A special August 2025 birthday contribution to the Tove Trove library 

“Setting out the right way is just as important as the opening lines in a book: they determine everything.”
– Moominpappa

Moominpappa at Sea (or Pappan och havet in its earliest Swedish-language form) is the eighth title in Tove Jansson’s original series of stories about a family of benevolent, philosophical trolls with downy fur and soft round snouts, who reside in a rather unusual house in an attractive woodland valley by the sea.

I chose to reread this title in August 2025 because I share a significant anniversary with Tove’s penultimate Moomin book, in that we were both launched onto an unsuspecting world in 1965, although the story was translated into English in 1966 – somewhat earlier than I was. The plan was to publish this post on 6^th August (my birthday), in time for Tove’s birthday on the 9^th, but time was scarce, thus it appears now, rather late in the month.

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“The lighthouse stood there, tall and silent, with its light extinguished and its purpose forgotten.”

In this reflective and atmospheric tale, Moominpappa, feeling surplus to requirements in Moominvalley, gets itchy paws and uproots his family from their beloved home (along with the unruly Little My¹), to travel across the sea in a small boat to a remote island² with an abandoned lighthouse – where he appoints himself its keeper.

The move is driven by his desire to rediscover meaning and reaffirm his responsibilities as both father and explorer. However, the island’s barren landscape and emotional challenges quickly become apparent, affecting each family member uniquely as they adapt to the isolation.

“Why should we move to a lighthouse when we’re already living in a tower?” asks a perplexed Moominmamma, and with good reason. For while Moominpappa grapples with his existential crisis, she mourns the loss of her garden and the comforts of home. Meanwhile, Moomintroll wanders the island by himself, preoccupied with his thoughts – it is only Little My who exuberantly engages with everything around her in her characteristically spirited way.

The lighthouse becomes a symbol of Moominpappa’s desire for control and significance. Nevertheless, its great lamp cannot be lit despite his best efforts. He also tries fishing, building a pier and conducting “research” into the sea but the elements frustrate him at every turn.

Each character undergoes a quiet transformation as they deal with loneliness, a pervading sense of menace and the sea’s enigmatic presence. They become overly absorbed in their individual projects and obsessions, emotionally distant from each other – Moominpappa clinging to tradition as the family’s protector and provider. He controls when the lamps are lit, ensures food is supplied and keeps watch over his loved ones while they sleep, using these routines to reinforce his role as head of the family. He catches more fish than they can store, but the excess seems empty, and his endeavours are merely met by storms and setbacks.

Moomintroll goes on a far more emotional journey – one that appears to epitomise adolescence and a search for belonging. He seems to feel invisible and misunderstood, but ultimately, this opens his mind to new experiences. While wandering alone he discovers a delightful glen and dreams of claiming it as his own private sanctuary. However, the land is already occupied by an army of industrious ants, the sort that sting, which is likely a metaphor for his thwarted desire to find personal space.

One of the most haunting threads in Moomintroll’s story is his interaction with the Groke, a cold and lonely creature that leaves frost wherever she goes. He gradually overcomes his fear and starts to feel sympathy for her, attempting to light a fire to warm her – a gesture of compassion that is met with eerie silence. Nevertheless, she becomes a silent companion on his nightly vigils.

Then there are the sea fillies, which he refers to as “sea horses⁴”, two mysterious, feminine, equine-like spirits of the sea, who materialise at night, dancing on the waves, glowing faintly and exuding an air of enchantment and aloofness. He sets off with his lamp each evening desperate to attract the attention of one in particular, but instead lures the Groke, who is drawn to the light.

“What a pity mothers can’t go off when they want to and sleep out of doors. Mothers, particularly, could do with it sometimes.”
– Moominmamma

Quite unlike her usual role as the nurturing mainstay of the family, Moominmamma becomes increasingly withdrawn. She attempts to cultivate a garden on the rocky island, using seaweed to enrich the soil but the sea washes it away – possibly symbolising the frailty of life in this unfamiliar terrain. When this fails, she turns inwards and begins to retreat into her thoughts before disappearing (literally) into her painted world, perhaps suggesting a kind of emotional dissociation.

Little My, on the other hand, serves as an insightful, irreverent counterpoint to the emotional turbulence of the other characters. Completely unfazed by the island’s bleakness or the family’s inner turmoil, she remains fiercely independent, mischievous and pragmatic. Her blunt observations inject moments of clarity, often cutting through the gloom with surprising insight. While others wrestle with identity and purpose, Little My simply adapts – thriving in discomfort and refusing to be sentimental.

Lastly, there is the mysterious fisherman, a taciturn figure who embodies the island’s wild desolation. He lives alone, speaks rarely, and offers no comfort or companionship to the family, which is especially galling to Moominpappa who yearns for connection and purpose. Rather than serving as either guide or antagonist, he becomes a living symbol of the quiet endurance of a life stripped of sentiment. His presence deepens the novel’s themes of existential searching and the limits of understanding.

“It’s an exciting job trying to manoeuvre a two-inch plank ashore. It’s unimaginable and heavy with water, and can so easily get away and then hit you with the force of a battering-ram when it is carried in by the next wave. Then it is really dangerous.”
– Tove Jansson
(Moominpappa at Sea)

This book, more than any other in the series, focuses on a sea that is unknowable, volatile and deeply symbolic. Moominpappa tries to understand it, tame it even – but eventually learns that acceptance is wiser.

Far more novelistic than its predecessors, Moominpappa at Sea is imbued with a darker mood than any of the previous Moomin stories, using language that is both thoughtful and poetic. Nevertheless, as Tove herself commented shortly after writing it, there is “a positive ending in which pappa, mamma and troll find their way out of loneliness and become a family again³”.

At the end, the family quietly reunites – not by making any grand gestures, but via their shared acceptance of the island’s rhythms. Moominpappa relinquishes his need to master the sea, Moominmamma steps back from her painted refuge and Moomintroll finds unexpected companionship in the Groke. Their emotional distances lessen, and they begin to reconnect. The lighthouse is finally lit – though, this positive development isn’t considered a monumental achievement, rather it represents a quiet sign of renewed harmony and belonging.

A satisfying conclusion to a hauntingly beautiful book. Quite possibly the most powerful in Tove’s Moomin cycle.

“The lamp sizzled as it burned. It made everything seem close and safe, a little family circle they all knew and trusted. Outside this circle lay everything that was strange and frightening…”

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My copy of the book (which was a gift from my mother) is a Collector’s Edition Moomin Hardback published in 2018 by Sort of Books. It was translated into English by Kingsley Hart. The dedication reads: “To some father⁵”.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tove Jansson was born in Helsinki on 9^th August 1914, the daughter of a Swedish-Finnish father who worked as a sculptor and a mother who was a graphic designer. She first trained as an artist and made a name for herself in her homeland as a painter and cartoonist. She became internationally famous after creating the Moomins. She later went on to write novels and short fiction for adults. She worked in her Helsinki studio, moving to a tiny island in the Gulf of Finland during the summer months with her partner, Tuulikki Pietilä. She died on 27^th June 2001 at the age of eighty-six.

“You mustn’t be afraid. The sea is full of things that want to be friends if only you’d let them.”

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REFERENCE LIST

1. 1. “[Little] My is with them as a necessary contrast in les brûmes nordique [sic]…” Tove Jansson to Vivica Bandler, Tove Jansson: Life. Art. Words, Boel Westin, Chapter 13: ‘The Woman Who Fell in Love with an Island’, page 376. Translated from Swedish by Silvester Mazzarella.
   2. “In summarising [Moominpappa at Sea] for Vivica [Bandler, Tove discusses] family memories” and describes the Moomin’s new home as an island “to which pappa dragged [his family] in order to assert his manhood and restore his self-respect.” Tove Jansson: Life. Art. Words, Boel Westin, Chapter 13: ‘The Woman Who Fell in Love with an Island’, page 376.
   3. Jansson to Bandler, Tove Jansson: Life. Art. Words, Boel Westin, Chapter 13: ‘The Woman Who Fell in Love with an Island’, page 376.
   4. Not literal seahorses, nor are they like any known marine animal, but dreamlike creatures that seem to embody the mystery and allure of the sea. Jansson doesn’t classify them with scientific or mythological precision. They remain ambiguous – part creature, part feeling, part metaphor. I am unable to trace them to a specific folklore tradition, so tend to think they are original to Tove’s imagination.
   5. “…in retrospect it seems to me to be largely about Faffan [Tove’s father]. If it weren’t for the fact that it’s a touch pathetic and revealing, I’d dedicate it to him.” Letters from Tove, edited by Boel Westin and Helen Svensson, translated from the Swedish by Sarah Death, ‘Letters to Vivica Bandler 1946-1976’, 2 June 1964, page 315.

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All images © Moomin Characters™

Categories: Fantasy Fiction, LGB, Tove Jansson, Translated Literature

Tags: #ToveTrove, Finnish Fiction, Finnish Literature, Groke, Helen Svensson, Kingsley Hart, Lighthouse, Little My, Moominmamma, Moominpappa, Moomins, Moomintroll, Nordic Literature, Sarah Death, Sort of Books, Tove Trove, Vivica Bandler