February 12, 2007
This bizarre and compelling tale from Swedish author Mankell, best known for his crime novels featuring detective Kurt Wallander (The Man Who Smiled
, etc.), focuses on a tortured naval officer, Lars Tobiasson-Svartman, who has the important duty of taking soundings for secret naval channels in the approach to Stockholm at the outbreak of WWI. Like a skilled stonemason, Mankell builds his portrait of Svartman with infinite patience, adding details and highlights layer by layer: Svartman as a naval officer attached to but not a part of a crew; Svartman as husband to a wife willingly left behind as he pursues his secret mission; and Svartman as the obsessed seeker of Sara, the lone inhabitant of Halsskär, a desolate and isolated island. Mankell fully sounds the depths of Svartman's obsessions in a way so artful as to appear artless, creating a masterful portrait not only of Svartman but of the women in his life. This is a memorable and shocking psychological study.
March 15, 2007
Lars Tobiasson-Svartman is the image of probity and rationality. An ace hydrographic engineer who accurately gauges distances and depths at a glance, Lars lulls himself to sleep each night clutching one of his sounding weights to his chest. He has married well but finds domesticity suffocating and much prefers the regimented, masculine environment aboard a naval vessel. In 1914, on a secret mission off the coast of Sweden, Lars discovers a beautiful woman living alone on a barren island. He spies on her from afar, becomes infatuated, and eventually ends up having an affair with her, ignoring the fact that his wife has just given birth back in Stockholm. Lars spins an increasingly complex web of lies to conceal each woman's existence from the other, and when it inevitably unravels he responds with shocking brutality. Is his true nature finally coming to the surface? Mankell's slow pacing requires some patience, and the Scandinavian gloom is oppressive. This nightmarish tale may remind older readers of Kobo Abe's classic novelThe Woman in the Dunes (1964). Recommended for larger collections of European fiction.Edward B. St. John, Loyola Law Sch. Lib., Los Angeles
Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
April 1, 2007
Mankell, best known for his Kurt Wallander series, shows us another dimension of his considerable talent. In October 1914, with World War I just beginning, Swedens neutrality is not necessarily assured. Naval commander and hydrographic surveyor Lars Tobiasson-Svartman has a secret mission: to take new depth soundings in the Stockholm archipelago, part of a search for faster passages and safe havens for Swedish ships. He is a man obsessed with exactitude, yet hes never taken his own measurehe hides a deep, uncharted abyss in his soul. His love for his wife, in particular, has never been tested. When he meets a hardy, emotionally wounded woman living on a desolate, rocky island, his self-discipline unravels. He gropes blindly toward self-knowledge, leaving wreckage in his wake. As a portrait of alienation from the self, this recalls Camus Stranger; as a portrait of strong women societally subordinate to blinkered men, it recalls Ibsens Dolls House. If Mankell sometimes writes about his protagonists emotional journey too plainly, this grim novel still casts a remarkably powerful spell.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)