We, the Drowned by Carsten Jensen
I’m trying to read outside my comfort zone and came across this book in the library. The dust jacket claimed:
Already hailed in Europe as an instant classic, We, the Drowned is the story of the port town of Marstal, whose inhabitants have sailed the world’s oceans aboard freight ships for centuries. Spanning over a hundred years, from the mid-nineteenth century to the end of the Second World War, and from the barren rocks of Newfoundland to the lush plantations of Samoa, from the roughest bars in Tasmania, to the frozen coasts of northern Russia, We, the Drowned spins a magnificent tale of love, war, and adventure, a tale of the men who go to sea and the women they leave behind.
The story spans three generations of sailors starting at about the time of the Napoleonic wars and going until the end of World War II. I’m not sure why I was drawn to a story of the sea, but I decided to give it a go. And I failed getting through it the first time I checked it out. I started reading it this summer, and got about 1/4 of the way through before returning it because I just couldn’t get into the narrative. However, the story stuck with me for weeks, so over Thanksgiving break I checked it out and finished it while on vacation and I realized that there are books you can read in short sittings and ones that you have to settle into over long stretches. This is that kind of a book: a lazy summer reading book or a sit on the beach and read during vacation, not something for the 10 minutes do you have before you go to bed at night.
What was most interesting about this book is its tie to a single town and getting to know its people and their relationships through the years. This story hook has a long tradition especially for those of you who may have listened to Garrison Keillor’s stories about Lake Wobegon where are each individual story adds to the greater quilt. There is love and revenge, a tale of murder, relationships between sons and fathers, sons and mothers, and what it means to be a sailor (both for the sailors and for their families left behind).
Why should you read it? If you have any interest in the age of sail, or those romanticized Robinson Crusoe stories, the first half of the book will definitely interest you. Then, as you become more invested in the town’s residents, you end up paging through more intrigues large and small. There’s also a strong coming-of-age theme in this book, which is another trope and I like reading about. And in the end it’s the story about people somehow with their funny differences managing to pull together and create a community. If you’ve grown up in a small town you’ll recognize Marstal for what it is immediately and if you haven’t, get a greater sense of what life in a small isolated town might be like.
For writers, this is a good book for discovering how to put together a generational story, or building a story structure around a location.Overall, I recommend it if you’re ready to settle in for 675 pages.
