Depths [Hardcover]

Henning; Laurie Thompson translator Mankell (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Knopf Canada; 1st Canadian Edition edition (2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0676978711
• ISBN-13: 978-0676978711
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,345,471 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

54 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mankell Fans - Get this book through Amazon.uk. NOW!, October 31, 2006

By 

miller stevens (seattle) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Depths (Hardcover)

This is pure Henning Mankell. This is unlike any Henning Mankell you have ever read.
I am a huge Mankell fan, but am wary of non-Wallander Mankell. I didn't like the long non-Wallander sections of the White Lioness and was just moderately impressed with the Return of the Dancing Master.
So I stepped into Depths cautiously but was soon blown away. This is a remarkable novel that has a depth to it greater than any of the Wallander novels. It is, in part, a character study, a love story (perverse at that), a gothic novel, a thriller, and almost a horror novel.
Without giving too much away, this is a story about a sailor in the Swedish navy around 1915. He is married, but meets a woman on a remote island. Things get complicated. Very complicated. The protagonist is one of the more reprehensible characters I've ever read, and yet the incredible, harrowing ending made me sympathetic for him. Never before has Mankell so masterfully placed characters in tough situations and lead the reader through such sharp narrative twists and turns.
The sea features heavily in the novel and reminded me more, in many ways, of a Joseph Conrad novel than one of Mankell's crime novels, the depth of character and narrative reminds me of Ian McEwan. This is not a police procedural, but it is very thrilling. It's a novel about the frailty of the human heart, about making wrong choices, about hope and pain. It's pure literature and not only one of Mankell's best novels, but one of the best novels I've read in many, many years.

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An exquisite novel of depth and suspense, December 14, 2006

By 

HORAK (Zug, Switzerland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Depths (Hardcover)

The novel opens with the harrowing scene of a woman called Kristina Tacker as she escapes from a psychiatric asylum. She vaguely remembers that her husband had the rank of Commander in the Swedish army and that he was a hydrographical survey engineer. At this moment, in 1937, Kristina Tacker is fifty-seven and it is twelve years since she has uttered her last word.
The reader is immediately drawn into the suspense created by this opening as he follows the story of the main character, Lars Tobiasson-Svartman, a man obsessed by the depths of the sea and torn between two women, Sara Frederika and his wife Kristina Tacker. We follow his destiny at the beginning of World War I as he slowly loses his grip on his surroundings and becomes entangled in a web of lies and crimes which inexorably leads to his downfall. He ends up by living in a world entirely created by lies. Indeed he becomes an impostor; an impostor lives a life but the deceit involved lives a different life. It is the tragic fate of a man whose life has always been based on lunatic ideas and who has built his existence on distances and depths instead of seeking closeness.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Descent into the depths, June 30, 2007

By 

Robert Zuch "The Pomeranian" (Christchurch, New Zealand) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Depths: A Novel (Hardcover)

A number of reviewers here were disappointed with this novel because of its relentless bleakness. The "Depths", by Henning Mankell, is bleak indeed, but it is not a story badly written. Some objected to "very short chapters", this of course is a valid stylistic exercise used by other authors, usually to make a point; it is used by Mankell to the same effect here (the protagonist was obsessed with the detail but unable to see the whole and this can be seen as one of the reason of his descent into depths, both literally and figuratively).

The bleakness of the novel is masterfully executed; if you would rather read something uplifting this is not the book to pick up! The characters are well supported by the relentless land- and seascape (much of the story is set in the cold season, and most of the summertime is glossed over). But this novel belongs in the European tradition of Ibsen or Dostoyevsky with its dispassionate analysis of a character whose life unravels in front of our very eyes and where practically everyone affected by his actions ends up damaged as well. The strong female characters grow in strength through the story but still remain only schematically, or lightly, drawn in contrast to the centre character. This was the only disappointment for me; otherwise the story made a powerfull impact on me.