Daniel

Feb 03, 2011 Jill rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is an extraordinarily haunting and poignant tale, told by an author at the top of his craft, about two destinies that intersect: a young black boy Molo, who is renamed Daniel, and the peculiar would-be naturalist who brings him back to Sweden.

It is the 1870s: Hans Bengler, a rootless and disconnected man, travels to Africa with the hopes of discovering an insect no one has ever seen before, the latest of his quixotic pursuits. The pickings are slender, but he DOES happen across a different...more This is an extraordinarily haunting and poignant tale, told by an author at the top of his craft, about two destinies that intersect: a young black boy Molo, who is renamed Daniel, and the peculiar would-be naturalist who brings him back to Sweden.

It is the 1870s: Hans Bengler, a rootless and disconnected man, travels to Africa with the hopes of discovering an insect no one has ever seen before, the latest of his quixotic pursuits. The pickings are slender, but he DOES happen across a different kind of “specimen” – a young orphan who is caged and defenseless. He decides to bring him back to Sweden with the best of intentions, but he is challenged by the cold-hearted man who found him: “I do keep order, it’s true. But I don’t rip them up by the roots so they’ll fall dead in the snow of Sweden…”

Back in Sweden, Bengler drills his own sort of catechism into Daniel: he must always say, “My name is Daniel. I believe in God.” This rehearsed sanctimony is juxtaposed against those “civilized” people with true savagery in their heart: those who regard Daniel as less than human, as an incarnation of the devil, as just another exotic specimen ripped from the dark continent.

Daniel is none of these, of course. He’s just a little boy yearning to get back home, with a childish grasp of the world and a failed understanding of what the Swedish culture demands. “I’m going to walk home across the back of the sea…,” he says. He is haunted by memories of his deceased parents who he believes are calling him back to Africa. And he knows the only way to reclaim his destiny is to learn to walk on water like the white man’s god.

There are twists and turns to this tale that the reader must discover for himself or herself. At its heart, this book is a powerful indictment against cultural insensitivity and willful dislocation, merged with a refusal to see those who are different as fully human. For everyone he meets, Daniel is no more than a curiosity, a specimen, a reflection of private fear or vaulting ambition. And therein lies the tragedy, which culminates in an ending of exquisite pathos. Kudos, too, to translator Steven T. Murray for an outstanding job.

(less)

4 likes · like · see review

Jan 13, 2011 Pat rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

When I started this book, I was not sure if I liked it (I listened to the audio version). . . it begins a very strange story. . . but it became more and more enticing as I moved through it. By the end I saw it as a legend, a myth, a folk tale perhaps based on a very old story of a small African boy who was taken from his home to a very strange land. He never gives up his dream of getting back home to the Kalahari. It is a very haunting and strange tale, but by the end I was left with a ghostly b...more

1 like · like · see review

Feb 16, 2013 Laura rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

forget it. i can't get into a book where the character has masturbated twice by page 4.

1 like · like · see review

Apr 04, 2011 Lars Guthrie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

There are parallels in Henning Mankell’s ‘Daniel’ to Emma Donoghue’s ‘Room,’ another unsettling novel centered on abuse and captivity—a child seen from his own point of view (albeit not exclusively, as is the case with ‘Room’), a queasy undercurrent of voyeurism infecting the moral outrage felt in reading exposé. It’s a daring breakaway from the format for which Mannkell is known.

Daring, but not altogether surprising for Mankell, who has made categorizing the dark, introspective, and insightful...more There are parallels in Henning Mankell’s ‘Daniel’ to Emma Donoghue’s ‘Room,’ another unsettling novel centered on abuse and captivity—a child seen from his own point of view (albeit not exclusively, as is the case with ‘Room’), a queasy undercurrent of voyeurism infecting the moral outrage felt in reading exposé. It’s a daring breakaway from the format for which Mannkell is known.

Daring, but not altogether surprising for Mankell, who has made categorizing the dark, introspective, and insightful Kurt Wallander series as mere police procedurals seem all too narrow.

‘Daniel’ is very, very dark. A young man in a drab little Swedish town in the latter half of the nineteenth century leaves his demented, syphilitic, dying father, and his barren home, to pursue a medical career. He faints during his first autopsy. He discovers he has no purpose in life, other than regular, businesslike onanism and regular, perfunctory concubinary trysts. No self-reflection follows. He stumbles through the swales of academia and in the most random of ways decides he will become famous by discovering an unknown insect. In the Kalihari Desert.

It’s there that Hans Bengler finds his purpose. He will be “father” to a child orphaned in the imperial battles Europeans are fighting to see who gets South Africa. Daniel is Bengler’s name for the boy who continues to think of himself as Molo, even after learning Swedish and seeing snow.

Bengler quite literally leashes Molo and trains him like a dog as well. “My name is Daniel. I believe in God,” the waif dutifully recites as Bengler displays his curiosity to pallid countrymen for whom an African is no less strange than an alien or monster or freak.

Pretty bleak stuff. The relief Mankell offers is his craft—meticulously assembled observation and narrative that never calls attention to itself yet transcends its ordinariness, its plainness, to shine light on the human condition in all its ugliness and beauty. The voice of the child is particularly striking, and touching, and, in an odd way, hopeful. We may rip apart children’s lives but we cannot steal the pure truth of their perception, untainted by tawdry experience.

How is it that we can be so beguiled by the sordid that we ignore, or worse, accept the squandering of our most precious treasure? How can we allow child abuse? There’s the hope—that we can recognize how valuable our children are, and do something about it.

Highly recommended.(less)

4 likes · like · see review

Jan 23, 2011 Tony rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-mainstream

Mankell, Henning. DANIEL. (2000; Eng. trans. 2010). ***. Mankell is, of course, known for his tight mysteries set, mostly, in Sweden. He does live part of his life, however, in Africa, and calls on his experience there to provide us with this novel. I had difficulties getting into it, and even more forcing myself to finish it. One of the subtle clues that you might be reading a B- book by this celebrated author is that there are no blurbs or extracts from reviews plastered all over the cover. It...more Mankell, Henning. DANIEL. (2000; Eng. trans. 2010). ***. Mankell is, of course, known for his tight mysteries set, mostly, in Sweden. He does live part of his life, however, in Africa, and calls on his experience there to provide us with this novel. I had difficulties getting into it, and even more forcing myself to finish it. One of the subtle clues that you might be reading a B- book by this celebrated author is that there are no blurbs or extracts from reviews plastered all over the cover. It is the story of a young Swedish man, Hans Bengler, who is studying to become a doctor. He discovers, while viewing his first autopsy, that he cannot stand the sight of blood or gore – he faints. After a quick but clever assessment, he decides that medicine is not for him and tries to come up with an alternate career path. He chooses to go out and discover a new insect unknown to science so that he can name it after himself. This would be at the top of my list, too. He also chooses not to dig in his own back yard, but sets up an expedition to South Africa, where he believes that his goal would be met somewhere in the Kalahari Desert. After trekking for quite a while and suffering from hunger, thirst, and his lack of knowledge of the terrain, he accidently runs into a small encampment run by a degenerate countryman. While there, his new friend brings back a young black boy who he had taken in trade for a bag of sugar. Bengler decides that he will adopt the boy and take him back to Sweden with him. He’s not quite sure why. Everyone he meets tells him that he will end up killing the young boy through his mis-guided zeal. He’s ready to return now, especially after he has found a beetle that he thinks is unique and can’t find catalogued anywhere. The boy refuses to speak and is always on the verge of escape during the trip back to Sweden, but Bengler finally makes a breakthrough and gets the boy to eat. He tries to teach the boy Swedish, and the boy slowly picks up the language. We learn from the boy’s thoughts that his mother and father had been killed by an attack on their village. He is alone in a new world and constantly works out ways to get back home – wherever that might be. The boy, who Bengler has named Daniel, suffers lots of indignities during his stay in Sweden, and a variety of tragedies that all lead up to one shocking act. The plot line is really bogus, especially from a writer of Mankell’s excellence. I think he must have sat through a rerun of “Lassie Come Home,” to come up with a plot this banal. Neither of the main characters is very interesting. They are both prototypes of characters found in novels from the 18th century onwards. they shouldn’t have been repeated.(less)

like · see review

Aug 19, 2010 Tim rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I just wrote a capsule review of this earnest novel (for Publishers Weekly) by the author of the fantastic series featuring Swedish detective Kurt Wallender. This is a good, readable book, but not nearly as compelling as the Wallender books.

The Daniel of the title is an orphaned African boy, adopted by a Swedish explorer and taken back to Sweden so to be exhibited, like a curiosity (it's the 19th century; an African boy would certainly have been a novelty). The novel embodies one of Mankell's b...more

1 like · like · see review

Nov 26, 2011 Corey Ryan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, scandinavian-lit

My reading soundtrack of Fennesz & Sakamoto's "Cendre" provided a soundscape perfect for the hazy desert always hovering nearby Sweden's forests, snow covered fields and mud strewn landscapes.
A quick summary because every review I read has one and I don't feel like going against the norm today: Hans Bengler, a failure as a med student and now an entomologist leaves Sweden in 1878 for the Kalahari Desert to find an insect that has never been discovered. He finds one beetle and one boy (arou...more My reading soundtrack of Fennesz & Sakamoto's "Cendre" provided a soundscape perfect for the hazy desert always hovering nearby Sweden's forests, snow covered fields and mud strewn landscapes.
A quick summary because every review I read has one and I don't feel like going against the norm today: Hans Bengler, a failure as a med student and now an entomologist leaves Sweden in 1878 for the Kalahari Desert to find an insect that has never been discovered. He finds one beetle and one boy (around 6 or 7) in a cage. He christens this boy Daniel and heads back to Sweden to...well he (nor the reader, nor the narrator really knows why). Daniel (Molo) desperately wants to go home. And in between are all the things one can imagine by being placed in a foreign country, by being miles and miles and miles away from home, reaching but never attaining, in a time when Evolution was just beginning to enter the minds of the masses and ships still had fresh remnants of rusty metal that held and murdered many during the times of slavery. Yes, you can imagine that this isn't the happiest of books.
This book is littered with characters that are difficult to judge. Bengler seemed to have good intentions (albeit no intentions) sometimes and other times purely selfish, tyrannical intentions that left fear and worry and death in his wake. Poor, poor Daniel. Completely innocent in the way that Lennie is in "Of Mice & Men." Speaking of Lennie: Sanna. Slavery still exists if you were to ask her. And even the minor characters such as Andersson and Froken Myrén are at once completely absurd in there behavior and at another time completely reasonable (though more Myren than Andersson). But I enjoy that confusion. When the good vs. evil thing blends together. There is no (pardon the racial proximity here) black and white, only grey (possibly the color of Sanna & Daniel's baby according to her).
I have also been ruminating on Mankell's choice of narration. The narrator is only revealed at the end. I'm thinking third person limited omniscient. But like the afterword states, "The novel does not necessarily depict what actually happened. The task of the novel is to portray what might have happened." So how true is this? What viewpoints did Mankell feel more omniscient towards?
And that leads me to wonder the purpose of Mankell writing this. He lives, at times, in Mozambique, which appears to be at least somewhat taken over by the Kalahari Desert, so how close to home is this? How does he feel about adoption? What remnants or influences still remain from European settlers and/or European religions?
Like Fennesz's electronics bubbling up under Sakamato's melodies, "Daniel" left me thinking about subtle nuances within the character's actions and intentions and how each character has changed either for the good and can possibly improve upon the human experience or if they are only going to perpetuate any sort of hierarchy based upon race, class, intelligence, etc. And to answer what I ponder, I only have to look around.
I thought of the aphorism, "you can't go home, again" the entire time I read this... (less)

like · see review

Nov 02, 2011 Wanda rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is atypical Mankell. It concerns a young African boy who is adopted by a Swede and taken out of Africa to Sweden at the turn of the century. He names the boy Daniel. Daniel's parents are both dead, having been murdered in one of the many slaughters that have plagued Africa for years. It vividly portrays the struggle of this young boy to make sense of a world that is completely alien to him and that world's struggles to understand and make sense of a black boy from a place as different from...more

like · see review

May 31, 2011 Anne Hawn Smith rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, foreign-country, history

This book is extremely poignant and compelling as well as being unsettling. It is the story of a strange Swede, Hans Bengler, who goes to Africa to find an unknown species of insect to name after himself. He ends up finding an orphaned black boy about 8 years old whom he brings back to Sweden. He feels that he can give him a better life even though the trader where he found the boy tells him he will only destroy the boy.

Hans uses Daniel in part of a carnival type lecture series to get people to...more

like · see review

Aug 06, 2011 Judith rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

1875: Can you imagine the fear of an 8 year old African native who sees his mother and father brutally slaughtered. He is then adopted by a well-meaning Swedish scientist on an expedition, who believes he is saving the boy when he takes him back to Sweden. The problem is that the boy is very intelligent and the scientist a complete dolt. While the scientist tries to "civilize" Daniel and at the same time exploit him by exhibiting him at shows, Daniel tries to figure out how to get back to Afric...more

1 like · like · see review

Apr 04, 2011 THE rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Sometimes a great notion even in the talented hands of a clever author fails to live up to a reader's high hopes. DANIEL is a case in point. Mankell, noted for his series on Wallander, the Swedish inspector, is not only a skilled critic of his Scandanavian scene, but also a knowledgeable and sensitive observer of his adopted homeland of southern Africa (specifically, Mozambique where he lives for much of the year). This novel required both of his geographic areas of expertise to relate the tale...more Sometimes a great notion even in the talented hands of a clever author fails to live up to a reader's high hopes. DANIEL is a case in point. Mankell, noted for his series on Wallander, the Swedish inspector, is not only a skilled critic of his Scandanavian scene, but also a knowledgeable and sensitive observer of his adopted homeland of southern Africa (specifically, Mozambique where he lives for much of the year). This novel required both of his geographic areas of expertise to relate the tale of Daniel (Molo), an orphaned San child from the Kalahari Desert, who is transported by a delusional pseudo-entomlogist to rural Sweden in the 1870's. Great expectations indeed! We can only guess about topics of racism, imperialism, culture conflict, child abuse, and psychological trauma as possible subjects that Mankell can explore. Although he does touch upon each of these themes, none is sufficiently developed nor are any of his fascinating characters adequately delineated to allow us to ponder their significance.

Hans Berger, a failed medical student departs for "darkest Africa" in pursuit of obstaining an insect, yet undiscovered, which will gain him acclaim. Berger, an odd character with peculiar and unexplained proclivities, is prepared to venture unprepared into the Kalahari. Near expiring, he encounters a fellow countryman, Wilhelm Andersonn, the even odder proprietor of a trading post (a more disease-ridden and desolate spot than even Conrad's ironically-titled "Outpost of Progress"). It is here that Berger finds Molo, a eight- or nine-year-old San boy, who Andersonn has obtained following one of his commercial transactions. The child is silent and traumatized, and Berger decides that having finally obtained his prized and unknown insect that he will adopt him and return to Sweden. Although agreeable to seeing the two depart, Andersonn warns his compatriot that he will kill the child (now renamed Daniel) by removing him from his social and physical environment. The rest of the novel comprises Daniels's adventures aboard ship, in a few European cities, and (for the most part) within the bewildering Swedish hinterland where he is subject of fear, scorn, and curiosity. For a period, Daniel becomes little more than an insect on display who is taught to robotically repeat, "My name is Daniel and I believe in God." His confusion about his world, both comical and deadly, is unfortunately not well conveyed, partly because Berger simply disapppears late in the narrative. Moreover, Daniel's confused cosmology (based on his very early childhood memories) are insufficiently detailed to provide an understanding for some of his notions, such as walking on water to return home, and, in particular, his actions in regard to his only true friend, a young neighbor girl named Sanna. Daniel is indeed dying of homesickness (the Portuguese word, "saudade," more closely conveys the yearning or melancholy in this case) as his world has been turned upside down. Mystified by every encounter and individual, Daniel fears that he will "end up up like all the strange insects, pinned behind a pane of glass."

As provocative as this tale could be, it simply lacks drama. Incidents and even some characters are allowed to appear and vaporize without meaning. The ironies and dialectics are evident (and often repetitive) as the novel simply spins away from the author's grasp and leaves us wanting more than a moral compass to guide us through both the sand and the snow of Daniel's worlds.
(less)

1 like · like · see review

Mar 11, 2011 Renee rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

One of the most unusual novels I read in a long time. Daniel is a haunting and poignant tale, told by an author at the top of his craft. Set in the 1870's Hans Bengler travels to Africa from Sweden to discover unrecorded insects but in addition to the insects he finds,he impulsively "adopts" a young 8 year old orphan boy (whom he renames Daniel) and bring his back to Sweden. The story is about Daniel's life in Europe, unable to speak the language, not knowing who his "father" is, and for that ma...more

like · see review

Mar 09, 2011 Laetitia Chemin is currently reading it · review of another edition

In the 1830's, the protagonist, a Swedish scientist, goes to the Kalahari to study insects and comes back home with a little native boy, whom he adopts. Then we learn from the child's perspective how odd the "civilized" world is and long to help him escape back to "his" desert, even though he knows his tribe no longer exists.

Excerpt page 83: "The one who had taught him about the Dreams was Be. They coiled like tracks through people; the paths were not footprints they trod in the desert, but som...more

like · see review

Jan 09, 2011 John rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary, foreign-fiction

The book maks a slow start but you suspect it's because Mankell wants to really get beneath the skin of his two main characters. It is worth being patient. Daniel in particualr is brilliantly portrayed, through Mankell's device of giving him an inner world through which his actions are guided by the land of his now dead parents. Mankell not only evokes his connections with his past, but shows how Daniel is inextricably linked to the desert environment from which he comes. He interprets the new w...more

like · see review

Dec 27, 2010 Paul Patterson rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: scandinavian-mysteries

Henning Mankell is equally proficient writing literary fiction as he is at mysteries. His social conscience is revealed in his recent novel Daniel about a orphaned African boy who is impulsively transplanted from his Kalahari setting of sand and sun to the cold of Sweden by a man seeking his own identity by finding a unknown species of insect and giving it his name. Sadly the man not only discovers an insect but pins the fortunes of Daniel on the cork board of his own self discovery and importan...more

like · see review

Sep 05, 2011 Rosanna rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

First book I've read by this Swedish author.A slightly jaded scientist goes to South Africa to find an insect he can name after himself. He thinks this will secure him a prominent place among his peers. He reaches the Kalahari Desert where all things go wrong.In the course of his meandering ,he comes across a little San boy who has been orphaned.This is Daniel of the book title.The scientist decides he must take the boy back to Sweden.The novel becomes a real tragedy because of all the misunders...more

like · see review

Jul 28, 2011 Shirley Freeman added it · review of another edition

This was also quirky - the story has a dream-like feeling. It takes place in the 1870's and describes a year or two in the sad life of a young African boy who is orphaned by killers, found by a Swedish biologist and brought back to Sweden as an adopted son, but primarily as a science exhibit. Much of the 'action' takes place in Daniel's head. There are good descriptions of what it must be like to be torn away from one land/culture/lifestyle and dropped into the completely opposite situation. It'...more

like · see review

Apr 21, 2011 Judi rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is a departure from Mankell's usual cop stories. Set in the 1870's, Daniel is the story of a young boy brought to Sweden after his family is killed, by white men. Daniel's African name is Molo. No one calls him by his name. Daniel dreams of returning to his home in the Kalahari Desert. At times disturbing, this was a good read with insight into how it must feel to be the lone person of your tribe, trying to fit in. Some insight into the thoughts that may be behind the behavior towards...more

like · see review

Apr 19, 2011 Jessica rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

like · see review

Jun 16, 2012 DubaiReader rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012, audible

Uninspired, unconvinced.

I am disappointed to say that this book bored me. If I had not been listening to an unabridged audiobook, well read by Sean Barrett, I think I would have abandoned it. I was totally unconvinced by the character of Daniel, whose reactions just didn't ring true for me. And before that, the long, drawn out descriptions of Hans Bengler's travels through the Kalahari desert could have benefitted from severe abreviation.

Hans Bengler was a nineteenth century scientist who aspire...more Uninspired, unconvinced.

I am disappointed to say that this book bored me. If I had not been listening to an unabridged audiobook, well read by Sean Barrett, I think I would have abandoned it. I was totally unconvinced by the character of Daniel, whose reactions just didn't ring true for me. And before that, the long, drawn out descriptions of Hans Bengler's travels through the Kalahari desert could have benefitted from severe abreviation.

Hans Bengler was a nineteenth century scientist who aspired to find an unnamed insect in the African desert and hence make his name as an entomnologist. While staying at an isolated outpost, manned by the Swede, Anderssen, Bengler comes accross Molo, a 9 year old African boy from the San tribe. His parents and other villagers have been brutally murdered by colonialists and the unfortunate young boy has been captured and kept in a cage. Bengler seems to feel both sympathy and a scientific curiosity for this boy and decides to adopt him and return with him to Sweden.
Renaming him 'Daniel', Bengler finds that he has to teach the child everything - from speaking Swedish to manners and appropriate toilet habits. It is an uphill struggle, but he perseveres.
But my sympathy with Bengler was sorely stretched when, needing to make some money, he decides to exhibit Daniel like a circus bear. The Swedes react variously, an African child was certainly a rarity in those times. Inevitably, things go disastrously wrong and Bengler leaves the child with a rural family while he makes his escape.
Although I could relate to Daniel's desperate need to return to his home in the sands, a lot of what ensues amongst this rural community stretched my belief and I lost patience with the whole scenario.
A great concept for a novel but I just couldn't relate to Mankell's handling of it.

I am becoming more and more disappointed with Mr Mankell's writing. The last book I read by him was The Man From Beijing, which I struggled to finish, but I had high hopes for Daniel as it was set in Africa and I usually enjoy Mankell's Africa books. Sadly, I doubt I shall be reading any more by this author.

Also read:
The Man from Beijing: 2 stars

Kurt Wallender series:
Before the Frost: 4 stars
The Dogs of Riga: 3 stars
Firewall: 4 stars

Africa books:
The Eye of the Leopard: 4 stars
Chronicler of the Winds: 3 stars(less)

like · see review

Feb 18, 2011 Friederike Knabe rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: africa, european-lit

It took Daniel a long time to understand the word "home". And then he realized that whatever it was, it was far away from where he had been taken to. Hans Bengler, Swedish eccentric and somewhat hapless entomologist, had "adopted" the seven or eight year old San boy, Molo, during his expedition to the Kalahari Desert in then German South-West Africa in search of previously unidentified insects. With some specimens in his display cases, he decides to return to Sweden to exhibit his insect collect...more It took Daniel a long time to understand the word "home". And then he realized that whatever it was, it was far away from where he had been taken to. Hans Bengler, Swedish eccentric and somewhat hapless entomologist, had "adopted" the seven or eight year old San boy, Molo, during his expedition to the Kalahari Desert in then German South-West Africa in search of previously unidentified insects. With some specimens in his display cases, he decides to return to Sweden to exhibit his insect collection and the boy. Henning Mankell, well known for his Kurt Wallander and other crime novels, and a convincing story teller, has embarked with DANIEL into a world that is both still vivid in present day societies' minds and attitudes, yet, fortunately, has also been disappearing since the time of "first contact" between Africans and Europeans. Mankell presents us with a touching and intriguing story that exemplifies the need and importance of cross-cultural respect and appreciation, based on sensitivity and effort to listen to those who come from another culture and tradition - whatever their age - and at the same time to encourage these newcomers to express themselves without fear of ridicule or contempt.

The story is set in the late eighteen hundred seventies, a time when a black person was often regarded as some wild and dangerous animal or, at a minimum, as a major curiosity. Already on the ship back to Europe, Bengler prepares young Molo, who he renames Daniel, for his "proper" behaviour in the new country and teaches him a smidgen of Swedish. Life upon return to Sweden is not easy, though. The novel follows Daniel's experiences in "his new home", from climate to countryside to people to customs. Hardly anybody is interested in the boy's story, of course, and Bengler, who Daniel has to call "Father", tells a story about his "rescue" that has little to do with the reality he had experienced: "I never saw a lion! [...] Father was lying. He was making up a story that was not true at all." So much for being a role model!

It takes the author some time to switch from the detailed Bengler story to that of Daniel himself. When he does, the narrative becomes much more engaging and personal: gradually, we learn about Daniel's own feelings and his growing understanding of Swedish society and the huge chasm between this and his life back with his parents Be and Kiko. He had been the only survivor and, also, observer of a massacre (by white people) at his family's camp and the images and memories are a constant and overwhelming presence in his mind. Is the divide between the different world views in any way bridgeable? Once Daniel hears of Jesus' ability to walk on water, he believes he has found the solution to his loneliness: "He who needed to learn the art of walking on water to find the people who were most important in his life." His homesickness is a constant companion as he is moved around Sweden to end up in a small village, far away from the sea. He recognizes that he has to hide his feelings behind eyes that cannot be penetrated by others. Only very few individuals, however, make the effort to try. Several times he runs away, each time learning more about what he needs to do to succeed...

Daniel's story, whether based on a historical person or purely imagined, reminded me somewhat of that of Francis Barber, who came to England as a young slave, gained his freedom with the help of Dr. Samuel Johnson, the famous 18th century literary figure, and whose long time companion he became. Although this case of "adaptation" happened more than 100 years earlier, it ended rather differently. Apparently Swedes did not encounter black people on their shores until more than a hundred years later. Mankell is at pains to make the point very clearly when he describes the reactions of the locals to Daniel that range from loud yelling outbursts, to pointing, to poking to running away to trying to tie him up with a rope. Some see the boy as a personification of the Devil. The author succeeds in his efforts to bring us closer to Daniel's world and his perception of the two realities he has to cope with and builds in the reader feelings of empathy, solidarity and affection for young Molo. Personally, I found, however, that he may have given the nine-year old a more mature understanding and more advanced ability to analyze his surroundings than one would feel is plausible and credible, given the boy's age. On the other hand, Bengler's behaviour read, at times, more like a farce that was not really fitting the seriousness and emotional depth of the novel as a whole.(less)

like · see review

Feb 07, 2011 Kathleen Hagen added it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011-audio-books, 2011-general-fiction

Daniel, by Henning Mankell, Narrated by H. Ryder Smith, produced by recorded Books, downloaded from audible.com.

This is one of the novels which are not mysteries written by Mankell. This novel is about an entomologist from Sweden who is making his way across the African desert looking for rare and unknown insects that he can bring home and put his name to. In Capetown, he comes across a scene where a small boy from a village is found caged at the marketplace. His parents were killed in some kind...more

like · see review

Jan 02, 2011 Laura Leaney rated it 2 of 5 stars

Oh heavens - such a slow read. I love mysteries and usually enjoy Henning Mankell's stories, but this one really tortured me. Although this mystery involves the 1878 murder of a mentally deficient country girl in southern Sweden, most of the book follows the grim progress of a wanna-be entomologist named Bengler who creeps around the African desert alternating between drinking, crying, and masturbating. Suddenly, in what seems to be a humanitarian gesture, he "buys" a young African boy to adopt...more

1 like · like · see review

Nov 08, 2010 Clea Simon added it · review of another edition

This was a very earnest and well-intentioned book. Like "The Man from Beijing," it focuses on the evils of colonization. It opens in 1878 and a Swedish explorer is in Africa. He ends up supposedly adopting (really, collecting) a young San orphan and takes him back to Sweden. The rest of the book is basically his blindness to who the boy really is, and results in tragedy. That said, Mankell is very good at showing us young Daniel/Molo's point of view - how he sees this strange, cold world he has...more

like · see review

Dec 11, 2012 Joe rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A very, very sad story about a fool's caper that destroyed the life of a young boy because of cultural differences ... but it was very powerful. At times I thought it trite but I had to remind myself that the story took place in the 1870's in rural Sweeden. A story like this really could have occured. Extremly well written and readable (as are all books by Mankell).

I recommend this to everyone. But it is not a typical Menkell and don't read this if you are down.

like · see review

May 10, 2012 Pamela rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, foreign

An exquisitely sad story; ruthlessly elegant writing with a unique moral sympathetic view point.

Set in 1877-1878 Daniel, an orphaned boy of an African nomadic people is adopted by a Swedish man and taken to Sweden. He suffers multiple betrayals and tragedies as he struggles to understand his new world and the people he encounters, and makes attempts to use what he has learned in his native desert.

I found myself unable to put it down.

like · see review

Aug 06, 2011 Joella Tunnell rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A totally different novel by one of my favorite Swedish authors who usually does murder mysteries with Inspector Wallender. This is equally good. In the 1870's an eccentric scientist goes to the Kalahari Desert to look for an insect that has never been discovered.
He finds it, as well as a young orphan black child that he takes home with him to Sweden. It is an engrossing story -

like · see review

Jan 21, 2012 Kent rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is one of those stories that will stick with me for a very long time. Very well written, it's the tale of a young Swedish man's attempt to gain fame in colonial (1878) Africa, only to disrupt the life of an orphaned Bushman boy by "adopting" him and bringing him back to Europe. The characters are so believable that I wonder if it might be based, at least in part, on real events.

like · see review

Oct 29, 2011 Robin rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was quite a fascinating story. A Swedish fellow travels to Africa looking for an unknown fly that he can name after himself. He returns to Sweden with not only the fly, but with a young (8 yr. or so) San boy, who was orphaned and abandoned. The scientist soon abandons the boy, whom he names Daniel, and the rest of the book tells of how Daniel tries to get back to the desert. This is my first Henning Mankell book and probably my last. It is so dark.....

like · see review

May 10, 2011 Jennifer rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: library-loan, fiction

A curious novel of a boy taken out of Africa to Scandinavia in the 19th century. A sad tale of not fitting in familiar in some ways but yet eeriely 'other', where there is plenty of wrong and plenty of people trying but not getting it right. Many characters appear briefly but memorably.

I found it quite hard work, as I always seem to find African spiritualism.

like · see review

title link	preview: Daniel
avg rating	preview: Daniel Goodreads rating: 3.42 (464 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9888174-daniel?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328365704l/9888174.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9888174-daniel?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Daniel by Henning Mankell[/url]

Daniel

Friend Reviews

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

new topic
Discuss This Book

combine
Other Editions (27)

Genres

Readers also enjoyed similar books

About Henning Mankell

Books by Henning Mankell

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website

Trivia About Die rote Antilope