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vegantrav 's review for:
The Man from Beijing
by Henning Mankell
Having been thoroughly delighted with and entranced by Stieg Larsson's Millenium trilogy, I decided to read this mystery/thriller from another renowned Swedish author, Henning Mankell.
Mankell, though, is no Larsson. The Man from Beijing begins as an intriguing mystery with a mass murder in a small village in a remote area in the northern part of Sweden. As the novel progresses and we learn who massacred the elderly residents and one child in this village, our normal willingness to suspend our disbelief is stretched nearly to the breaking point: the motive for the murders is nearly impossible to swallow, and this is a severe shortcoming.
Another problem is the stilted prose and dialogue. There seems to be no real emotion or passion in this novel; it feels almost as if the prose was composed by a computer or an autistic person or someone who has no grasp at all of the human heart. I don't know if this is a problem with Mankell himself or with the English translation. I do know, however, that there was no such problem with Larsson's prose, and I can't imagine that Mankell would have garnered his great reputation as one of Sweden's foremost mystery writers if his prose, in his native Swedish, was really as bad as it sounds in English. And I checked: the translator for the Mankell novel is not the same person who translated Larsson's novels.
Despite the problems with the novel, it was still compelling enough that I finished the 367 pages in just a few days. I can't highly recommend it, but it was still an interesting read, so I can't say it was a bad book, either.
Addendum: I learned a great deal about Sweden, China, and the plight of Chinese immigrants in mid-19th-century America, and that is one of the reasons I enjoy reading writers from other countries and cultures.
Mankell, though, is no Larsson. The Man from Beijing begins as an intriguing mystery with a mass murder in a small village in a remote area in the northern part of Sweden. As the novel progresses and we learn who massacred the elderly residents and one child in this village, our normal willingness to suspend our disbelief is stretched nearly to the breaking point: the motive for the murders is nearly impossible to swallow, and this is a severe shortcoming.
Another problem is the stilted prose and dialogue. There seems to be no real emotion or passion in this novel; it feels almost as if the prose was composed by a computer or an autistic person or someone who has no grasp at all of the human heart. I don't know if this is a problem with Mankell himself or with the English translation. I do know, however, that there was no such problem with Larsson's prose, and I can't imagine that Mankell would have garnered his great reputation as one of Sweden's foremost mystery writers if his prose, in his native Swedish, was really as bad as it sounds in English. And I checked: the translator for the Mankell novel is not the same person who translated Larsson's novels.
Despite the problems with the novel, it was still compelling enough that I finished the 367 pages in just a few days. I can't highly recommend it, but it was still an interesting read, so I can't say it was a bad book, either.
Addendum: I learned a great deal about Sweden, China, and the plight of Chinese immigrants in mid-19th-century America, and that is one of the reasons I enjoy reading writers from other countries and cultures.