Moominpappa at Sea (Moomins Fiction)

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The struggle of growing up, fighting loneliness, desire to understand oneself, the feeling of uprootedness, personal failure, it's all in there cleverly disguised as a children's story. The book's original title is a loose reference to Ernest Hemingway novel The Old Man and the Sea, though this is not reflected in the translation.

The story revolves around Moominpappa as he moves the family away from Moominvalley to a barren island where they live inside a lighthouse tower. When he starts to notice that nature is not as predictable as he had assumed and that it cannot be controlled this way, he begins to find a more authentic understanding. There is the old abandoned lighthouse, and the antisocial fisherman who lives on the opposite side of the island.This is personified by the character of Moominmamma who is described as very moral but broad minded. But how is Moominmamma to grow her flowers and what strange fate befell the last keeper of the lighthouse? Moomintroll is seaking independence and maturity and is trying to forge his own purpose which he accidentally stumbles into by reaching out to the Groke who is the very embodiment of fear and lonliness and which even the trees and the sand are afraid of.

The book also highlights the enormous power of the autumn sea, by which one perhaps feels smaller, and thus even thoughts shift from their ordinary paths to something larger: “It was just the right way to live if one liked big waves. Besides the Moomin novels and short stories, Tove Jansson also wrote and illustrated four original and highly popular picture books. The story circled around Moominpappa, who felt unnecessary, felt less-of-a-man, felt like his mission as the protector of the family, as a traditional dad, was somehow threatened and was thus filled with fierce need to tame.Here, down in the valley, the heat was scorching; everything was still and silent, and not a little dusty.

This book taught me a lot about life when I was younger, and I still find it as comforting and mysterious as ever. Moominsummer Madness is the transitional work and Moominpappa At Sea is the best of the later works. Moominmamma becomes so homesick that she paints herself into a mural of their garden at home, Moominpappa tries to find the bottom of a bottomless pit, and Moomintroll moves out into a glade full of ants. Moominpappa at Sea is also probably the only children's book you'll ever read that centers on a midlife crisis.It is also implied (I think, anyway) that Moominmamma is either currently suffering from a reasonably serious illness or is in recovery from one, as nobody will let her do anything or exert herself in any way. A lot of her art involves lonely figures or groups dwarfed by vast natural landscapes, which at once invoke a feeling of solitude and the majesty of nature while having cute hippos in them that appeal to children. The book I think is trying to elucidate a theory where for each person there is a specific purpose that will give their particular life meaning, and that this can be done through a variety of means. As they discover their new home, the family also discover surprising, and wonderfully funny, new things about themselves. Moominmamma is very tolerant (and woefully downtrodden) and resigned to living on a barren rock in the middle of nowhere, her husband needs this, even if he won't let her do everything and she's bored to tears, he needs to prove his masculinity!