Most helpful customer reviews
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5.0 out of 5 stars
out of print?, Jul 9 2004
I'm so glad I still have my childhood copy, because this is one unforgettable story. It's unfortunate that it's not still in print. Momo is an unusually gifted child. Everyone around her seems to bloom to their full potential in her presence. The children and adults are most creative when near her, because of her ability to fully listen to them. That is, until the men in gray come along with their briefcases and cigars and begin stealing people's time, making them work harder and harder only to find that they have less and less time. This plot resonates with our fall from childhood into the corporate rat race. It teaches to keep in touch with our imagination, slow down, and be present and listen. A truly beautiful story, with an honorable heroine, and unforgettable characters like the gentle street sweeper who always takes it one step at a time.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Read Momo to learn about THE NOTHING (Neverending Story), Jan 22 2004
Most people are aware of The Neverending Story, written by the same author, that was turned into a famous movie. But most people are unaware that Momo was also turned into a movie. I have it in the German language, but I'm under the impression it was originally made in English. It is an outstanding book with lessons to learn about our values in modern times, with similar themes to the Neverending Story. In the Neverending Story, part II, a rockbiter's baby eats a lot of rocks, but keeps crying because it feels empty inside. In Momo, the heroine of the book has three lunches but feels empty inside. In the Neverending Story, the childlike emporess has a fatal illness, caused by The Nothing. In Momo, the dispensor of people's time, Professor Hora, is afraid the men in gray will poison the time he allots to people, causing a fatal illness. Quote:" A fatal illness, though you scarcely notice it at first. One day, you don't feel like doing anything. NOTHING interests you, everything bores you. Far from wearing off, your boredom persists and gets worse, day by day and week by week. You feel more and more bad tempered, more and more EMPTY inside, more and more dissatisfied with yourself and the world in general... you bustle around with a blank gray face, just like the men in gray themselves - indeed, you've joined their ranks. The disease has a name. It's called deadly tedium." Another quote: "So the men in gray aren't human? No. Their human appearance is only a disguise. What are they then? Strictly speaking, they're NOTHING. So where do they come from? They exist only because people give them the opportunity to do so."
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5.0 out of 5 stars
The best book in the world, Dec 9 2003
I still have my first and only edition of this book, that I read before "The Never Ending Story" became famous and was turned into a film, making Michael Ende a recognizable name.I love reading stories about beautiful princesses, but Momo is a princess of a different kind.
She's on her own, homeless and destitute, without a family or means of her own. Her magical power is not that of a lovely face and a providential Godmother, but the fact that she remains a lovely, giving person, uncorrupted by her misfortune and possesses a supernatural ability to listen to others. Reading the book you understand just how and why such an apparently small thing can be so life changing, more so than any "action". The book is ostensibly about how time is subjective, about how people "save time" by doing as little as possible the very things that make life worth living - in order to have more time to do them later on, when one has "more time" for that sort of thing - only to get there and realize that it's too late, life has passed you by, and you've got no more time left to enjoy them any further, or any one to enjoy them with. But the reason I read it time and again was because of Momo and her two best friends, the old man and the young man, who are so completely different from each other; The turtle Cassandra, the forest of clocks, the one hour flowers...I can't stress enough how much you need to buy this book.
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