Depths

Set in Sweden during the first years of World War 1, this is the tale of Lars Tobiasson-Svartman, a naval officer who specialises in charting navigable channels in the Baltic Sea. He is fascinated by the measurement of distances and depths, but the novel is not only about soundings in the sea, but also Lars’ distance from other people and the depths to which he can sink when under pressure. His marriage to Kristina seems sound enough at first, if rather lacking in passion. But when on a mission to sound a new passage through the Ostergotland Archipelago, he discovers a lone woman (Sara Fredrika) living in a hut on an otherwise uninhabited skerry (rocky islet). He takes every opportunity to row ashore and spy on the woman, until one show more day he engineers his being caught on the island during a storm and Sara gives him shelter. In the following months he invents reasons to return to Sara, and he tells her his wife and daughter are dead. His invented stories to both Kristina and Sara, and to his naval superiors, become more and more complex, and he is revealed to have a vicious temper, which leads to an attack on his father-in-law, and the murder of a German deserter who finds his way to Sara’s island.
Finally, in this bleak and atmospheric novel, both Kristina and Sara discover the extent of his deceptions and both abandon him on the island. It is a fascinating and disturbing novel, convincingly depicting Sweden’s harsh winters and Lars’ frailties of character. show less

The book started off a little slow, but perhaps that is also due to the fly leaf describing the plot -- so was impatient for Lars to meet Sara Fredrika. Once he did, the plot really took off. A tale of spinning a web of lies and how in the end one gets caught up in them. The book had an Albert Camus "The Stranger" feel to it. One of the best books I've read.

This should have been called Deceptions instead of Depths, or maybe Depths of Deceptions.

What a horrible book. It's not that it is poorly written or anything, it is that there is nothing that is written that is worth reading. I don't understand why it was written in the first place as it is a horrible story. And I am not entirely sure why I read the entire thing other than wondering if there would be, at some point before it ended, something about the story that made it worth reading. There wasn't.

I found nothing of value, and it somewhat angers me that it was a complete waste of time. It's a loathsome book about a loathsome character. And because it wasn't engrossing in any way it made for a long, long read; it took me forever to show more finish.

I know Wallander is always miserable and dark, but Mankell makes me think that this really is what Sweden and Scandinavia in general is really like. That the fictional Nazis of Stieg Larsson and the real ones like Anders Breivik, what (hopefully) most people would consider to be pure evil, are around every corner. I mean, seriously, I might have to reconsider my thinking on giants like Fridtjof Nansen and Roald Amundsen; what were those guys REALLY like???

The only remotely interesting thing was the story of the hydrographic soundings. In that you could envision all the anonymous and unsung heroes that make the modern world work: astronomers, geologists, geographers, cartographers, biologists, agronomists, chemists, all the engineers and scientists, and the people who charted the oceans and bays of the world. show less

Henning Mankell never fails to intrigue me with his writing, whether it's the children's books he's authored or the Wallender series, or the standalone novels.

I am amazed by the reviewers who dislike this novel because the protagonist is "not nice." So much classic literature is based on characters who are "not nice," perhaps actually evil in intent, that this story fits nicely into that realm of reading.

This is a slow, painstaking study of a man for whom life is simply not much more than his measurements of the world around him. He lies, he cheats, he kills, and he is always puzzled by those who think he is doing something wrong.

I highly recommend this book.

An extremely atmospheric novel set in Sweden. The Swedish landscape is powerfully evoked and the characters are very well developed. This a story of one mans fall into the land of evil. It is a crime story but with no detective. A very memorable book.

Austere and unusual book, very different from Mankell's Wallander novels. Tells the story of a naval officer's slow descent into madness. Unnervingly, it is possible to discern aspects of oneself in this portrayal. As the author explains, he has somewhat altered the setting in Sweden from reality, but you feel its essential truth and hardness remain. The format (it is in parts, totalling 206 short chapters) make it easy to read quickly or slowly according to choice. As usual with Mankell's books, very well translated..

It is difficult to classify this book, it could be a thriller, but is 'slow' and it seems to lack some of the characteristics of the genre; there is a crime, but it is not a detective story and the plot is not driven for the need to uncover the killer; it is set during WWI, but it is not a 'war' novel; the best way to describe it, which fit with some of the characterizations in the reviews on the back cover is as book of 'suspense'.
The main character is an officer in the Swedish navy, expert in measuring the depth of the sea in order to draw navigation charts. He is sent on a mission in the course of which he will meet Sara, a woman living on his own in an island. This meeting will challenge his marriage to Kristina.
Mankell has show more written a very atmospheric book in which is almost possible to feel the cold, the sea and the hardship of living in a solitary island. The characters are not particularly likeable, but they are engaging. They develop during the story and we get to know different aspects of them, but we never get a full picture of their motivations. This could be because the narration focuses on Lars (the main character) and his inability to relate to others fully. He never understands who they are and focuses on very shallow details of their character (his wife liking porcelain figurines, for instance). Although he is obsessed with the concept of depth his relationships are very superficial, he never engages properly with any of the two women in his life, or with his colleagues. He is unable to read others well, due to his self absorption, but most of the people that he encounter are able to see through him, and they find that they cannot trust him and feel that he will not keep his word. Everybody did, except his wife. This was a surprise. show less