Scan barcode
A review by coboshimself_
We, the Drowned by Carsten Jensen
5.0
“Hope can be like a plant that sprouts and grows and keeps people alive. But it can also be a wound that refuses to heal.”
A book dealing with a Marstal, Danish seafaring town, and a century's worth of its history. It was a big book. I read it. I am now left trying to figure out the words that could best describe such an amazing tale.
We start with a man named Laudris Madsen. A man that fought in World War I and whose boots kept him tied to Earth. The story passes character to character through the generations. These fact will lead us to Albert Madsen's story on his voyage through the Pacific where he will encounter cannibals, shrunken heads and more and many more tales from Marstal's inhabitants.
This is an epic tale regarding the sea and its effects on a small town. How Marstal will expand, how children will grow and explore the world, how fathers will leave and never return, how mothers will raise kids to see them take their father's steps, how wives will become widows and how cemeteries will fill with empty graves.
The book's narration style is quite particular. It is "we", telling us "we" are always there. "We" follow Alberts voyage. "We" fought in The Great War. "We" lost our sanity by looking at galaxies. "We" are everywhere. "We" the drowned.
A book dealing with a Marstal, Danish seafaring town, and a century's worth of its history. It was a big book. I read it. I am now left trying to figure out the words that could best describe such an amazing tale.
We start with a man named Laudris Madsen. A man that fought in World War I and whose boots kept him tied to Earth. The story passes character to character through the generations. These fact will lead us to Albert Madsen's story on his voyage through the Pacific where he will encounter cannibals, shrunken heads and more and many more tales from Marstal's inhabitants.
This is an epic tale regarding the sea and its effects on a small town. How Marstal will expand, how children will grow and explore the world, how fathers will leave and never return, how mothers will raise kids to see them take their father's steps, how wives will become widows and how cemeteries will fill with empty graves.
The book's narration style is quite particular. It is "we", telling us "we" are always there. "We" follow Alberts voyage. "We" fought in The Great War. "We" lost our sanity by looking at galaxies. "We" are everywhere. "We" the drowned.