MOMO / Michael Ende

1973) (Translated into English by Francis Lobb as The Grey Gentlemen, and by J. Maxwell Brownjohn as Momo.)

What little Momo knew how to do like no one else was: listen. Simply by being with people and listening to them, she could help them find answers to their problems, make peace with each other and invent fun games. People say: "Go to Momo and you'll be fine!"

Momo is eight years old and is a small, skinny girl with a wild, curly, black head and big black eyes. She wears a skirt with patches and a shirt that is too big for her.  She lives in the ruins of an amphitheatre, near an unspecified city. Her origin is mysterious, and when asked how old she is, she replies "If I remember correctly, I have always been there".

 A visionary novel about the mystery of time. There are calendars to measure it, but we all know, because we have experienced it, that sometimes an hour seems like an eternity while at other times it passes in an instant. And this depends on what we are experiencing. Because as Ende says, “time is life. And life dwells in the heart."

 The novel's central theme is that of time and the way it is used in modern Western society.  Ende - through a symbolic and imaginary tale - criticizes the speed of modern life which, with its technological progress and consumerism, loses sight of the meaning of life and its quality. The time stolen by the grey men is a metaphor for the pleasure one feels in savoring, in the present moment, the little things of everyday life. Kairos instead of Kronos.

 A group of "Grey Lords" who call themselves the agents of the "time-saving fund" act to try to convince people to save time, in order to give it back to them - deceiving them - at the age of 62. In reality this saved time allows these "Grey Lords" to live a parasitic life.

 Only Momo - a child without parents, who has escaped from the orphanage - resists their onslaught.  Together with a small group and the turtle Cassiopeia, sent to help her by Master Hora, the Time Keeper, and who can predict what will happen after half an hour, she decides to go to "Master Hora's" house to get help in defeating the "Grey Lords". Together they devise a plan to give back the time stolen from mankind: the Time Keeper decides to stop time for an hour, to allow Momo to solve the problem, and on his hand he makes "an flowerhour" appear. After many vicissitudes and difficulties, Momo manages to free the time imprisoned by the "Grey Lords" and defeat them, returning everything to normal.  Time" is returned to mankind, the city returns to normal, without collapsing into an aseptic, heartless greyness.