'When we are safe inside, nothing dangerous can happen to us'

While eating my lunch, we were booted out into the cold for a fire alarm - the second one this week. Shivering, I read a little more of Moominpappa at Sea. I was talking about it to Mark last night, pushing my argument that it's a children's book dealing with the psychological effect of the end of paternalism and traditional masculinity - it's Freudian and Butlerian. It struck me just now that even the title is beautifully double: Moominpappa is literally at sea - occupying a (phallic) lighthouse in the middle of the feminine, attractive but dangerous sea - to recuperate his masculine duty. Moominmamma seeks only fertile soil, halfway between the extremities of suicide (the sea) or dictatorship (the lighthouse). Psychologically, Moominpappa is 'at sea'.

If you aren't persuaded, try these quotes:

One afternoon, Moominpappa was walking about in his garden feeling at a loss. He had no idea what to do with himself, because it seemed everything there was to be done had already been done or was being done by somebody else.

Moominpappa aimlessly pottered about in his garden, his tail dragging along the ground behind him in a melancholy way.

The family stopped what they were doing and said 'Yes. Of course. Yes, yes'. Then they took no more notice of him, and got on with what they were doing.

They were always doing something. Quietly, without interrupting, and with great concentration, they carried on with the hundred-and-one small things that made up their world. It was a world that was very private, and self-contained, and to which nothing could be added. Like a map where everything has been discovered, everywhere inhabited, and where there are no bare patches left any longer.

(later)

The family got on his nerves at times - they could never stick to the matter in hand. He wondered whether all fathers found the same thing… He must try getting in the right mood, like his father-in-law used to do. All her life, his mother-in-law had gone round dropping things everywhere or leaving them behind and forgetting where she had left them. Then his father-in-law would turn on something in his brain.

Mark points out the Freudian link between 'melancholy' and a drooping 'tail' (and the solution is similarly phallic: the key to it all is literally a key, and it all reminds me of the many novels about male unemployment - these are the symptoms of masculine roles being removed. Moominpappa responds in the classic ways: toying with starting a forest fire to stage a rescue, spying on a family unit which seems to function well without him, contemplating home improvements to impress them, then moving them to a seemingly solid and stable old role - the lighthouse keeper, necessary and isolated. How different is this to the single father who kidnaps or kills his ex-wife/children?

Moominpappa looks for older models - the lighthouse keeper, his father-in-law, to regain a sense of male purpose, while Moominmamma quietly realises that this is a stage he needs to go through, without accepting the reactionary nature of some of these ideas. What strikes me is Tove Jansson's empathy (she lived on a little island too): she makes it clear that this aimlessness can be destructive, without ever suggesting that Moominpappa (or men) are monsters. Instead, they can be understood. All this - and it's a children's book, teaching them, very quietly, that their parents have passions, depressions, and problems, while never suggesting that adults are always right (Little My always pricks Moominpappa's pomposity). Moominpappa and Moominmamma seem to be closely based on Jansson's parents. The passages about the terrifying pull of the sea when Moominpappa is depressed is brilliant, really encapsulating the temptation of oblivion.

Thankfully, Moominpappa finds a key, and learns from the absent lighthouse keeper (God?) how to find a role:

Something clicked inside Moominpappa's head. Of course, everything was as clear as day. This was the place where the lighthouse-keeper came when he wanted to be entirely alone. A place for thought and meditation. And it was here that he had left the key so that Moominpappa should find it and take over the lighthouse. With great ceremony and the help of magic forces, Moominpappa had been chosen as the owner of the lighthouse and its keeper.

However - all this sounds like wish fulfilment, and so it transpires: the self-imposed duties of this so-symbolic role being to oppress Moominpappa. I haven't finished yet, so don't know what will happen, but I'm sure a balance will be struck. I'll let you know.

I am enjoying it too, by the way.

My visit to the post room brought great joy: Richard Overy's The Morbid Age: Britain Between The Wars, Byatt's The Children's Book (with a major protagonist from Stoke) and Pryce's From Aberystwyth With Love, which I'll take to All Tomorrow's Parties with me tomorrow. All have stunningly good cover designs too.