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A review by jacki_f
Italian Shoes by Henning Mankell
4.0
Frederick Welin is a former surgeon who made a terrible mistake on the operating table. He retired from the world and when the book opens he has been living in isolation on a small Swedish island for 12 years. One day, unexpectedly, a woman arrives to see him. Harriet is a former lover whom he abruptly abandoned almost 40 years ago. Now terminally ill, she wants him to take her to a lake that he had told her about many years ago. However, it emerges that she has another motive for visiting him - one that will prove to be the catalyst for major changes in his life. Over the course of the book, he realises "that everything (he'd) thought was definite and done with was starting to change".
If this sounds dry, I can only say that it's utterly absorbing. Mankell has a lovely, spare writing style reminiscent of Helen Garner. This is a beautifully written book that is quintessentially Swedish. The characters are perfectly realized, right down to the hypochondriac postman. Reading this book is rather like watching a very satisfying piece of theatre.
I did feel that this is a novel that always keeps the reader at a slight distance. I empathized with Welin but I never particularly liked him (everytime I did start to like him he'd do something very self-centered or unpleasant). However this didn't detract from my enjoyment of the novel.
I don't usually comment on a book's cover but I did think that this one was perfectly chosen. The Swedish countryside is deeply woven into the story. I also thought that for a book originally written in Swedish, the translation appears flawless.
If this sounds dry, I can only say that it's utterly absorbing. Mankell has a lovely, spare writing style reminiscent of Helen Garner. This is a beautifully written book that is quintessentially Swedish. The characters are perfectly realized, right down to the hypochondriac postman. Reading this book is rather like watching a very satisfying piece of theatre.
I did feel that this is a novel that always keeps the reader at a slight distance. I empathized with Welin but I never particularly liked him (everytime I did start to like him he'd do something very self-centered or unpleasant). However this didn't detract from my enjoyment of the novel.
I don't usually comment on a book's cover but I did think that this one was perfectly chosen. The Swedish countryside is deeply woven into the story. I also thought that for a book originally written in Swedish, the translation appears flawless.