Moomin's wondrous island adventures

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Moomin's miraculous island adventure (original title: Pappan och havet , “The Papa and the Sea”) is the eighth of the Moomin books by the Finnish-Swedish writer Tove Jansson . It was published in 1965.

action

Moominfather decides to move to a lonely island with his family. With Moominmother, Moomin and little Mü, he sails to an island to start a new life as a lighthouse keeper. Apart from the Moomins, the island is only inhabited by a shy and taciturn fisherman. The family settles in the lighthouse. The Moominmother is unhappy and misses her house and garden, but tries as best she can to keep up normal family life. Little Mü explores the island independently. The Moominfather tries in vain to put the lighthouse back into operation. Even his attempts to feed his family through fishing are not very profitable at first, and the Moominfather is increasingly frustrated by his failures. Meanwhile, the Moomin Mother takes refuge in the dream world of the Moomin Valley, which she painted on the inside walls of the lighthouse, until she finally disappears into the painting for a long time. Moomin is also becoming increasingly independent from his family. He flees from the oppressive atmosphere in the lighthouse and discovers a clearing in which he sets up his own apartment. He tries to make contact with the seahorses, which he observes playing at night. He also develops a peculiar relationship with the Morra - the only terrifying creature in the Moomin Valley, who embodies coldness and loneliness and who followed the Moomins to the island. Moomin brings her a lantern every night because she is drawn to light and slowly loses his fear of her. When Moomin runs out of kerosene, he visits the Morra anyway. With Moomin's fearlessness and affection, the Morra loses its frightening properties and is now less cold and unhappy. The island, whose flora and fauna suffered from the Morra, can now calm down again. Things are looking up again for the Moomin family. The Moominfather succeeds in fishing, and the Moominmother's homesickness subsides. When a severe autumn storm devastated the island, the family saved the fisherman. It turns out that he is the former lighthouse keeper who had become strange through loneliness, but is now finding his way back into his long-suppressed role through the friendliness of the Moomin family. He moves into the lighthouse with the Moomins and gets the beacon going again.

characters

The characters in this book are again reduced to the core family of the Moomins. They are accompanied by little Mü who has been adopted by the Moomin family. The little Mü contrasts the optimistic worldview of the Moomins with a realistic, sometimes painfully honest, external perspective. The Morra follows the Moomin to the island and appears several times to Moomin. All other main characters of the Moomin series do not appear in this book. Some of them form the core of the simultaneous action of Herbst im Mumintal . The only other island resident is the lighthouse keeper, who only takes on his true role at the end. In a sense, the island itself is treated as a figure. A life cycle of sleeping and waking as well as feelings and thoughts is ascribed to it, and the Moomins are in constant contact with the essence of the island.

subjects

The central themes of the book are conquering fears and finding one's own independence. Moomin for the first time has secrets from his parents and begins to take care of himself. Even the Moominmother no longer only cares about her family, but pursues her own interests. For the first time in the Moomin books, she is not seen through Moomin's eyes, but as an independent person with his own needs. Due to the isolation, conflicts first come to light in the Moomin family. All family members need to reflect on their relationship with others. The Moominfather in particular has to rethink his patriarchal attitude towards his family.

The Moomin Parents' relationship reflects the relationship between Tove Jansson's parents. Jansson's mother Signe Hammarsten-Jansson also put her own plans behind those of her husband. Like the Moomin mother, who starts to paint the landscape and vegetation of the Moomin Valley out of homesickness, Jansson's mother also missed her home in Sweden all her life after she moved to Helsinki with her family . After reading the manuscript of her daughter, Signe Hammarsten-Jansson announced that she recognized her own marriage in the book.

In this book Jansson also dealt with the grief of her father Viktor Jansson , who had died a few years earlier. The book is dedicated to "a father", by which Viktor Jansson is meant. The Moominfather is the driving force behind the main plot of the book. In the original Swedish version, the title Pappan och havet ( The Father and the Sea ) also focused on the Moominfather, although this was not adopted for the German translation.

Despite the sometimes depressing mood, the book has humorous moments and a cautiously positive ending. The discussion that has been going on in the Moomin Valley since winter at the latest as to whether the Moomin books are children's or adult literature continued around this book. Although it was widely discussed in reviews as a children's book, it was sometimes even classified as unsuitable for children.

scene of action

A full-page drawing in the book shows a bird's eye view of the island with the legend Bay of Finland . The coordinates 60 ° 7'12 "N and 25 ° 45'50" O are noted on a banner in the upper right corner . This point in the sea is near the lighthouse island Söderskär and the island Klovharu , where Tove Jansson spent the summer months since the 1960s. Söderskär lighthouse is said to have been the inspiration for the tower in the book.

  • Söderskär

  • Klovharu

Publication history

While the book was the eighth volume in the original version, it was published in Germany in 1970 as the seventh volume in a translation by Dorothea Bjelfvenstam . Together with stories from the Moomin Valley , it was also published in a double edition under the title The Great Moomin Book . A new translation by Birgitta Kicherer was published in 2003.

Awards

At the 16th Berlin International Literature Festival , Håkon Øvreås selected Moomin's wondrous island adventures for The Extraordinary Book award .

Adaptations

Moomin's wondrous island adventure served as the basis for the 25th episode of the Polish-Austrian stop-motion series The Moomins and for the 25th and 26th episodes of the Japanese animation series Moomins .

A radio play adaptation by HG Francis , directed by Heikedine Körting , was published on the Europa label .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Tuula Karjalainen: Tove Jansson. The biography. From the Finnish by Anke Michler-Janhunen and Regine Pirschel. Urachhaus, Stuttgart 2014, ISBN 978-3-8251-7900-7 , pp. 268-273.
  2. ↑ Riitta Oittinen: Translating for Children. Garland, New York et al. a. 2000, ISBN 0-8153-3335-8 , pp. 120-122.
  3. ↑ Michael Sollars, Arbolina Llamas Jennings: The Facts on File Companion to the World Novel. 1900 to the Present. Facts On File, New York 2008, ISBN 978-0-8160-6233-1 , p. 400.
  4. ^ Tuula Karjalainen: Tove Jansson. The biography. From the Finnish by Anke Michler-Janhunen and Regine Pirschel. Urachhaus, Stuttgart 2014, ISBN 978-3-8251-7900-7 , p. 178.
  5. ^ Mareike Jendis: Moomin's miraculous adventures in Germany. To the reception of Tove Janson's Moomin books. (PDF) Dissertation 2001, p. 89.
  6. ^ Mareike Jendis: Moomin's miraculous adventures in Germany. To the reception of Tove Janson's Moomin books. (PDF) Dissertation 2001, p. 171.
  7. ^ Tove Jansson: Moomins wonderful island adventures , Arena-Taschenbuch 2012 ISBN 978-3-401-50323-3 p. 235
  8. ↑ Tove and the Sea exhibition at Söderskär Lighthouse presents illustrations never exhibited before . Article on moomin.com from May 31, 2017, accessed June 21, 2019
  9. ^ The Extraordinary Book 2016 , accessed on January 7, 2017.