The Moomins or Moomintrolls (, ) are the central characters in a series of novels, short stories, picture books, and a comic strip by the Finnish writer and illustrator Tove Jansson, originally published in Swedish by the Finnish publisher Schildts. They are a family of white, round fairy-tale characters with large snouts that make them resemble the hippopotamus. However, despite this resemblance, the Moomin family are trolls who live in a house in Moominvalley.
Between 1945 and 1993, Jansson wrote a series of nine books, and created five picture books and a long-running comic strip. The Moomins have inspired numerous television series, films, music, theatre productions, video games, and theme parks. In popular culture, the Moomins have appeared on a wide range of merchandise, sold in shops around the world, and as a livery for some Finnair aircraft.
Etymology
There are two different stories of how the term moomintroll was invented.
On one occasion, the books' author, the artist Tove Jansson (born in 1914), explained that the term mumintroll was originally coined during her "earliest childhood" by her uncle. To deter the young Jansson from taking food from his pantry, the uncle told her that it was inhabited by "cold moomintrolls", which would come out of the corners and rub their noses against Jansson if she came to steal food.
In a 1973 letter to Paul Ariste, an Estonian linguist, Jansson wrote that she had created the word moomintroll to express something soft: She came up with an ad hoc Swedish word because, in her opinion, the consonant sound of m in particular conveys a sensation of softness. As an artist, Jansson gave the Moomins a shape that also expresses softness, as opposed to flabbiness.Ariste, Paul. 1975l "Uusi sõeliseid." In Sõnasõel 3, p. 11. Tartu: Tartu Riiklik Ülikool.
Approach
Characters
The Moomin stories concern several eccentric and oddly-shaped characters, some of whom are related to each other. The central family consists of Moominpappa, Moominmamma and Moomintroll.
Other characters, such as the Snork Maiden, Hemulens, Sniff, Snufkin, and Little My are accepted into or attach themselves to the family group from time to time, despite generally living separate lives in Moominvalley, the setting of the series, where the Moomin family decides to live at the end of The Moomins and the Great Flood.
Biographical interpretation
Critics have interpreted various Moomin characters as being inspired by real people, especially members of the author's family, with Tove Jansson having spoken in interviews about the backgrounds of her characters and possible models for them. The first two books about the Moomins (The Moomins and the Great Flood and Comet in Moominland) were published in 1945 and 1946 respectively, and deal with natural disasters; they were influenced by the upheavals of war and Jansson's depression during the war years.
Tove Jansson's life partner was the graphic artist Tuulikki Pietilä, whose personality inspired the character Too-Ticky in Moominland Midwinter. The names Tofslan and Vifslan (for Thingumy and Bob) were the pet names of Jansson and her theatre director lover Vivica Bandler, while the name Mymlan (The Mymble) echoes the slang verb mymla, "to have sex": she has at least 30 children.
Moomintroll and Little My have been seen as psychological self-portraits of the artist. The Moomins, generally speaking, relate strongly to Jansson's own family – they were bohemian, lived close to nature and were very tolerant towards diversity. Moominpappa and Moominmamma are often seen as portraits of Jansson's parents Viktor Jansson and Signe Hammarsten-Jansson. Most of Jansson's characters are on the verge of melancholy, such as the always formal Hemulen, or the strange Hattifatteners, who travel in concerted, ominous groups. Jansson uses the differences between the characters' philosophies to express her views.
Goals
Jansson's biographer, , writes that Jansson created Moominvalley as "an escape from the horrors of the Winter War and into the safety of childhood". She imbued the Moomin characters with multiple aspects of her way of thinking, including, according to posthumanist and queer analysis, a wide diversity of species including non-human life forms and a range of sexual and gender preferences. For instance, the dress-wearing Hemulens may be male or female. Commentators have noted that the Moomin family accepts people for themselves, something that queer readers have respected.
Jansson commented in a 1983 lecture that she had "tried to tell [a story] about a very happy family. The Moomin family is happy in such an obvious way that they themselves don't even realize it. They are comfortable with each other and give each other freedom. Freedom to be alone, to think in one's way, to keep one's secrets until one is ready to disclose them. Not to give each other a bad conscience and to be able to experience responsibility as something fun and not just a duty."
Reception
The reception of the first two Moomin books was lukewarm at first; the second book received more attention than its predecessor, but sales figures were still poor. The third book, Finn Family Moomintroll, which was the first to be translated into English, became the first international bestseller.
Works by Tove Jansson
Novels
The novels in the series, in order, all by Jansson, are:
The Moomins and the Great Flood (Originally: Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen, "The small trolls and the great flood") – 1945. Comet in Moominland (Originally: Kometjakten/Kometen kommer, "The comet hunt"/"The comet is coming") – 1946. Finn Family Moomintroll, Some editions: The Happy Moomins –(Originally: Trollkarlens hatt, "The wizard's hat") – 1948. The Exploits of Moominpappa, Some editions: Moominpappa's Memoirs (Originally: Muminpappans bravader/Muminpappans memoarer, "Moominpappa's achievements"/"Moominpappa's memoirs") – 1950. Moominsummer Madness (Originally: Farlig midsommar, "Dangerous midsummer") – 1954. Moominland Midwinter (Originally: Trollvinter, "Troll winter") – 1957. Tales from Moominvalley (Originally: Det osynliga barnet, "The invisible child") – 1962 (Short stories). Moominpappa at Sea (Originally: Pappan och havet, "The father and the sea") – 1965. Moominvalley in November (Originally: Sent i november, "Late in November") – 1970 (In which the Moomin family is absent).
All of the novels in the main series except The Moomins and the Great Flood were translated and published in English between 1951 and 1971. This first book was eventually translated into English in 2005 by David McDuff and published by Schildts of Finland for the 60th anniversary of the series. A later 2012 version of the same translation, featuring Jansson's new preface to the 1991 Scandinavian printing, was published in Britain by Sort of Books.
Picture books
There are five Moomin picture books by Jansson:
The Book about Moomin, Mymble and Little My (Originally: Hur gick det sen?) – 1952. Who Will Comfort Toffle? (Originally: Vem ska trösta knyttet?) – 1960. The Dangerous Journey (Originally: Den farliga resan) – 1977. Skurken i Muminhuset (English: Villain in the Moominhouse) – 1980 Visor från Mumindalen (English: Songs from Moominvalley) – 1993 (No English translation published).
The first official translation of Villain in the Moominhouse by Tove Jansson historian Ant O'Neill was premiered in a reading at the ArchWay With Words literary festival on 25 September 2017.
The books and comic strips have been translated from their original Swedish and English respectively into many languages. The Book about Moomin, Mymble and Little My has been adapted for digital devices by Filmkompaniet.
Comic strips by Tove and Lars Jansson
Moomin comic strips first appeared in 1947, in the children's section of the Ny Tid newspaper.Marten, Peter. & Panzar, Katja (ed.). Starting a Great Adventure. Blue Wings Magazine. Nov. 2007. These were introduced to English readers in 1954 in the London newspaper The Evening News. Tove Jansson drew and wrote all the strips alone until 1959, then shared the workload with her brother Lars Jansson until 1961, when Lars Jansson took over the job completely - he worked on the strip until production ceased in 1975.
Drawn & Quarterly, a Canadian graphic novel publisher, released reprints of all The Evening News strips created by both Tove and Lars Jansson beginning in October 2006.Moomin: The Complete Tove Comic Strip [Drawn & Quarterly, Montreal]. (Vol. 1) The first five volumes, Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip have been published, whilst the sixth volume, published in May 2011, began Moomin: The Complete Lars Jansson Comic Strip. The 2015 publication Moomin: The Deluxe Anniversary Edition collected all of Tove's work.
In the 1990s, a comic book version of Moomin was produced in Scandinavia after Dennis Livson and Lars Jansson's animated series was shown on television. Neither Tove nor Lars Jansson had any involvement in these comic books; however, in the wake of the series, two new Moomin comic strips were launched under the artistic and content oversight of Lars and his daughter, Sophia Jansson-Zambra. Sophia now provides sole oversight for the strips.
Music
The Moomin novels describe the musical activities of the Moomins, particularly those of Snufkin and his harmonica with its "trills" and "twiddles".
Original songs
This music was heard outside Moominvalley after they went live on the stage in Stockholm. Director Vivica Bandler told Jansson in 1959: "Listen, here the people want songs".Songbook Visor från Mumindalen foreword by Boel Westin. Bonniers, Stockholm, Sweden.
Helsinki based pianist and composer Erna Tauro was commissioned by Bandler to write the songs to Jansson's lyrics. The first collection consisted of Six Moomin Songs (Sex muminvisor): Moomintroll's Song (Mumintrollets visa), Little My's Song (Lilla Mys visa), Mrs. Fillyjonk's Song (Fru Filifjonks sång), Theatre Rat Emma's Words of Wisdom (Teaterråttan Emmas visdomsord), Misabel's Lament (Misans klagolåt) and Final Song (Slutsång).
The songs by Jansson and Tauro remained scattered after their initial release. The first recording of the complete collection was made in 2003 by composer and arranger Mika Pohjola on the Moomin Voices CD (Muminröster in Swedish), as a memorial tribute to Jansson. Tauro had died in June 1993 and some of Jansson's last lyrics were composed by Pohjola in cooperation with Jansson's heirs. Pohjola arranged all the songs for vocal ensemble and chamber orchestra. All voices were sung by Åland native vocalist, Johanna Grüssner. The same recording has been released in a Finnish version in 2005, Muumilauluja. The Finnish lyrics were translated by Kirsi Kunnas and Vexi Salmi.
The Swedish and Finnish recordings of Moomin Voices, and their respective musical scores, have been used as course material at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. The Moomin Voices Live Band (aka. Muumilauluja-bändi) is dedicated to exclusively performing the original lyrics and unaltered stories by Jansson. This band is led by Pohjola on piano, with vocalists Mirja Mäkelä and Eeppi Ursin.
Musical interpretations
A Moomin opera was written in 1974 by the Finnish composer Ilkka Kuusisto; Jansson designed the costumes.
Musicscapes from Moominvalley is a four-part work based on the Moomin compositions of composer and producer . It was created on the basis of the original Moomin works for the .Moominvalley 20 years, .
The Icelandic singer Björk composed and performed the title song ("The Comet Song") for the 2010 Finnish film Moomins and the Comet Chase. The lyrics were written by the Icelandic writer Sjón.
Adaptations
Films