Carsten Jensen- We, the Drowned

I've finally finished We, the Drowned, it taken just over a month the read, which is really slow for me. In my defence I've been working a lot of over time recently and it's a pretty hefty book. My slowness isn't an indication that I didn't enjoy it- it fact I'd highly recommend Carsten Jensen's maritime epic. It has sold over 300,000 copies in Scandinavia and has been voted as the best Danish novel of the past twenty-five years.

 
The plot: Spanning from 1848 to World War II, three generations of sailors leave the small Danish town of Marstal and sail the world. They find adventure, opportunity wealth, love and death.

The scope of this novel is huge, it's hard to summarise it neatly without turning this post into an essay. Jensen has created a contemporary Odyssey, as both the Homer epic and We, the Drowned recount seafaring adventures. The story includes descriptions ship hierarchy, hardships and mutiny, tales of exotic ports,  cannibals and foreign women. Those left behind also have a voice, like Odysseus' faithful Penelope, the women of Marstal wait and morn for their sons and husbands. The 'we' that narrates the novel, is the omniscient voice of the downed, lost souls that record the history, present and future of the town, similar to a Greek chorus.    

Cutty Sark- London

 I've posted a fair few quotes from the novel recently, which is evidence of how well written I think the book is. The translators Charlotte Barslund and Emma Ryder have done a really good job. I've read a lot of books about war, and they have sort of lost their power to shock. However, I had a renewed sense of horror when I read the passages about the shipping coveys during the Second World War.

Each generation from Marstal who goes to sea has a different experience. The sailors begin on huge ships with sails and masts and by the end of the novel steam powered warships and u-boats rule the waves. I had very limited knowledge about sailing and maritime history, and I really enjoyed the insight this novel gave me.  Though the type of ship evolves through the novel, common themes remain, the sea is perilous but the life of a sailor offers adventure and opportunity.

  

A woman in an oversized winter coat was standing in the middle of the platform

"She was pushed and shoved from all sides by the blind throng, and the suitcase that she carried suddenly sprang open and an infant fell out. Kund Erik saw it clearly. It was the burnt body of a little child, withered and practically unrecognisable, a mummy shrunk by the heat of the same fire that had clearly devoured its mother's mind, too"     

- Carsten Jensen, We, the Drowned 

Grind a man

"Grind a man into the dirt and observe him beneath your heel. Is he fighting to get up? Does he cry out against the injustice he has suffered? No, he stays there, proud of all the punishment he can take. His manhood lies in his foolish endurance" 

- Carsten Jensen, We, the Drowned 

The convoy sailed to deliver that cargo, not to rescue drowning sailors

"shipwrecked men would drift behind and disappear on the vast sea. The last trace of them would be the red distress lights on their life jackets. They were the lucky ones. As their body temperatures dropped, they'd drift into sleep, and then death [...] The red lights glowed on for a while longer [...] Knud Erik stood on the bridge, his hands on the wheel, and sailed into a whole poppy field of red distress lights [...] He'd heard the frantic pummelling against the ship when the life-jacketed survivors drifted alongside and desperately tried to push off so not to be caught by the screw propeller. The ship's wake foamed red with blood from the severed body parts"

- Carsten Jensen, We, the Drowned     

Currently Reading- We, The Drowned

I bought We, The Drowned for my holiday, I didn't get much chance to actually read it though as my week was so full on. I've made some progress now, I'm about half way through, so hopefully a full review will be up in a couple of weeks (it's a pretty long book).

I hope you appreciate the picture, it took me forever to learn to make those paper boats, but I suppose I've learnt a new skill! 

The book cover is really striking, I like how the stylised sea forms a porthole around the ship. 

Carsten Jensen- We, The Drowned

 If you're going on holiday to somewhere with a port or history of seafaring I'd recommend you pick this up. Or, if you're interested in Denmark, this would be a good read, as the story is located in a small Danish coastal town. 

The conch had a melody for everyone who listened to it

"For the young, the conch sang of longing for distant shores; for the old it sang of absence and sorrow. It had a song for the young and another one for the old, one for the men and one for the women, and the women's song was always the same, as monotonous as the beating of the waves against the beach: loss loss." 

- Carsten Jensen, We, The Drowned

We're always coming up with new names for one another

"A nickname's a way of stating that no one belongs to himself. You're ours now, it says: we've rechristened you. We know more about you than you know about yourself. We've looked at you and seen more of you than you'll catch in the mirror"

-Carsten Jensen, We, The Drowned