Book Review: Carsten Jensen's We, the Drowned

I recently reviewed Danish author Carsten Jensen's fabulous new novel We, the Drowned over at Three Percent. Chad Post at Open Letter Books (who runs Three Percent) has allowed me to repost it on FPP. Here's the full text. Ray Taras in World Literature Today also did a very nice interview with Jensen (the cover feature).

We, the Drowned
By Carsten Jensen
Translated by Charlotte Barslund and Emma Ryder
Reviewed by K.E. Semmel
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
675 pages, Hardcover
ISBN: 9780151013777
$28.00

We who are alive in the age of the eBook may not be used to reading 675 page sea adventure tales. When we think of such novels—at least here on these shores—we probably think of James Fenimore Cooper and Herman Melville, venerable writers who penned some of the most enduring American classics of the genre. Though Denmark is one of the greatest seafaring nations in the history of the world, we typically don’t think of Danes when we think of the literature of the sea. Carsten Jensen’s fabulous first novel, We, the Drowned, should change that.

For three decades, Jensen has been one of the finest commentators in Denmark, distilling meaning out of everything, from political events to world developments, in his newspaper columns. With his deft touch, ordinary stones dazzle with sharp, brilliant light. Back when we still lived in Denmark, I eagerly anticipated the arrival of Politiken just so I could read his column. Over the years, many of these short pieces have been collected into books (and two of those titles have been translated into English).

But in We, the Drowned, Jensen gives us the big story. The inhabitants of the town of Marstal, on the island of Æro, have been seafarers for generations. They live and die by the code of the sea. Jensen writes in the communal first person plural, with its distinctive and authoritative “we” lending a familiar sense of intimacy, and starts his story in the year 1848. Like the docent in a fine museum, he then leads us through the next 100 years in Marstal’s history. That history is extraordinarily rich, and includes Denmark’s Three Years’ War (1848-51) with the Germans, two world wars, the rise of late capitalism and concomitant descent of the very life-blood of Marstallers’ lives, the sailing industry, and finally the ascendency of globalization (though the “g” word is not used).

Whew. That’s sure a lot.

And yet, though We, the Drowned explores a wide range of territory, it’s actually compact in the way only Jensen can make it. A lot of ground, and yes, water, is covered. But Jensen builds an impressive edifice out of the Marstallers’ lives. What happened to them, we could say, happened to all of us.

Though there’s a large ensemble cast, the narrative circles around several key characters. First, there’s Laurids Madsen, a sailor with near superhuman powers. On the very first page of the novel he’s blasted into the air when his ship explodes at the end of a losing battle against the Germans, but he survives. Returning to Marstal, his status exulted by his near-death experience, he’s revered. Eventually, however, he sours of life in Marstal. He signs on to another ship and never returns. Then the narrative shifts to one of his sons, Albert—who even as a boy resembled his father—and he takes up the seemingly hopeless cause of finding the man who deserted him. In Albert’s narrative we meet a host of strange but delightful characters: the brutal schoolteacher Isager and his whip (who teaches hardness but not much else); first mate O’Connor who’s even more brutal than Isager; the con man Anthony Fox and the dastardly Jack Lewis who gives Albert a shrunken head he claims is that of James Cook. Midway through all this, as if to personalize Albert’s search for his father, the point of view shifts to first person singular:

"I signed on for Singapore and from there to Van Dieman’s Land, to Hobart Town, the last port where my father had been seen. But it wasn’t just his final port: it was everyone’s dead end—and if it wasn’t yours, it soon would be, if you didn’t get yourself out in time. Picture the workhouse in Marstal: that’s what Hobart was like."

In literature as in life, finding a runaway father often leads to disappointment. Such is the case here for Albert Madsen (though for readers the high seas quest is rife with adventure). Before long—and returning home to first person plural—Albert is an old man serving as a father figure to a young boy, Knud Erik Friis, and as a reluctant lover to the boy’s widowed mother, Klara. When Albert dies—literally frozen to death in his father’s lucky boots—he bequeaths his fortune to Klara. And so begins the final stage of this book, with Klara and Knud Erik front and center.

Klara, a woman who lost her husband when his ship went down, wants to punish the sea for all the damage it has inflicted on Marstallers’ lives—particularly the town’s women. Ironically, she wants to use Albert’s fortune, built on the waves of the oceans, to end Marstal’s dependency on sailing. She visits a powerful businessman in Copenhagen named Markussen and tells him of her plan. He responds:

“Have you heard of Xerxes, king of Persia?” he finally asked. “Xerxes got it into his head to punish the sea because a sudden storm arose and destroyed his fleet before a decisive battle against the Greeks. His method was somewhat unusual. He had the sea whipped with iron chains. I’d say, Mrs. Friis, that you’re a modern-day successor to Xerxes” [. . .] “I hope you understand that your plans will have fatal consequences for your little town.”

She understands that only too well. But does her plan succeed? Well, I won’t give it away. You can decide for yourself.

All told, We, the Drowned is a tour de force, a colossus, that gives Americans an opportunity to witness the gears of a great writer at work, turning the ordinary into the extraordinary. Richly translated by Charlotte Barslund and Emma Ryder so that obscure nautical terms like “ketch,” “old luggers,” “cutters,” “fore-and-aft schooner” flow naturally in translation. Sentence after sentence is strung together like bright bulbs of light. In his first work of fiction, Carsten Jensen creates characters with whom readers can empathize, and even the lowliest among them have real, identifiable motives behind their actions. This novel may be big and heavy, but it’s worth every single page.

Something Is Written in Denmark

There’s a touching story in Jackie Wullschlager’s wonderful, illuminating biography Hans Christian Andersen: The Life of a Storyteller. In it, a seventeen year old H.C. Andersen enters a school in the town of Slagelse where all his classmates are six years younger. When asked by the headmaster to locate the city of Copenhagen on a map—a town just 57 miles away and where he had recently lived for three years—he is unable. Imagine that. Andersen, probably the single most recognizable Danish author of all time, was for a time the class idiot to a bunch of eleven year olds.

But it’s that story of the iconic figure of H.C. Andersen which I find compelling in a discussion of contemporary Danish (and American) literature. The question, you see, is where is it? Who can locate it on the map? It’s alive and well, of course, this thing called Danish literature. Denmark supports its authors and its publishers, and it has its individual champions here in the states—Garrison Keillor and Paul Auster come to mind. Jonathan Rich of The Paris Review. Or Jeffrey Frank of the New Yorker (who recently, together with his wife, produced new translations of Andersen’s work). Then you have your regular posse of translators, a noble breed that’s too often overlooked by academics and media alike. Without translators, there would be no. such. thing. as. world. literature.

Every now and again, a Danish author will break through in the United States. Think Peter Høeg (Smilla’s Sense of Snow) or, more recently, Morten Ramsland (Doghead) and Peter Fogtdal (The Czar’s Dwarf). But like so much of international literature, it’s backburnered in favor of the homegrown stuff. It’s been a while since a Danish author broke through in the way that, say, Swede Stieg Larsson (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) or Norwegian Per Petterson (Out Stealing Horses) has broken through.

Why is that? It’s certainly not for lack of quality authors. Part of me wonders whether it’s a reverse Andersen effect: it’s now us who can’t locate Copenhagen on the map. Historically speaking, Denmark has always been a powerful force to be reckoned with in Europe—and especially in Scandinavia. But since the end of World War II, when globalization’s engine really started to heat up, Denmark has lagged behind in the self-promotion department. Swedes and Norwegians—much larger land masses to the north—tend to usurp visibility in this area. Perhaps the lesson here is that when you think you’re small, you are small.

Denmark is a nation of only around 5.5 million people, but it’s a leading cultural light in western culture (the cartoon fiasco notwithstanding), very much on par with all of Scandinavia. With its self-sustaining environmental policies, its copacetic, slightly more relaxed way of life and its brilliantly altruistic social welfare programs, Denmark is a role model to other nations. (Sadly, I can envision that privatization will strip the country’s social welfare programs bare in another generation. Am I being cynical?)

In such an environment, it’s no surprise that Danish authors have produced—and continue to produce—terrific material. Stuff worthy of world circulation. According to Open Letter Press’s blog Three Percent (although it’s not original to them), only, that’s right, “3 percent” of the total number of books published in the United States are translated. That’s a whoppingly low number—and perhaps proof that U.S. literature is indeed “insular,” as Horace Engdahl of the Swedish Academy notoriously suggested?

A special thanks to Scott Lindenbaum at the fabulous new Electric Literature for requesting this piece originally, and for posting it on their awesome new blog The Outlet. They are also responsible for the clever title of this post.

Pia Tafdrup: Internationally Acclaimed Danish Poet

Here's an interview I recently did for Hayden's Ferry Review's blog--they've graciously allowed me to repost it here on First Person Plural as part of our new Tuesday interview feature. In addition to my duties at The Writer's Center, I also translate Danish literature. This is one of my literary passions, you could say. I've translated a few of Tafdrup's essays--she's a warm, wonderful human being--and I asked her if she'd be up for an interview. She was. It took me longer to translate this than I anticipated, being swamped! However, I'm pleased with the results. Pleased, too, to bring this to you. If you've not read Tafdrup before you're in for a treat.

Pia Tafdrup was born in Copenhagen in 1952. She has published 13 collections of poetry, including: When an Angel Breaks Her Silence(1981); The Crystal Forest(1992), Queen´s Gate(1998, published by Bloodaxe2001), The Whales in Paris(2004), Tarkovsky´s Horses (2006) and Boomerang(2008). The Whales in Paris and Tarkovsky´s Horses will be published by Bloodaxe 2009. She has also published a statement of her poetics, Walking over the Water (1991), two novels, Surrender (2004) and Star Without Land (2008) and two plays, Death in the Mountains (1988) and The Earth Is Blue (1991). Poems of Pia Tafdrup has been translated into 30 languages. English translations of her poems have been published in more than 50 literary journals in the U.K., U.S., Canada, and Australia. Tafdrup has received the Nordic Council's Literature Prize in 1999 and the Nordic Prize in 2006 from The Swedish Academy. Click here to see readings with Pia, Don Delillo, Steve Martin, Kiran Desai, Neil Gaiman, Nadine Gordimer, and others in NYC at PEN.


You’ve traveled all over the globe representing Denmark—and poetry—as a kind of ambassador. What have you learned about your own Danish culture from so much traveling?

Interesting question. What have I learned about my own culture, not the foreign…I travel first and foremost in order to meet foreign cultures head on, because it provides me with significant knowledge about people. This knowledge is found in sedimentary form both in the poetry and fiction I write. But on the opposite side of the globe, I actually do have my eyes opened to what is “my” culture: what it means to have a mother tongue that I know the deepest layers of, the possibility of an immediate mental reading of other people, a shared cultural background, being understood by likeminded people, the climate, the weather, the light I’ve known, the sounds that are part of my city, the smells, etc.

Even though Danes have vast differences among them, at a distance there is something that binds us together. Fundamentally, this is about understanding and shared reference points. But I don’t just think about what it means to be Danish, but also what it means to be Scandinavian, and what is European—both of which I feel strongly connected to.

I often hear the term “ambassador” used about poets who read in other countries, but I don’t see myself as an ambassador for others. I’m only myself…If I’m invited to appear in another country, I always read one or more poems in Danish, and then follow up with the translated poems—preferably read by a poet with the translated language as a mother tongue. It’s important for me that people in the world hear examples of how my poems sound in the language they were written—and in that way I represent Danish. But I can’t represent more than myself; I can’t represent other poets, just as they can’t represent me.

Every poet has his or her specific universe, and this is where I make my “spiritual signature” when I write. It’s this special stamp that can be so difficult to reproduce. But when it’s successfully translated, I’m thankful. I’ve experienced powerful emotional responses from audiences in South America. In Scandinavia you can easily thank a poet for the reading, tell her the reading made an impression, or make a comment on a particular poem. But in more excitable countries, the audiences come to me afterwards and show me the gooseflesh on their arms, or they kiss me—giddy with joy—before I realize what’s happening. When I get that kind of reaction from an audience on the other side of the globe, it’s probably because my poems deal in large part with human existence; they try to articulate states that are often wordless, but are understood across races, social classes, different cultural backgrounds, etc. It’s nothing short of miraculous that a good translation can touch and move people I’d never known I’d ever be able to reach when I wrote the poems. For me, it’s more important that poetry possess powers that bind people across continents than that it is Danish poetry.

In “Sleepless Hope,” the essay published in Hayden’s Ferry Review, you describe your experiences while attending a festival in Nicaragua. You also provide an outsider’s view of life in that country—which for many is a very difficult life. In spite of all the troubles in Nicaragua, however, poetry remains a vital part of life there. What responsibility, if any, does a poet or artist have in shaping culture?


Poetry was once held in high esteem in Scandinavia, but in recent years, there have been far fewer poetry books offered by the established publishers than earlier. Nor do poets have the same significance as before. In our culture, it’s rare that people are interested in what a poet has to say. Poetry is still being written by the young generation, but young poets aren’t just fighting to break through to the public: they must be increasingly innovative. Even though poetry is a wonderful genre, the large publishers no longer feel any responsibility toward it. Seldom is it a publisher’s flagship publication.

When you’re used to these conditions, it’s a real treat to land in, for instance, Nicaragua. Thirty or fifty or one hundred audience members are not unusual for us in Denmark—on special occasions you may even get 500—but in Nicaragua and that part of the world, it’s not unusual to have 1000 or more. The massive audiences that attend poetry readings night after night in Latin American countries are nothing less than overwhelming to a Scandinavian poet. And yes, it’s exactly where need and poverty are at their worst that poetry apparently enjoys a different meaning than with us. We would rather be entertained by an event culture where everything is forgotten two seconds after it’s past. In other words, when you’re not pushed to the brink, you don’t have the same need for reflection and depth. In Denmark most everyone does all right without poetry; it has virtually no significance in the lives of Danes. But poetry in Nicaragua is woven into daily life.

Whether there's one reader or listener or a thousand readers or listeners, poets are held accountable. For me, it’s important to answer for what I write: poems, poetics, novels, articles, etc. I write to the individual, not to a group…I write in the hopes of reaching and moving the person who reads my words. But clearly, it’s a strong response if a shudder goes through the crowd when a poet reads—I won’t deny that. But the person listening or reading should get the feeling that the poems are addressed to him or to her. Huge audiences can also be merciless on the poet who doesn’t move them. When you’re reading in front of an audience, you’ve got to have your antennae up in countries where such enormous expectations are placed on poets. A wonderful challenge!

Here in the United States, poetry seems to be marginalized in an academic setting. A great many of its practitioners teach in writing programs and publish for a narrow band of followers within that setting. How is the state of poetry in Denmark today? And how do we as part of western culture instill a love of poetry into our everyday lives?

Poetry is just as marginalized in Denmark today as it in the United States, but it’s been slightly delayed compared to other parts of the world, where this has been going on for many years.

I myself debuted in 1981. I wasn’t alone. Suddenly, there was this whole generation of poets (whose poems I’ve included, incidentally, in the anthology Transformationer. Poesi 1980-1985). Today, when you look back to the early 1980s, you see that poetry was in a better position than prose. You’ve got to go all the way back to the time right after WWII to find a corresponding “poetry boom” in Denmark—even if it wasn’t called that back then. “The Golden Rush” was an appellation the poet and the critic Poul Borum came up with when he introduced our generation to Sweden and Norway, where we were watched closely already then.

But there hasn’t been a similarly strong generation of poets since. Some very fine poets have emerged, but they don’t make up an actual generation. And there’s not the same attention paid to poetry any longer. It doesn’t fill university reading lists like it did 10 or 20 years ago. Similarly, it occupies less and less of the media’s attention. A poetry collection with a specific theme can suddenly clear out the front page of the culture section, of course, as when Lone Hørslev published her divorce poems, or when Christel Wiinblad published a collection about her schizophrenic brother’s suicide attempt. But with these publications it’s not poetry as such that attracts notice; first and foremost, it is the alarming subjects and the gripping way they are told, that captures the media’s attention.

Poetry must be kept alive by publishers, and by different media: newspapers, radio, TV, etc. Room should be given to readings at key locations in cities. Poetry won’t die completely when given short shrift, but it’ll have the character—as it once had—of an underground phenomenon. If poetry is cultivated, it’ll fill more of our lives. The most impressive use of poetry that I’ve ever seen was at a Mexican school. Each year, the school arranges a poetry day and invites not just one or two poets, but all of ten from different countries. This would be unthinkable in Denmark.

One year, I was one out of ten poets invited to sit at a long table set up in the school courtyard, where all the students were assembled. We were welcomed like a long-awaited rock band with cheers and whistles and foot-stomps, yet all we were supposed to do was read a small sampling of our work. Through the years, the students had developed an intense relationship to poetry. Many of them wrote poetry themselves, and after we’d read, a handful of the best students were plucked from the audience to recite their poetry for us. Very moving! I’d never been involved in anything like it. But it wasn’t hard to see just what it means for poetry—that it’s supported. We poets from Scandinavia or Europe have much to learn of visits such as these and, hopefully, can help give poetry a lift at home.