Review: We, the Drowned by Carsten Jensen
We, the Drowned
by Carsten Jensen
I really struggled to write a plot summary for this book, so I'm going to take the lazy way out and borrow the copy from the back of the book:
In 1848 a motley crew of Danish sailors sets sail from the small town of Marstal to fight the Germans. Not all of them return - and those who do will never be the same again. Among them is the daredevil Laurids Madsen, who promptly escapes again into the anonymity of the high seas. Spanning four generations, two world wars and a hundred years,We, the Drowned is an epic tale of adventure, ruthlessness and passion.
This is a story of a town, Marstal, and its people. Thus, the story constantly shifts perspective. Sometimes it is a straightforward third-person narrative. At other times, a character will directly tell his story to the reader, like when Albert narrates his quest to locate his father Laurids, who disappeared when Albert was a small boy. But in many passages, the narrative frequently lapses into a plural first-person perspective, creating a collective voice that emphasizes again and again the community of Marstal and the webs connecting all its citizens. Since the book also covers a great span of time, this focus on community emphasizes that while individual players come and go, the town itself continues through the wax and wane of fortune.
The most interesting bits to me were the individualized stories: a young man sails all over the world in a desperate attempt to find his long-lost father or an angry widow's quest for vengeance against the ocean leads her to destroy Marstal's ships. But every time the novel would pull back and switch to the macroscopic view, the narrative would become slow and muddled, and it became harder to pay attention and care about the story. For example, a fair number of pages were dedicated to outlining the hatred the town's boys hated toward the schoolmaster, but in the course of a century, what did that really matter? Actually, you could debate that: the schoolmaster shaped the attitudes of a generations of young men who went out to sea...but somehow, the whole story arc seemed pointless.
It's a long book - nearly seven hundred pages. I think for fans of this style of seafaring adventure, it will be a fantastic read. I mean, Patrick O'Brian fans won't be able to put this down! It's a novel that I can respect and admire, but I didn't particularly enjoy it, because the genre isn't really my cup of tea.
3.5 out of 5 stars
To read more about We, the Drowned, buy it or add it to your wishlist click here.
by Carsten Jensen
I really struggled to write a plot summary for this book, so I'm going to take the lazy way out and borrow the copy from the back of the book:
In 1848 a motley crew of Danish sailors sets sail from the small town of Marstal to fight the Germans. Not all of them return - and those who do will never be the same again. Among them is the daredevil Laurids Madsen, who promptly escapes again into the anonymity of the high seas. Spanning four generations, two world wars and a hundred years,We, the Drowned is an epic tale of adventure, ruthlessness and passion.
This is a story of a town, Marstal, and its people. Thus, the story constantly shifts perspective. Sometimes it is a straightforward third-person narrative. At other times, a character will directly tell his story to the reader, like when Albert narrates his quest to locate his father Laurids, who disappeared when Albert was a small boy. But in many passages, the narrative frequently lapses into a plural first-person perspective, creating a collective voice that emphasizes again and again the community of Marstal and the webs connecting all its citizens. Since the book also covers a great span of time, this focus on community emphasizes that while individual players come and go, the town itself continues through the wax and wane of fortune.
The most interesting bits to me were the individualized stories: a young man sails all over the world in a desperate attempt to find his long-lost father or an angry widow's quest for vengeance against the ocean leads her to destroy Marstal's ships. But every time the novel would pull back and switch to the macroscopic view, the narrative would become slow and muddled, and it became harder to pay attention and care about the story. For example, a fair number of pages were dedicated to outlining the hatred the town's boys hated toward the schoolmaster, but in the course of a century, what did that really matter? Actually, you could debate that: the schoolmaster shaped the attitudes of a generations of young men who went out to sea...but somehow, the whole story arc seemed pointless.
It's a long book - nearly seven hundred pages. I think for fans of this style of seafaring adventure, it will be a fantastic read. I mean, Patrick O'Brian fans won't be able to put this down! It's a novel that I can respect and admire, but I didn't particularly enjoy it, because the genre isn't really my cup of tea.
3.5 out of 5 stars
To read more about We, the Drowned, buy it or add it to your wishlist click here.