much does Mr. Fouquet spend on serving each client? Half an hour? A visit can be shortened to 15 minutes by eliminating unnecessary conversations with visitors. How long does Monsieur Fouquet talk to the old mother? A whole hour?! But she is paralyzed and practically does not understand him. The mother can be taken to a cheap nursing home, thereby winning precious 60 minutes. The green parrot, which Fouquet spends an average of 30 minutes a day caring for, should also be disposed of. Gatherings with friends in a cafe, going to the cinema, visiting Fraulein Daria, thinking near the window - eliminate all this as unnecessary!

Soon, the Savings Bank of Time had many investors. They dressed better, lived richer, looked more respectable than those who lived in the part of the city near the amphitheater. Investors settled in the same type of multi-storey box houses, were constantly in a hurry somewhere, never smiled, and most of all were afraid of silence, because in silence it became obvious that the time saved was rushing at an unimaginable speed. Monotonous days add up to weeks, months, years. They can't be stopped. Don't even remember them. It's like they don't exist at all.

None of the Savings Bank depositors know about little Momo, who lives in a room under the stage of the amphitheater. But she knows about them and wants to help them.

To save the city from the Gray masters, Momo goes to the man who knows the time - this is the Master of Time, he is also the Master of the Choir, he is also the Secundus Minutus of the Hora. The Magister lives in the Nowhere House. For a long time he watched little Momo, having learned that the Gray gentlemen want to get rid of the girl, Master Hora sent the tortoise-fortune teller Cassiopeia after her. It was she who brought Momo to the magical abode of the Master.

From the Home-Nowhere, all universal time is distributed among people. Everyone has their own internal clock in their heart. “The heart is given to man to perceive time. Time, not perceived by the heart, disappears just as colors disappear for the blind or for the deaf - the singing of birds. Unfortunately, there are a lot of blind and deaf hearts in the world that do not feel anything, although they beat.

The Gray Lords are not human at all. They just assumed a human form. They are NOTHING coming out of nowhere. They feed on human time and will disappear without a trace as soon as people stop giving them their time. Unfortunately, today the influence of the Gray masters on people is very great, they have a lot of henchmen among the inhabitants of our planet.

The Master of Time is unable to stop the Gray Lords, people themselves are responsible for their time. Watching Momo with the help of All-seeing glasses, the Master of Time realized that this girl should become a bearer of truth. Only she can save the world.

Back from Nowhere Home, Momo knew everything. She fearlessly carried the doctrine of Time around the city, exposed the Gray Lords and returned the stolen time to people.

Michael Ende

A little introduction from the translator

This translation is the first experience of this kind in my practice.

My whole life until the age of 53 was spent in Russia, and I belong to a little-known and a little strange nationality - Russian Germans. These are not German Germans occupying a powerful niche in the human community, but a part of the German people that arose in the process of long-term adaptation - first in Tsarist, then Soviet Russia, ousted from Germany after the seven-year war.

It is amazing that my ancestors for two and a half centuries were not assimilated by the mighty Russian mentality and Russian culture to the extent that one might expect. Their religious-sectarian upbringing and peasant origin formed the strongest immunity against such dissolution. And this despite all the social upheavals that befell the Russian state in the ill-fated 20th century - especially during the war with Nazi Germany, when Russian Germans were naturally but unfairly identified with the German fascists, so hated in the USSR.

My childhood and adolescence just fell on that period of history. But it was precisely after the second abolition of "serfdom" in 1955 (the release of collective farmers from registration to villages with the issuance of passports to them and the liquidation of the special commandant's office for Russian Germans) and the emergence of relative freedom, assimilation, quite voluntary, began to quickly change the mentality of Russian Germans towards Russian culture and Russian way of life.

From childhood I was drawn to learning, which did not at all correspond to the general mood of the conservative Russian German village, and at the age of 15 I escaped from the religious and peasant environment and plunged into civilization, settling in a hostel and enrolling in a technical school in the large Siberian city of Omsk (1952).

At that time I read a lot and, given the current trend of literature and the media, quickly moved away from religion, which in our home had the character of tedious and painful moralizing.

In general, if we discard the negative consequences of that “civilized” life that grinded up millions of destinies of village boys and girls who came to the city, one thing is certain: the German part of this great urban migration quickly “Russified”, losing its language and centuries-old family traditions.

I do not regret at all that the great, not rationalistic, to a certain extent mystified Russian culture has become my culture, my spiritual environment. I can’t and don’t want to compare it with German, which is alien to me, let me not judge her.

I stumbled upon M. Ende's book "Momo" quite by accident after moving with my family to Germany. A chapter from it was included in a manual for the study of the German language and the German way of life for immigrants and immediately made a strong impression on me with its humanistic orientation and the author's absolute rejection of the rationalistic, unspiritual construction of life in a capitalist society.

With reason, you well understand that an alternative to the life of today's West, which requires maximum realism, can be calm spiritual communication and contemplative peace, which require much less material consumption. What is closer to the ideal is a philosophical question. But that is another topic for another time. For now, I will only note that the ideas of Jesus the Nazarene at one time looked much more absurd and impossible. And today they are the core of life for most of humanity. One can, of course, object that even in Christian Europe life is still far from the proclaimed norms. Nevertheless, Christianity is a strong and unshakable foundation, and the building on it will continue to be built and improved in accordance with the changing life.

While reading "Momo" I was constantly haunted by the feeling that this is a narrative from the "silver" period of Russian literature of the 19th century, and not a modern bestseller.

Then I took up entrepreneurship for a long time, not spending all my time on it very successfully, but the idea that the book needed to be brought to the Russian reader did not leave me. This need has become especially acute in recent years, when the idea of ​​God-seeking took possession of my consciousness.

And now about the book and its heroine - the little girl Momo, who had the moral strength and courage to resist the gray, all-absorbing power of Evil.

She appears in the vicinity of a big city, where people live slowly, rejoice and grieve, quarrel and make peace, but most importantly, they communicate with each other, and cannot live without it. They are not rich, although they are not lazy at all. They have enough time for everything, and it never occurs to anyone to save it.

Momo settles in an ancient amphitheater. No one knows where she comes from or what she wants. She doesn't seem to know it herself.

Soon it turns out that Molyu has a magical and rare gift to listen to people so that they become smarter and better, forget all the petty and absurd things that poison their lives.

But children especially love her, who, with her, become extraordinary dreamers and invent fascinating games.

Gradually, however, an evil force imperceptibly, invisibly and inaudibly intervenes in the lives of these people in the form of gray gentlemen who feed on human time. For their countless horde, a lot of it is required, and the gray gentlemen are talented and stubbornly creating an entire industry of stealing time from people. They must convince every person that it is necessary to rationalize one's life as much as possible, not to waste on such unpromising matters as communicating with friends, relatives, children, and even more so on “useless” old people and the disabled. Labor cannot serve as a source of joy, everything must be subordinated to a single goal - to produce the maximum product in the shortest possible time.

And now the former quiet city is turning into a huge industrial center, where everyone is in a terrible hurry, not noticing each other. Time is saved on everything, and it should become more and more, but, on the contrary, it is more and more lacking. Some kind of convulsive, extremely rationalized way of life is taking shape, in which every lost moment is a crime.

Where does the "saved time" go? It is quietly stolen by the gray gentlemen, putting it in their huge bank vaults.

Who are they - gray gentlemen? These are demons that incline people to evil in the name of a tempting goal. Tempting them with the charms of life, which can only be achieved with great effort by saving every second, the gray gentlemen, in fact, force people to sacrifice their entire meaningful life. This chain is false, it does not exist at all, but it beckons everyone until death.

And Momo has a lot of time, and she generously gives it to people. She is rich not in the time that can be materialized, but in the time she gives to others. Her time is spiritual wealth.

Naturally, Momo becomes for the gray gentlemen the embodiment of a worldview that is dangerous for them, hindering their plans for a total reorganization of the world. To remove this obstacle, they give the girl expensive mechanical toys, clothes and other things. All this should shock Momo and make her give up any further attempts to embarrass people. To do this, she herself needs to be drawn into a crazy race to save time.

When the gray gentlemen fail, they throw all their strength into eliminating the resistance they do not understand. In the process of this struggle, they learn that Momo can lead them to the place where people are given life time, which everyone must dispose of with dignity. To take possession of the primary source of all human time - rationalistic demons could not even imagine such luck!

There is a direct analogy with the Christian postulate here: each person is given a Soul - a particle of God, and he is also given the right to choose how to dispose of it. Earthly temptations and pride lead a person away from God, from spiritual union with Him, and he voluntarily impoverishes himself, his spiritual life.

The quintessence of the spiritual and religious content of the book is set out in chapter 12. Momo ends up in the place where the time of all people comes from. Here it is quite obviously identified with the human soul. Time is the soul given by God to man in his heart, and Master Hora distributes it. He is obliged to endow each person with the time that is intended for him.

However, thieves-demons steal it from people, and neither the Distributor nor the Creator can or, from higher considerations, do not want to prevent this. People themselves must manage the time allotted to them - their soul - and protect it themselves.

A watch is only an imperfect reflection of what each person has in his chest, in his heart - his soul. “...So you also have a heart to feel the time. And all the time that is not felt by the heart is lost, like the colors of the rainbow for the blind or the song of the nightingale for the deaf. Unfortunately, there are blind and deaf hearts that do not feel anything, although they beat. Deaf and blind hearts are hardened souls, deaf to the calls of God.

The German writer Michael Ende is known to the domestic reader mainly as the author of "". But he has other kind and wise fairy tales that are worthy of attention. One of them is a fairy tale Momo».

The main character of the story is a little girl named Momo. She lives alone in a small town, no one has ever seen her parents, no one knows who she is or where she came from. The inhabitants of the town love Momo because she is endowed with a rare gift: the ability to listen to others. Talking with Momo, a timid person becomes bold, a shy person becomes self-confident, an unfortunate person forgets about his sorrows. That's why Momo has many friends.

But one day the peace of the city is broken. They come to him Gray gentlemen- time thieves. They act covertly and cautiously, deceiving people and luring them into their networks. Posing as employees Savings Banks of Time, they offer people to open an account to save time. In fact, they simply steal this time from people, not at all intending to return it back, especially with interest.

Gradually, more and more people become obsessed with the idea of ​​saving time. They try to finish any business quickly, and they don’t have time for simple human joys at all. Her friends stop coming to Momo - they now consider conversations a waste of time. Then she decides to go looking for them. Now only Momo can save people from the Gray Masters and give them back their lost time. Will it be possible to do it?

Like any good children's book, Momo will be interesting. not only for children but also for adults. The issues raised by the author are relevant even now, because in modern hectic life we ​​try to do everything, but in the end we don’t have time for really important things: for talking with friends, for unhurried walks, and finally for ourselves.

This is a book about how a child can be no less wise than an adult, because it's not about age. The fact that wonderful abilities lie on the surface, and no diplomas and merits can replace such a seemingly simple skill - listen and hear the other person.

And even though in the course of the story it may seem to the reader that everything is hopeless, and the Gray gentlemen will inevitably win, the story "Momo", like all fairy tales, will certainly end well. After all, "Momo", like all the works of Michael Ende, is filled with endless love for people. People who are by nature imperfect, who can make mistakes. But true love is often the opposite.

If you love The Neverending Story, be sure to take the time to read Momo: you'll love it. And if you have not read any of the works of Michael Ende, it's time to get acquainted with them: the world of fairy tales is always open for children and adults, you just need to take a step into it.

Quotes from the book

“There is one important, but very everyday secret in the world. All people are involved in it, everyone knows it; but only a few think about it. Many simply take note of it, not a bit surprised by it. This secret is time.
Calendars and clocks have been created to measure time, but they are of little use, because everyone knows that one hour can seem like an eternity and at the same time flash like an instant - depending on what is experienced during this hour.
After all, time is life. And life lives in the heart

“No one seemed to notice that by saving time, he was actually saving something quite different. No one wanted to admit that his life was getting poorer, more monotonous and colder.
Only the children felt this clearly, because no one had more time for children.
But time is life. And life lives in the heart.
And the more people saved, the poorer they became.”