[ book tip by Ide Hejlskov ] Carsten Jensen has produced a masterpiece: a historical novel of life, death and war at sea, reminiscent of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. The brutalised, resourceful sailors, the “we” of the title, drive the narrative forward with a kind of morbid glee that elicits both cramped palpitations and robust laughter from the reader. Instead of looking inward, contemplating their bruised and battered psyches, Jensen’s sailors choose to go out into the world and act. We, the Drowned opens in 1848, amid the gunpowder smoke and thundering cannons of the First Schleswig War, and closes in 1945, as the RAF bombs a ship. The sweeping narrative follows three generations of sailors from the town of Marstal – and one pair of boots. When Laurids Madsen’s ship is blown up in 1848, he is hurled high into the air, only to land back in his boots. But his experiences in the war and the strange significance of the boots weigh more heavily upon Laurids than one suspects. He later disappears, leaving the boots and his family behind. When his son Albert grows up, he puts on the boots and sallies forth into the world to find his father. Before Albert hangs up his boots, or rather dies standing in them as a grim monument to his life, he must first bear witness to the fall of the men of Marstal during World War One. The legacy of the boots then passes, at least in a metaphorical sense, to Knud Erik Friis. His mother does not want her boy to go to sea, but the decision is not hers to make. So with his inheritance from Albert and a somewhat embittered heart, Knud Erik departs, only to meet, like Laurids before him, death, love and his own moral disintegration. In addition to the three main characters, who are related by either blood or spirit, a chorus of boys’ and sailors’ voices help to tell the tale of Marstal. But We, the Drowned is not simply the story of the town’s men. Women also have a role to play, especially in the second half, both as a part of the chorus and as individuals. One particular female character’s drive pits her against the men. At first she is bashfulness personified, but when she attempts to pursue her dreams upon coming into money, she finds herself living a nightmare. Like a female Captain Ahab stranded upon dry land, she fights a long, hard and ultimately futile battle against the sea. As the book approaches its conclusion, the dramatic tension reaches unbearable new heights, but Jensen skilfully holds all the strands together.

[ book info ] Jensen, Carsten: Vi, de druknede. (Book language: Dansk) Gyldendal, Danmark, 2006 . ISBN: 13-978-87-02-04723-3.
by Dzevad Karahasan