- This title is eligible for Amazon Fall Textbook promotions. Get unlimited free Two-Day Shipping for three months with a free trial of Amazon Prime. Add $100 worth of eligible textbooks to your cart to qualify. Sign up at checkout. New members only. Here's how (restrictions apply)
Join Amazon Prime and ship Two-Day for free and Overnight for $3.99. Already a member? Sign in.
|
|||||||||||||
Special Offers and Product Promotions
Better Together
Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought
The Man Who Smiled (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) by Henning Mankell  (31)
$11.16
|
The Return: An Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) by Hakan Nesser  (8)
$11.16
|
The Cruel Stars of the Night: A Mystery (Ann Lindell Mysteries) by Kjell Eriksson (7)
$10.36
|
Borkmann's Point: An Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery by Hakan Nesser (17)
$11.16
|
A Bridge to the Stars by Henning Mankell (3)
$10.87
|
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
This bizarre and compelling tale from Swedish author Mankell, best known for his crime novels featuring detective Kurt Wallander (The Man Who Smiled, etc.), focuses on a tortured naval officer, Lars Tobiasson-Svartman, who has the important duty of taking soundings for secret naval channels in the approach to Stockholm at the outbreak of WWI. Like a skilled stonemason, Mankell builds his portrait of Svartman with infinite patience, adding details and highlights layer by layer: Svartman as a naval officer attached to but not a part of a crew; Svartman as husband to a wife willingly left behind as he pursues his secret mission; and Svartman as the obsessed seeker of Sara, the lone inhabitant of Halsskär, a desolate and isolated island. Mankell fully sounds the depths of Svartman's obsessions in a way so artful as to appear artless, creating a masterful portrait not only of Svartman but of the women in his life. This is a memorable and shocking psychological study. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Mankell, best known for his Kurt Wallander series, shows us another dimension of his considerable talent. In October 1914, with World War I just beginning, Sweden's neutrality is not necessarily assured. Naval commander and hydrographic surveyor Lars Tobiasson-Svartman has a secret mission: to take new depth soundings in the Stockholm archipelago, part of a search for faster passages and safe havens for Swedish ships. He is a man obsessed with exactitude, yet he's never taken his own measure--he hides a deep, uncharted abyss in his soul. His love for his wife, in particular, has never been tested. When he meets a hardy, emotionally wounded woman living on a desolate, rocky island, his self-discipline unravels. He gropes blindly toward self-knowledge, leaving wreckage in his wake. As a portrait of alienation from the self, this recalls Camus' Stranger; as a portrait of strong women societally subordinate to blinkered men, it recalls Ibsen's Doll's House. If Mankell sometimes writes about his protagonist's emotional journey too plainly, this grim novel still casts a remarkably powerful spell. Keir Graff
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
This bizarre and compelling tale from Swedish author Mankell, best known for his crime novels featuring detective Kurt Wallander (The Man Who Smiled, etc.), focuses on a tortured naval officer, Lars Tobiasson-Svartman, who has the important duty of taking soundings for secret naval channels in the approach to Stockholm at the outbreak of WWI. Like a skilled stonemason, Mankell builds his portrait of Svartman with infinite patience, adding details and highlights layer by layer: Svartman as a naval officer attached to but not a part of a crew; Svartman as husband to a wife willingly left behind as he pursues his secret mission; and Svartman as the obsessed seeker of Sara, the lone inhabitant of Halsskär, a desolate and isolated island. Mankell fully sounds the depths of Svartman's obsessions in a way so artful as to appear artless, creating a masterful portrait not only of Svartman but of the women in his life. This is a memorable and shocking psychological study. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Mankell, best known for his Kurt Wallander series, shows us another dimension of his considerable talent. In October 1914, with World War I just beginning, Sweden's neutrality is not necessarily assured. Naval commander and hydrographic surveyor Lars Tobiasson-Svartman has a secret mission: to take new depth soundings in the Stockholm archipelago, part of a search for faster passages and safe havens for Swedish ships. He is a man obsessed with exactitude, yet he's never taken his own measure--he hides a deep, uncharted abyss in his soul. His love for his wife, in particular, has never been tested. When he meets a hardy, emotionally wounded woman living on a desolate, rocky island, his self-discipline unravels. He gropes blindly toward self-knowledge, leaving wreckage in his wake. As a portrait of alienation from the self, this recalls Camus' Stranger; as a portrait of strong women societally subordinate to blinkered men, it recalls Ibsen's Doll's House. If Mankell sometimes writes about his protagonist's emotional journey too plainly, this grim novel still casts a remarkably powerful spell. Keir Graff
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
Product Details
|