Here’s another Scandinavian, this time a Danish author, with
an epic story spanning a century from 1848 through WWII. I had recently read Lars Myting’s “Bell in
the Lake” trilogy and loved the saga set in a Norwegian village that spanned
roughly that same century and I was taken by Myting’s writing. So, I looked on the internet for something
that was considered comparable, and this book by Jensen came up. “We, The Drowned” is a best seller in Europe. The translation seems good and very readable.
The Danish port city of
Marstal is the setting of this novel about the sea and men who go to sea and
women who stay home and live with the anguish of not knowing if their men will
return. If this 675-page book had been separated
into a trilogy the first book would have been early sea faring adventures in sailing
ships to exotic places all over the world, the second mostly on land in Marstal
where the main characters are from, and the third a gripping story of the heroic
merchant marine mostly in the North Atlantic during WWII. The second – middle – part was a bit slow, but
the beginning and end were absorbing, sometimes horrific and tragic stories. Jensen did his research of the historical
reality of Marstal (his hometown) and writes gripping depictions of ships going to the bottom of the sea in storms as well to bombing and torpedoes. There are many characters to follow, and great
descriptions of the life of those who were drawn to go out to the sea. I have not read many books about
the seas – never made it through Moby Dick, though “The Old Man and the Sea” was
an easy read, but this book is compared by some of the reviews as a “magnificent
addition to the canon of seafaring writing”.
There are numerous reviews online, most enthusiastically
endorsing this book, so I won’t write a review here, but personally I would
recommend “We, The Drowned”.
