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We, the Drowned

by Carsten Jensen, Charlotte Barslund (Translator), Liz Jensen (Translator), Emma Ryder (Translation)

4.17 of 5 stars 4.17 · rating details · 1,548 ratings · 328 reviews

Carsten Jensen’s debut novel has taken the world by storm. Already hailed in Europe as an instant classic, We, the Drowned is the story of the port town of Marstal, whose inhabitants have sailed the world’s oceans aboard freight ships for centuries. Spanning over a hundred years, from the mid-nineteenth century to the end of the Second World War, and from the barren rocks...more

Hardcover, 688 pages

Published February 9th 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (first published 2006)

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Dec 29, 2011 Matt rated it 4 of 5 stars

Like any self-respecting Minnesotan, I grew up loving the water. During our three warm months, I would fish, swim, and water ski. During our nine cold months, I would ice fish, drunk-swim, and ice-water-ski. But I don’t need to interact with the water. I enjoy it just as much – if not more – on a passive basis. Just plop me down on a beach with a book and a beer, and I’ve found my heaven. Water, you see, invites one to contemplate; it soothes the soul; it stirs the imagination. (Also, so does be...more

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Oct 04, 2012 Becky rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-fiction, modlit, maritime, my-top-25, best-cover-art

What do you say about a book that, after you finished it, you sat staring at a wall for fifteen minutes while tears flowed down your cheeks? It’s miraculous. I don’t feel that that’s enough, this review isn’t enough. I loved this book, I cannot do it justice. Still, it’s a good challenge to force yourself to examine what made you love a book, and so I’ve written the below.

The book is the ocean.
It’s about a fight with God. The book covers roughly 200 years of history, and the sea is the only cons...more What do you say about a book that, after you finished it, you sat staring at a wall for fifteen minutes while tears flowed down your cheeks? It’s miraculous. I don’t feel that that’s enough, this review isn’t enough. I loved this book, I cannot do it justice. Still, it’s a good challenge to force yourself to examine what made you love a book, and so I’ve written the below.

The book is the ocean.
It’s about a fight with God. The book covers roughly 200 years of history, and the sea is the only constant character, a godlike being, who is more of a God to the sailors upon her than God could ever be. No one feels like God condemns them to death, but the depths and ice reach out, and grab the sailors one by one, leaving families in Marstal to grieve over a missing body. The sea has power over every aspect of their lives, and they are enthralled to it.

It’s a romance. A romance with a frontier, and the men that pine for freedom, and the women that pine for their men. It’s all mystery and fate and destiny, and the depths of the soul that, like the sea, are boundless.

And it’s about the darkness of men. Our bodies are vessels with an ability to store up so much raw power of hate and love. There are always seems to be death and darkness waiting back in Marstal, while the sea provides relief. Yet in the end men turn the sea into an even larger, more dangerous weapon of death, and then, relief can be found back home, in Marstal. The tides turn, they give, and they take, just like the book, just like history.

I read this and Lonesome Dove at the same time, and I was struck by author’s ability to use their narrative form to mimic their respective frontier. In Lonesome Dove the words were sparse, the sentences short, the events highly sequential- because that’s how cowboys are, do what is in front of you, then move on to the next thing. This book was more like the ocean, it was heavy and large, there were multiple voices, it was chaotic, and you had to follow a lot of characters at once. You flowed from one story to the next, and tried never to forget a moment or a person.

Occasionally the story was told from one characters perspective, but more often it was written in the very rare first-person collective, “we.” I loved this. It made the story so involving. Who was we? It was all of us. The story is often hard to read. Its dark, and it reaches for your heart, but at times there are moments of such humor, such dark humor, that I burst out laughing. Then you really feel like you are joining in the sorrows and joys of everyone else in the town.
LATER NOTE: I was just reflecting on the "we", perhaps that "We, the Drowned" and it is they, the missing from Marstal, those unable to participate anymore, are telling the story at times.
The book was also a great history lesson. I love maritime history; I have shelves of maritime history books in my home library. I learned a lot about the pains and tribulations of the sailors, which are often left out of historical texts. I learned more than I probably cared to about WWII. The WWII sections were brilliant, and terrible. There is no foreknowledge of ships necessary to understand this book, but even if you know a bit, you’ll probably learn something.

I’m giving this book 5 stars, because I loved it. It does have its faults though. The middle section was heavy and a bit flat, I felt that the author could have tidied it. You felt as landlocked as Albert Madsen and it was stifling, which may have been the point, but a reader should never be stifled for more than fifty pages. I was so relieved to finally enter the life of Knud Erik. If you’ve reached this place and you are struggling, push through! The ending is truly one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen.

"We thought we knew everything about him. But that's not how life is. When all's said and done, we can never truly know one another."

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Oct 10, 2011 Fiona rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, library-book, historical, original-language-danish, setting-denmark, bricks, books-i-own, bought-new, favourites

It’s been a year full of Meh so far and it took a long time coming, but I have finally, finally read a book that I absolutely loved. I’ve just finished it and I’m left breathless, barely able to contemplate that it’s over.

I picked this book up because of its pretty blue cover that attracted me straight away. Perhaps it was fate that lead me to this book as I hadn’t heard of the title or author before. I had a certain ‘feeling’ the moment I picked it up and a little part of me knew. So often litt...more

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Aug 05, 2011 Patrick rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, translated, humanism, maritime-fiction

In a way, this is a tough book to take in, because it covers such a vast amount of time and characters. Yet this does not make it in any way part of the picaresque tradition. In reality, it is almost like four short stories interwoven and brought together because of the setting- the town of Marstal. Sure, the sea plays an intricate part, but what unites the stories is the constant return to this small, intriguing port town on an island in Denmark.

Each separate story (or generation, if you will)...more

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Mar 09, 2012 Bettie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Bettie by: Wandaful Wanda

Shelves: danish-root, seven-seas, historical-fiction, one-penny-wonder, paper-read, translation, published-2006, autumn-2011, bedside, bullies, epic-proportions, adventure, pirates-smugglers-wreckers, slaves, treasure, amusing, cover-love

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Aug 18, 2011 Tony Taylor rated it 4 of 5 stars

Whew... 688 pages is a lot of reading! This book was more like an odyssey than a novel based on a fair share of historical fact as well as legend. "We, the Drowned," written by Carsten Jensen, a Dane, was first published in Europe in 2006 where it became an instant classic. In 2010 it was translated from Danish into English and has now become a best seller in America.

This is a story about the people of a small seafaring town in Denmark, Marstal, where for generations the men of Marstal had beco...more Whew... 688 pages is a lot of reading! This book was more like an odyssey than a novel based on a fair share of historical fact as well as legend. "We, the Drowned," written by Carsten Jensen, a Dane, was first published in Europe in 2006 where it became an instant classic. In 2010 it was translated from Danish into English and has now become a best seller in America.

This is a story about the people of a small seafaring town in Denmark, Marstal, where for generations the men of Marstal had become renown seamen who would set off at the age of 14 or 15 and go on to spend their lives at sea. The author developed the historical parts of this tale through dedicated research as well as interviews with the many of the decedents of these sailors of this town to bring to light a hundred years of seafaring history of Marstal and its people beginning in 1848 and continuing right up until the end of World War II in Europe. It is captivating story even though at times the reader wonders where the author is taking us... sometimes the story seems to just plod along with no apparent headway, but by sticking with the story the reader finds that those chapters which seem to have been written without much purpose are essential to the gripping tales that follow.

I found one other disconcerting aspect of the story, though not critical to the tale, is that for many chapters you read the story as it is written in the first person, yet not knowing the role of that person other than he is someone who is a constant, but invisible, witness and companion to whomever the story is following at that particular moment. At other times the story is told from the perspective of a third person, but as long as the reader accepts this back and forth shift in its perspective, the author has written a masterly piece. By all means, this is a novel worthy of merit, and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading historical novels, especially those about the sea and, in this case, the transition from sail to steam powered ships. The story is full of adventure including tales of sailing to exotic islands in the Pacific as well as the trials of survival while crossing the Atlantic during WWII.(less)

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May 18, 2011 Cait marked it as shortlist

Shelves: historical-fiction, new-releases, covers-i-love, sf11, owned

My library finally got this book in. This is how it begins:

"Many years ago there lived a man called Laurids Madsen, who went up to Heaven and came down again, thanks to his boots.
He didn't soar as high as the tip of the mast on a full-rigged ship; in fact, he got no farther than the main. Once up there, he stood outside the pearly gates and saw Saint Peter - though the guardian of the gateway to the Hereafter merely flashed his bare ass at him.
Laurids Madsen should have been dead. But death di...more

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May 06, 2013 Bjorn rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Call us Ishmael.

It takes almost 100 pages until I'm struck by this strange, recurring "we." After all, it's not as if the narrator takes up a lot of room in Carsten Jensen's 700-page novel; for the most part, We, The Drowned is narrated in the same way as many other novels with no clear protagonist, some sort of omnicient storyteller who never gets personal, never says "I" or reveals his or her name. It's just that the reader is occasionally reminded that this story, the history of the little Da...more Call us Ishmael.

It takes almost 100 pages until I'm struck by this strange, recurring "we." After all, it's not as if the narrator takes up a lot of room in Carsten Jensen's 700-page novel; for the most part, We, The Drowned is narrated in the same way as many other novels with no clear protagonist, some sort of omnicient storyteller who never gets personal, never says "I" or reveals his or her name. It's just that the reader is occasionally reminded that this story, the history of the little Danish town of Marstal, where every man is a sailor and every woman is left waiting on shore, is narrated by this "we." "We" saw the cocky sailor Laurids Madsen go to war with the Germans in 1848, survive the destruction of the Danish navy by a miracle worthy of a Salman Rushdie character and return home a changed person. "We" saw his son Albert, like a modern Telemachos, try to fill his disappeared father's boots, help build the last sailing merchant fleet that took the town's men all over the world, only to return home to find out that the u-boats of WW1 weren't nearly as big a threat as steam and diesel. "We" saw his adopted son Knud Erik and his mother take the step into the modern world and humanity's great suicide from 1939 to 1945. It's this ghostly choir of unnamed men (and occasional women), "we" who saw the birth of a modern world, a modern land - from the sea.

We, The Drowned spans a century, with scores of characters, echoing Homer, Melville, Lindgren, Kipling, Márquez and Grass in one great sailor's pidgin of influences. As the years pass, the great ideas and seamen pass along the horizon, from Cook to the Tirpitz, from 19th century optimism to 20th century mass-production of death, but the focus is always on the ones manning the oars. It's a simple, but incredibly effective trick; use the standard sailor's stories that anyone from a country with a coast will be familiar with, and then have the sailing routes connect the dots. There are boys' adventures to keep you reading, pirates and convoys and impossible love stories; but the sailors from the insignificant little town sail across waves of larger stories, larger philosophies shifting underneath them; visit the whole world, see it all happen, tie the world together, make it bigger and smaller at the same time, and always returning back home. The focus is on half a dozen people, but in the background there's always this echo of "we", everyone.

You can find weak points in We, The Drowned. Over 700 pages there's room for the occasional lull, very little room for women, etc. But somehow, it's the kind of novel where the weak points only emphasize how great the rest of it is, how solid a novel it is. Carsten Jensen sends his constantly ruminating Marstalians out on that ship that we're all on, where both navigare and legere necesse est.
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Feb 22, 2013 Anna Fg rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a chronicle of Marstal, a Danish sea-faring town, and of lives linked over the period of a century or more. It has a hint of magic realism, which I usually don't find appealing, but in this case, each story of each of the major characters is full in itself, drawing you in like the sea draws in these sailors and the other inhabitants of Marstal.
I sometimes think that one mark of good story-telling is how well a reader can recall and differentiate among a large cast of characters and comp...more

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Feb 02, 2013 Inga rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Seeleute und Schriftsteller haben etwas gemeinsam:
Sie träumen davon überall hin zu reisen,
der Seemann mit seinem Schiff,
der Autor mit seinen Worten.

So der dänische Autor Carsten Jensen im Nachwort zu seinem 800 Seiten starken Roman Wir Ertrunkenen. Ich würde nun auch den Leser mit ins Boot nehmen und sagen, auch dieser träumt und reist mit den Worten des Schriftstellers durch die Welt.
Die Zeit schrieb von einem "gewaltigen Buch" und laut Klappentext ist auch Hakan Nesser ganz begeistert. Al...more Seeleute und Schriftsteller haben etwas gemeinsam:
Sie träumen davon überall hin zu reisen,
der Seemann mit seinem Schiff,
der Autor mit seinen Worten.

So der dänische Autor Carsten Jensen im Nachwort zu seinem 800 Seiten starken Roman Wir Ertrunkenen. Ich würde nun auch den Leser mit ins Boot nehmen und sagen, auch dieser träumt und reist mit den Worten des Schriftstellers durch die Welt.
Die Zeit schrieb von einem "gewaltigen Buch" und laut Klappentext ist auch Hakan Nesser ganz begeistert. All diese Superlative haben schon ihre Berechtigung, das Buch ist wirklich außergewöhnlich. 800 Seiten sind schon lang, aber es wird nie langweilig.
Basierend auf der Geschichte seines Geburtsortes Marstal (gelegen auf der winzigen dänischen Insel Ærø, südlich von Fünen) entwickelt Jensen ein Epos über die Seefahrtsgeschichte. Gebunden an die Perpektiven verschiedener Erzähler und Protagonisten umfasst die Erzählung den Zeitraum vom deutsch-dänischen Krieg im Jahr 1848 bis zum Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs. Wir reisen dabei nicht nur durch die dänischen Inselwelt oder die Ostsee, sondern bereisen alle Ozeane, wir segeln, wir steigen auf Dampfschiffe um und erleiden schließlich die schlimmsten und dunkelsten Seiten des Seekrieges. Dabei wechseln sich Unglaubliches und Realistisches ab, die Charaktere sind dadurch zugleich überzeugend und faszinierend. Die Mischung aus historischem Geschehen und Einzelschicksalen der Marstaler geht auf.
Auch sprachlich funktioniert das Buch, sieht man von der Notwendigkeit ab, sich mit dem vielen seemännischen Fachvokabular auseinanderzusetzen. Die Übersetzung von Ulrich Sonnenberg liest sich angenehm.
Ich kann sagen, ich habe einiges gelernt durch dieses Buch: In erster Linie natürlich über die Seefahrt - und aus dieser Perspektive heraus auch einiges Neues über die Geschichte, die dänische natürlich, aber auch die Weltgeschichte. Aber der Roman lässt auch darüber nachdenken, was einen Menschen zum Menschen macht, wie sehr er davon abhängt, in einer Gemeinschaft zu sein und wie prägend diese sein kann. Dies mag nicht unbedingt die Hauptintention des Autors gewesen sein, über die erfährt man mehr in seinem Nachwort (siehe Zitat oben) bzw. in einem Online-Interview.
Ich finde, es ist ein spannendes, vielschichtiges - ein gutes Buch mit einem sympathischen Autor. (less)

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Nov 28, 2012 Book Reader rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

We, The Drowned begins in 1848 when a crew of Danish sailors sets sail from the town of Marstal to fight the Germans (as a part of the First Schleswig War). Among them is Laurids Madsen, who after falling to earth with a bump (literally) promptly escapes his hometown into the anonymity of the high seas. As soon as he is old enough, his son Albert sets off in search of his missing father. Plagued by premonitions of bloodshed, he returns to a town increasingly run by women – among them a widow int...more We, The Drowned begins in 1848 when a crew of Danish sailors sets sail from the town of Marstal to fight the Germans (as a part of the First Schleswig War). Among them is Laurids Madsen, who after falling to earth with a bump (literally) promptly escapes his hometown into the anonymity of the high seas. As soon as he is old enough, his son Albert sets off in search of his missing father. Plagued by premonitions of bloodshed, he returns to a town increasingly run by women – among them a widow intent on liberating all men from the tyranny of the sea. We, The Drowned spans four generations, two world wars and a hundred years, tracing the fate of Marstal and her inhabitants.

I don’t often like seafaring books. To me they bring back memories of a near empty library with a few battered Alexander Kent and Patrick O’Brian books and scary old ladies. They always featured a novice taking to the sea – mainly in order to explain the various types of rigging, ship and cannon on board, all in excruciating detail, all at the expense of a story, and usually for people that already know all that stuff anyway.

It was to my surprise then that I fell in love with We, The Drowned. From the beautiful cover art to the map inside, it draws you in before you even start reading. And when you do you’re in for a treat. Wise, humourous and breathtaking in scope, you don’t just enjoy one rollicking adventure, you live through hundreds. You’re there with the schoolboys playing pranks on their teachers across the generations, you’re sailing through the tropics during the golden age of trade sail and you’re thrust into the brutal convoy warfare of World War Two. You even sit by the hearth with the women left behind, waiting for bad news as they struggle with raising their children – playing father more than mother on many occasions. All of this works so well due to the clever inclusive narrative style Jensen uses. Probably my favourite trick since The Book Thief.

Jensen’s writing (and huge credit has to go to the translators) is superb. It touches upon nearly all of your emotions as you move through this epic tale. There are so many stories within the story that weeks later I still find myself recalling many of the characters and their tales that I’d thought I’d forgotten. Although some parts of the book may have you looking into how you might go about joining the Merchant Navy, Jensen does not shy away from showing you the brutality and harshness of a life at sea.

Yes it is long, and some people have said it sags somewhat in the middle (when we spend most time in Marstal rather than away at sea), but I’m afraid I don’t agree. The story, fundamentally, is about Marstal and its relationship with the sea. Even when her people are leagues away, Marstal is always close to their hearts, as much as they try to pretend otherwise.(less)

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Sep 29, 2012 Kendra rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: my-favorites

Wow! This book takes my breath away!

I gave We, the Drowned four stars but would actually rate it at 4.5. Although I loved this book and I am sure that portions will stay with me forever, I couldn’t rate it at a five because there were moments when the story got bogged down and sputtered. But it always picked up again and there were many times when I would wait impatiently all day to pick it up and dive in again.

Be forewarned, this is a hefty book...at 688 pages. But do not let that scare you aw...more

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Jul 12, 2012 Kathleen Luschek rated it 4 of 5 stars

I started We, The Drowned, by Carsten Jensen, almost a year ago, then put it down for a long while. Recently, I picked it back up again, and flew through the entire thing. This is a lengthy (almost 700 pages) tome about a Danish sailing town that spans several generations. It begins in 1848 and ends on the last day of World War II, in 1945, and, so, lends itself a rather Gabriel Garcia Marquez-type feeling. There is even a bit of magical realism thrown in as well.

Despite telling the tale of roug...more

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May 23, 2012 Annaklara rated it 4 of 5 stars

Alltså jag älskar berättelser som vindlar och vandrar åt olika håll men som elegant vävs ihop i slutet. Vi de drunknade handlar om en dansk by. Det är männen som berättar. Sina historier, byns och världens. Personerna följs sm i en stafett,ibland sida vid sida.

Jag är inte alltid förtjust i tjocka romaner men denna är skriven med så snyggt handlag att jag är fast. Och jag är svag för skrönor och ljugarhistorier. Att ljuga snyggt är en konst.

En kollega rekommenderade den. Han är död nu. Saknar ho...more

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Feb 24, 2012 Sky Thibedeau rated it 4 of 5 stars

'We the Drowned' is the story of the sailing men of Marstal, Denmark and the families that wait for their return. We follow three generations of the Madsen family as they follow the call to the Sea.

Laurids Madsen is the family patriarch. He has been a sailor all his life and was known as a jolly soul who liked to play jokes and laugh. he is drafted into the Danish navy during the 1848 war with Germany. His post traumatic stress impacts his family and the town.

His son Albert grows up and after ma...more

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Feb 22, 2012 Bruce rated it 4 of 5 stars

As a good former Coast Guardsman and a having been indoctrinated by the U.S. Coast Guard Academy for four years I defintely "have a liking for the sea and its lore" (extra points for anybody who can complete the paragraph...ha ha).

Anyways, I picked up this book after reading positive reveiws on Amazon and I must say that I was not disappointed. This book follows several generations of a sea faring family from the town of Marstal in Denmark. The town itself acts as the narrator and really probes...more

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Aug 15, 2011 Amy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: arcs-or-review-copy

Translated from the Danish by Charlotte Barslund with Emma Ryder

"War was like sailing. You could learn about clouds, wind direction, and currents, but the sea remained forever unpredictable. All you could do was adapt to it and try to return home alive."

Carsten Jensen was already noted as a journalist long before We, The Drowned, was published. Perhaps it's his observation skills from that career that make this fictional maritime novel so enthralling. Yes, that's a gushy word, and this review w...more

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Aug 11, 2011 Sara rated it 4 of 5 stars

Even though this book is divided into four parts, it really felt like three books in one. The first bit was about Laurids Madsen, ‘the man who took a trip to heaven and saw Saint Peter’s bare ass’ during the First Schleswig War in 1848. His son, Albert, then crisscrosses the globe looking for him after Laurids has gone missing for several years but has failed to turn up on any of the missing ships registers. The first part had a fun feeling to it: shrunken heads, shooting cannibals with stolen p...more Even though this book is divided into four parts, it really felt like three books in one. The first bit was about Laurids Madsen, ‘the man who took a trip to heaven and saw Saint Peter’s bare ass’ during the First Schleswig War in 1848. His son, Albert, then crisscrosses the globe looking for him after Laurids has gone missing for several years but has failed to turn up on any of the missing ships registers. The first part had a fun feeling to it: shrunken heads, shooting cannibals with stolen pearls after the ammunition has run out, being accosted at sea by a swam of butterflies that were driven off a nearby island during a hurricane, but it lacked the sense of place the second part of the book had. The author wants to take you to Australia, Hawaii, and Somoa, but all you get from each location is smattering of palm trees, grimy bars, and some sun filtering through the cabin window.

The second part of the book focused on Laurids’s son, Albert, and his visions of doom during the First World War. I found this particularly interesting because the only time you as the reader face this war is through his prophetic nightmares. Albert becomes a mentor to a fatherless boy named Knud Erik and tells him tales not only of his travels around the world but of his visions of the future of their home town of Marstal. If this book has a protagonist – this is it: Marstal. The Danish seafaring town really comes alive during Albert’s story and you will find yourself rooting for it and worrying about. There is also a bit of romance in this portion as Albert, even though he is an old man, courts Knud Erik’s young widowed mother, Klara, but this led to a lot of philosophizing about life and death that I probably could have done without.

The story in the last part of the book focuses on Knud Erik, his motley crew of boyhood friends from Marstal, and Klara, who holds they key to Marstal’s doom or success (does she choose to save the town or destroy it? I won’t say here…) as they face the struggles of economic depression and WWII. I quite enjoyed reading about WWII from an entirely different perspective than I have before. Whenever I’ve read about the firebombing of London I rarely thought of the sailors onboard ships in the Thames who were drifting out to sea with the current in order to avoid vibration mines dropped via parachute by the Germans that starting their propellers would trigger.

Overall I really enjoyed reading this book. The sailing bits didn’t live up to Patrick O’Brian or the Horatio Hornblower series but now there will always be a place in my heart for the tiny town of Marstal.
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Jul 26, 2011 Ian Young added it

“We, The Drowned” is the story of the Danish port of Marstal and its inhabitants from 1848 to the end of the Second World War. Carsten Jensen, the author, was born in Marstal. The novel is a story of the sea and sailing, its risks and the loss it brings, and its effects on those who leave and those who are left behind. Out of this material, Jensen creates an exciting, complex story full of adventure and also of domestic detail, which reaches a fitting and moving conclusion. The story has a numbe...more

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Jul 06, 2010 Felice rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I wish I could remember where it was that I first heard of We,The Drowned by Carsten Jansen. I can't help thinking that where ever it was must have recommendations for other books and since Drowned is so very, very good I would like to know all the other books they liked. It had to be somewhere on the internet of course and it was made the book sound so intriguing that I wrote down the title. I wanted to keep a record of it so that when it became available I could get it. Availability was an iss...more I wish I could remember where it was that I first heard of We,The Drowned by Carsten Jansen. I can't help thinking that where ever it was must have recommendations for other books and since Drowned is so very, very good I would like to know all the other books they liked. It had to be somewhere on the internet of course and it was made the book sound so intriguing that I wrote down the title. I wanted to keep a record of it so that when it became available I could get it. Availability was an issue because this novel was originally published in Denmark in 2007. Not only was I going to have to wait for an English language publisher to buy the novel but I was also going to have to wait for it to be translated. ~~sigh~~

Fast forward to April 2010 and voila We, The Drowned makes it's English language debut, but in the U.K. not the states. Oh well. Luckily for me I have an extraordinary friend who lives in London and will send me whatever books I ask for. He's my own private little crack dealer.

The book is divided into 3 parts: local legend Laudris Masden's incredible story, the attempts of his son Albert to find his missing Father and decades later young mother Klara Erik desperate to keep the sons of Marstal, the hometown of the novel, from the sea. When the novel begins in the 1840's the citizens of Marstal are about to be conscripted by the Danish Navy into service in their war with Germany. The novel continues for the next hundred years until the final days of the second World War.

The novel is told by an invisible Greek chorus (the drowned of the title) that seems to be made up of the townspeople of Masden both living and deceased. They move you forward and backward through the characters lives and through the history of the town. After their impressment the first battles that Laudris Masden and his friends find themselves struggling to out last are horrific. Suddenly the book moves from away from the beguiling tall tales and the depth of the novel is revealed. This sets the style for the book. The juxtaposition of the warm, conversational feeling of stories handed down and folk tales treasured with the hard edged, painful experiences of the characters trying to survive life on the sea and the women and children trying to live their lives not knowing if the men will ever return is powerful and affecting.

There is something otherworldly about the sea. It's just outside your door but it has all the strangeness of a fantasy novel. It's a place where nothing is under your control. The rules that govern the rest of us don't apply out there. It takes a writer with a big vision and even bigger skills to capture the fear and it allure of it while still entertaining and enlightening us. We, The Drowned is enthralling and masterful. Jensen has written one of the best books of the year. You will enter Drowned exactly like you are today and you will leave it knowing about a world that you didn't know existed and with a new understanding of great writing. (less)

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Oct 03, 2011 Katie rated it 5 of 5 stars

I can't say enough good things about this book. This trip I took, and the recommendations for local authors I got, resulted in the addition of three books to my favorites-ever list. "We, The Drowned" is one of them. It's a 675-page epic following the life of Marstal, a small shipping town on the island of Aero, Denmark. Spanning 100 years of history, Jensen jumps from island to shipdeck to port to new island and home again, telling the gruesome, heartbreaking, beautiful stories that sailors live...more

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Mar 23, 2012 Jan-Maat added it

Shelves: 21st-century, fiction, read-in-translation, scandinavia, denmark

It was a big book. I read it. Now I don't know what to make of it.

It was a big baggy monster. Its language oddly stiff and awkward. It was a tell don't show book. And I'm not sure why so many supposedly hard-boiled people were so shocked at the sight of Captain Cook's shrunken head either.

At one point the book reminded me of One Hundred Years of Solitude and I thought that Jensen wanted to write a Danish version of that, but with a shipyard financial scandal instead of a fruit plantation. Howeve...more It was a big book. I read it. Now I don't know what to make of it.

It was a big baggy monster. Its language oddly stiff and awkward. It was a tell don't show book. And I'm not sure why so many supposedly hard-boiled people were so shocked at the sight of Captain Cook's shrunken head either.

At one point the book reminded me of One Hundred Years of Solitude and I thought that Jensen wanted to write a Danish version of that, but with a shipyard financial scandal instead of a fruit plantation. However the book doesn't retell Danish history between 1848 and 1945 in the same way that Marquez recreates Columbia's history through the experience of one town. The Baltic setting invites comparison with Buddenbrooks which similarly deals with the changing generations but in a tighter, focussed way.

The narrative is about the inhabitants of the coastal town of Marstal and their relationship with the sea-going life. There's a sense of the development of the town, increasing prosperity and better material conditions. On the whole it comes across as a novelisation based on an oral history project backed up by raiding the archives at the town museum.

This narrative is made up of different voices which are spliced together in a continuous I or we that represents various individuals or groups through the course of the novel. The effect is dislocating. It led to me to expect that the narrative voice would ultimately be that of the eponymous drowned - but no. Nor did I get a sense of why the narrative voice was changing, other than authorial convenience (unless of course it really was an oral history project that had gone rogue).

It's the kind of book were things just happen. The town grows. The violence that seems so ingrained stops. A poor person appears, and she's obviously poor because she's described as being part of a culture of poverty even though none of the other townsfolk seem materially any different from her.

Much of the book is taken up by the influence of the sea. The lure of far places but also the loss of sailors. Though the danger and destructiveness of the sea is trumped by wartime violence. While this is bowel loosening in the 1848 war unfortunately all the danger is having an erotic effect during WWII. The novel stops in 1945 so the issue of how a generation for whom the air raid has become intertwined with eroticism will cope in peacetime isn't explored.

Perhaps this is inevitable in a long, modern novel but there seemed to be a lot of recognisable incidents from other places. The man with prophetic foresight of those who will die seems to have stepped out of The German Lesson, the baby burnt in firestorm clutched by its mother was that from Winfried Georg Sebald, the incident of shooting at insulators with air gun, don't I remember that from the old West German TV epic "Heimat" and isn't that Congo story there actually a version of Heart of Darkness but retold in two pages and with the Imperialism dropped?

But apart from all that it's not a bad book. I got used to the style about half way through and if you fancy a novel set on a Danish Island that tells stories across the generations of the men who went to sea and the women who were left behind then this non-political One Hundred Years of Solitude could be the book for you.
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Jan 16, 2013 Jeffrey rated it 5 of 5 stars

We, The Drowned is a thoroughly engrossing epic about the inhabitants of the town of Marstal, Denmark from the mid-19th century till the end of World War Two. But is more than simply being a sea story. Jensen, whose background is as a journalist, displays the confident touch of a novelist. He isn't afraid to create a world where the fantastical has just enough touch of the possible to be believed in its entirety.
Anyone who loves or knows the relationship between humans and the sea will quickly b...more

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Jan 22, 2012 Jaclyn rated it 4 of 5 stars

For hundreds of years the town of Marstal in Denmark stood between land and sea. The boys of Marstal gather to terrorize their teacher and sing their hymns beneath model schooners, knowing that one day they will be sailing on life-size ships like their fathers. The men of Marstal look to the sea - it is more than the way they make their living, it's their destiny. The women of Marstal say goodbye to husbands, sons, brothers, knowing that many will never return - they will be swallowed by the sea...more

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Mar 27, 2011 Mark McKenna rated it 5 of 5 stars

ATTN: Thar be spoilers here, matey.

"We, the Drowned" is a big book. Winner of the "Danske Banks Litteraturpris" and called in a reader poll, "The best book in Denmark in the past 25 years," it was written by journalist Carsten Jensen and expertly translated from the Danish by Charlotte Barslund, with Liz Jensen.

"We, the Drowned" tells the history of a Danish seaport, Marstal, over a hundred year period: from 1845 -- and a war between Denmark and Germany -- to 1945, and World War II. The wars are...more

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Apr 04, 2011 Jennyreadsexcessively rated it 5 of 5 stars

Marstal is a small Danish island that has a long tradition of sending its men to sea while its women carry on alone at home praying for their return. The author, Carsten Jensen, is a native of Marstal and here writes a gorgeous, weighty novel that won the top literary prize in Denmark. We, the Drowned focuses mainly on 3 sailors and covers a hundred years from the great age of sail in the 19th C. to the steamers of WWII. I thought the novel couldn't improve on its tales of natives and shrunken h...more

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Aug 02, 2012 Bailey rated it 5 of 5 stars

The cover of this book immediately snatched my attention away from all the other books on the rack. Despite the fact that I have no interest in the sea or sailors, and know nothing about Denmark (except that someone once told me they eat the most candy out of any country in the world) this book had me hooked from the first page (pun intended.) Engaged, nay! ENTHRALLED. ENRAPTURED. In the fashion of 100 Years of Solitude, Jensen tells the story of the port town of Marstal, over a period of roughl...more

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Jan 30, 2011 Kristin rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-fiction, euro-fic, read-in-2011, reviewed

I think that I liked this book. It was very unlike anything I've read before. Basically, it follows the sea-lives of Laurids Madsen (very briefly), his son Albert Madsen, and Albert's sort of adopted son Knud Erik Friis, from 1848 (First Schleswig War) to 1945 (end of WWII). This was a novel about the sea turning boys into men and the cruelty of being inescapably wedded to the sea. These men were both witnesses to and participants in some horrible things, from being beaten at school and murderin...more

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Apr 22, 2013 E rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: women, war, translated, terror, politics, nation, narrative, literature, historical, death, myth

I really loved this book. It took me a concerted effort to actually get into it, though. I put the book down at least three times in the first 50 or so pages, because I was kind of irritated at the characters and the story didn't grab me at all. I kept going, though, for whatever reason (probably because the cover is so pretty), and I'm really glad I did.

The narration of this book is quite interesting. It's kind of in third person, but mostly, it's a book about "us". While the story follows seve...more I really loved this book. It took me a concerted effort to actually get into it, though. I put the book down at least three times in the first 50 or so pages, because I was kind of irritated at the characters and the story didn't grab me at all. I kept going, though, for whatever reason (probably because the cover is so pretty), and I'm really glad I did.

The narration of this book is quite interesting. It's kind of in third person, but mostly, it's a book about "us". While the story follows several main characters as events progress (through 200 years of Danish seafaring history on Marstal, from the late 1800s through both world wars), the narrator always comes back to the "we". It almost acts as a Greek chorus, and it imparts a particular atmosphere to the book that I love. The We can be Denmark, and Marstal, and sailors, and soldiers, and little boys, and adventurers, and old men, and, of course, the drowned.

But the We is never the women. A good part of the second half (and some of the first half) of the book deals with the women left behind as the men sail away for years at a time, and often never come back either because they drowned or because they started a new life elsewhere. The narrator follows one of the Marstal women, Klara Friis, in the second half of the book, and her actions (her vengeance against the sea for taking away her childhood and her husband and her lover and her son) shape the destiny of Marstal. I think the role of women in a seafaring town (and later, in war) is dealt with quite well. Their burden is never trivialized and the men are not unilaterally heroes. Klara literally changes the future of the town, subtly and quietly, and knows that the rest of the town forgive her because they think she's stupid and feminine and weak, and she takes full advantage of their underestimation. It's easy to understand her motivations.

But she's sometimes hard to sympathize with, and I think the author does run into limitations in how he can write women. This is a very, very male book, even as a large part of it deals with how men and the world affect women's lives. The female characters cannot be separated from the male world that is drawn here. I think this is due to the intrinsic design of the story, and this world of sailing, and I don't necessarily see it as a failing on the part of the author. At the same time, I wish the peripheral female characters had been developed better, and I wish it weren't so easy to curse Klara for being, basically, an angry bitch all the time. I think this actually the reaction you're supposed to have, and then hate yourself for having it, but it is uncomfortable, and she's hard to root for sometimes. The other female characters kind of just exist — some are quite interesting, but in the end, they're mainly just sketches (and sometimes stereotypes).

There's a lot in here about sailing and ships and seafaring and I did not understand most of it, because I've never been sailing and all I know about water I know from having rowed in university, but I didn't feel too bogged down with it. Some of it gave me quite an exhilarating feeling (akin to the prison break scene in The Count of Monte Cristo, which I rate as one of the most evocative and breathtaking scenes I've read, ever), as if I were on the sea myself, or high above in the sails looking down with vertigo.

The writing is beautiful and melancholy. I'm not always great with descriptive prose, because I'm really terrible at picturing physical characteristics or the environment around me, for whatever reason, but here, I always had a clear picture in my head. And then I put "Marstal" into Google Images, and what I had pictured was exactly what I saw. "History of seafaring in Scandinavia" doesn't sound like the most thrilling topic, but this was a really quick read. I didn't want to put it down, after I got through the beginning. The story moves through the large span of time and space very well, and I found all of the main characters enthralling.

The English version is a translation from the Danish. I think the translators did a superb job, as this novel (which is 600+ pages) must have posed some linguistic difficulties. There are a few spots where I think the wording could be better, but I think overall, it's really well done.

Knowledge of Denmark/Danish history is not required to enjoy this novel, although it might enhance your experience. Some basic world history is in order here (like, knowing that there was a WWI and WWII), and geography doesn't hurt (the author helpfully includes a small map in the beginning, for those of you who don't know where the continents are).(less)

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Dec 10, 2012 Elizabeth rated it 5 of 5 stars

What do we base our identities on? Does the shape of the whole define the shape of each individual, or the other way round? Perhaps both.
W.B. Yeats once wrote,
The finished man among his enemies?
How in the name of heaven can he escape
that defiling and disfigured shape
the mirror of malicious eyes
casts upon his his eyes until at last
he thinks that shape must be his shape?
And how in the name of heaven can he escape
if honor find him in a wintry blast?
--A Dialogue of Self and Soul
Carsten...more What do we base our identities on? Does the shape of the whole define the shape of each individual, or the other way round? Perhaps both.
W.B. Yeats once wrote,
The finished man among his enemies?
How in the name of heaven can he escape
that defiling and disfigured shape
the mirror of malicious eyes
casts upon his his eyes until at last
he thinks that shape must be his shape?
And how in the name of heaven can he escape
if honor find him in a wintry blast?
--A Dialogue of Self and Soul
Carsten Jensen's seafaring novel We, the Drowned not only explores the ending days of sailing ships and the Danish world, but also delves into the heart of those questions that purse us every time that something ends. Where do we go from here? What am I without it?
Told from the perspective of no particular character, only the we of the town, the novel tells the story of a Danish seafaring town called Marstal off the northeastern coast of Denmark. For generations, men and their sons and their grandsons have gone to school until confirmation, then taken to the decks of ships to sail around the world, only returning once every two years or so. Those left behind, the mothers and children and parents, wonder if they will ever see their sons again, but have to learn to live around it-- Marstal is a seafaring town. The men take pride in it, and don't care if they drown. To them, that's just collateral damage in their line of work.
The book tells the story of Marstal from 1848 until the end of World War II, sharing the lives and adventures of several people along the way, but never from their perspective. It is always the townspeople sharing the story from the outside, as if they were reading diary entries or sharing the tales over beer in a pub. We begin with Laurids Madsen, the heart of Marstal seafaring, a man who trusted nothing save his own skills and his sea boots. He disappears into the South Pacific, and fifteen years later, his abandoned son Albert goes looking for him to give his family some closure. We trace Albert's life from beginning to end, and we meet Knud Erik, a boy who was denied the sea by his mother, and wanted the adventure with his whole heart. Dozens of other names float by, like acquaintances we only knew a little, living their lives and passing away as time goes by.
The first chapter is a bid muddled, as you are walking in on a complex world that you know very little of, but everything soon falls into place. The crew is the "we" in this case, and they tell the stories of the legendary Laurids Madsen, like a hero that they all knew, who did nothing more than survive. That is the legacy of Marstal-- those who survive are the heroes.
The greatest majority of the book, though, involves Albert. After becoming a hero for sailing the South Pacific and returning with tales of cannibals and shrunken heads, Albert watches his friends die and his town grow old, and he can do nothing to stop it. He watches his own life drift idly by after he comes ashore, constantly longing for the danger of the sea, and conflicted by his own desire. After all, who is he without the sea? He is a sailor, and if he no longer sails, he's drifting.
Knud Erik, too, is an vividly living character, full of latent desire, suppression, and longing, pursued by his own dreams. He was shaped from a young age to love the sea and sailing, and once he reaches it, it's so different than his expectations that he's not sure what to do. His whole life has been about sailing, and when his desires change as he ages, he falls stagnant, trapped by his achievement.
Jensen is brilliant. Even though We, the Drowned has been translated from the Danish, it reads smoothly and beautifully in English, even the idioms and quotes falling into place. He clearly has a passion for this town and its history, and as he grew up there, he understands the dreams of the people and the things lost. Marstal comes to life in its biography, fraught with danger and very real characters.
The novel is gritty, dark, and gruesome where it needs to be, but no more so than necessary to be real. Many times adventure novels become romanticized, and while this book has its fictional elements, the core of it is so deeply human and real that even the words of the characters come to life. Every Marstaller walks the streets, warm with the blood of their ancestors that we knew, full of the dreams that they know will never come true.
The core is all about identity. We all know that nothing lasts forever, even if we hope it will, and life is all about learning to say goodbye and change ourselves. Marstal faces the extinction of its way of life, and even though the men are the greatest sailors in the world, they cannot stop the end of the sailing ship as they had known it for centuries. Laurids' identity is in his thirst for adventure, and it ruins him; Albert's identity is in his skill and experience as a sailor, and once he retires, he is forced to change himself. Knud Erik's identity is in his dreams and ambitions as a sailor and defiance of his mother. There is a drawing point where each man must face failure or change, and some do, but some fade away.
The second chapter is the most strikingly poignant. We are placed amongst the schoolboys of Marstal, tortured by Isager, the abusive schoolteacher. He teaches them to accept pointless abuse, because that is what they will get aboard ships their whole lives, and the readers recoil against it. And rightly so-- it is horrific, but real. In the middle of the chapter, the boys have a quiet moment, and they say poignantly, "We committed appalling acts and only realized the horror of what we'd done when we stood gathered around the evidence of our atrocity. Violence was like a drug that we couldn't relinquish. He planted a thirst for blood in us. One that could never be quenched."
In addition to the brilliant main characters, every side character is unique and colorful. Jensen has painted a full picture of a town, leaving no one out and nothing corrected. For example, Lorentz, a contemporary of Albert, is constantly seeking acceptance and only learns to accept himself by years of rejection. Another striking character that is nearly impossible to sort out is Herman, a darkly suspicious man who does what he will, but he is still a Marstaller and therefore "one of us."
At 678 pages, We, the Drowned is a hefty novel, but it wastes no time on unnecessary moments. Capturing the very real parts of life is the challenge to the novelist, but Jensen has done it so poignantly that his work will survive amidst names like Moby Dick, The Old Man and the Sea, and The Odyssey.
Available for just $9.32 from the Kindle store, We, the Drowned is one of the best books I've ever read. I have a deep fondness in my bones for seafaring novels (stemming from a childhood copy of Carry On, Mr. Bowditch) but this one goes even deeper. Because of its raw emotion and beauty, this novel will live forever in the hearts of those who quest for adventure and identity. We all want to know who we are, and we belong to each other just as much as everyone belongs to us.(less)

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About Carsten Jensen

Carsten Jensen was born 1952. He first made his name as a columnist and literary critic for the Copenhagen daily Politiken, and has written novels, essays and travel books.

Jensen was awarded the Golden Laurels for "I Have Seen the World Begin" and the Danske Banks Litteraturpris, Denmark’s most prestigious literary award, for "We, the Drowned."

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“Life had taught him about something far more complicated than justice. Its name was balance.” — 6 people liked it

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