ARMCHAIR TRAVELLER: DENMARK
In 1848 a motley crew of Danish sailors sets sail from the small island town of Marstal to fight the Germans. Not all of them return – and those who do will never be the same. Among them is the daredevil Laurids Madsen, who promptly escapes again 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 on a voyage that will take him to the furthest reaches of the globe and into the clutches of the most nefarious company. Bearing a mysterious shrunken head, and 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.
From the barren rocks of Newfoundland to the lush plantations of Samoa, from the roughest bars in Tasmania, to the frozen coasts of northern Russia, We, The Drowned spans four generations, two world wars and a hundred years. Carsten Jensen conjures a wise, humorous, thrilling story of fathers and sons, of the women they love and leave behind, and of the sea’s murderous promise.
We talked to Danish novelist Carsten Jensen about what are people reading and writing in Denmark
Can you tell us what is currently in the Danish bestseller lists?
The craze at the moment is for Swedish and Norwegian crime novels. The bestseller lists are completely dominated by the likes of Stig Larsson, Henning Mankell and Jo Nesbo. The appeal of these books lies in their contemporary realism and their engagement with modern society. Interestingly there aren’t many successful Danish writers in this genre. There are a few, like Leif Davidsen, but generally the Danes don’t write the kind of thrillers that become bestsellers and get sold internationally.
What are young Danish writers writing about?
They are about as far away from the crime novel as you can get. They are not interested in the world, or what people want to read. They have retreated inside their heads, into a kind of inner exile, and write books that engage with the literary theory that is being taught in universities. Their novels are highly praised by the critics and academics but the general public are not interested in what they write. Literature has become a kind of subculture of no interest. There are of course exceptions.
Tell us about the exceptions …
Genuinely original literature very often comes from outsiders. Closed literary environments like the one currently operating in Denmark kill creativity. Jakob Ejersbo, who died tragically at the age of 40, was one such outsider. He was brought up in Africa and wrote an extraordinary trilogy of novels set in Tanzania that will be published in English by the Maclehose Press. Then there is Hanne-Vibeke Holst who writes big, well-researched novels about intrigues in contemporary politics. These are both page turners and a serious attempt to analyse what is happening to Danish society. Our Social Democrat party has been out of power for ten years and, despite having been the architect of our welfare state, has lost its identity. Holst weaves her stories around issues such as this. Another ‘outsider’ author in Denmark is Jens Christian Grondahl who writes excellent books about the intimate affairs of the upper middle class.
Who are your influences?
My novel We, the Drowned is about a seafaring community. Despite Denmark once being a nation of sailors there is surprisingly little seafaring literature in our canon, perhaps because writers were often the sons of priests who were based in rural communities, or came to the city. It is therefore to the great international sea literature that I turned: Melville, Stevenson, Conrad …
And the future?
Who knows what will replace the crime novel on the bestsellers lists. These days perhaps the best storytellers direct films instead of writing books … But when I was writing We, the drowned I kept thinking how impossibly expensive it would be to film the scenes I was writing – even more expensive than Pirates of the Caribbean – and yet how cheap it was to write. All I needed was a quiet place and a few bottles of wine. There will always be those who seek the imaginative freedom of books …