Book Review: Faceless Killers

 

Faceless Killers

Author: Henning Mankell

Publisher: Vintage Books, paperback, 298 pages

Reviewed by Rev. Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson

The Author 

Henning Mankell, at the time of this volume’s publication, was the prize-winning and internationally acclaimed Swedish author of the Inspector Wallander Mysteries, popular throughout Europe. Eventually, there were film and T.V. adaptations of his Kurt Wallander novels. He was a left-wing political social activist, and devoted much of his time to working with Aids charities in Africa, where he was also director of the Teatro Avenida in Maputo. He was married four times. His last wife, Eva Bergman, is the daughter of film director Ingmar Bergman. Mankell died on 5 October, 2015. 

Kurt Wallander is the protagonist of this novel. He is a police inspector at Ystad, in southern Sweden. Wallander is separated from his wife Mona, and alienated from his daughter Linda. He comes across as a workaholic, and neglects his health—eating too much fast food, not getting enough sleep, and sometimes drinking too much. He feels guilty about not visiting his dad often enough, there is tension between them, and he communicates with his sister who lives in Stockholm only occasionally. 

Wallander and other police officers work together to try and solve the brutal murders of a farm couple, Johannes and Maria Lövgren. The last word Maria uttered before she died was “Foreign.” Wallander questions Lövgren’s farm neighbours, the Nyströms. However, they are unable to share many helpful leads. Wallander and the other police team members are concerned that the media will blow things out of proportion if they discover the murderers are foreigners—they are worried that such information would play into the interests of far right political organisations and individuals opposed to immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees. 

In the meantime, another murder is committed, someone has killed a Somali man. Wallander has a “hunch” about a former policeman who retired early. After Wallander’s surveillance of him, and his association with another chap, the Somali murder is solved relatively quickly. Both of them had connections with far right organisations. Once again the police are worried about how the media would cover the murder, and if their coverage would negatively stereotype the police as having far right political leanings. 

Wallander continues his investigation of the Lövgren murders, with the assistance of other police personnel. They discover that Johannes Lövgren had lived a rather secret life unbeknown to his neighbours, the Nyströms. During World War II, he had made a lot of money selling meat to the Germans. He also had an affair with Ellen Magnusson. Eventually, the police discover, after continuous denials, that Ellen and Johannes had a son, Erik Magnusson. Later, after incorrectly suspecting them, they discovered that neither Ellen nor Erik had anything to do with the Lövgren murders. 

Wallander and other police personnel spend more time hoping that the discovery of a Citroën car would lead them to the murderers. After coming to so many dead-ends in the investigation, Wallander is getting very discouraged and almost ready to give up. Time passes, and nothing significant happens. Then, working with a bank employee, a wee bit of information motivates Wallander that might help in solving the murders. I encourage readers to check out the novel in order to discover how it ends.

Book Review: Just A Mother

Just A Mother

Author: Roy Jacobsen, Translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett and Don Shaw

Publisher: Biblioasis, paperback, 318 pages, including Glossary

Reviewed by Rev. Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson

The Author 

Roy Jacobsen was born in Oslo, his family was from northern Norway. He has written over 15 novels, and is a Norwegian Academy for Language and Literature member. In addition to this novel, Jacobsen has written 3 other Ingrid Barrøy Novels. The Unseen, the first one about Ingrid and her family, was a phenomenal bestseller in Norway and was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize and the International Dublin Literary Award, selected as an Indie Next pick in North America, and named a New York Times New and Noteworthy book. The Kirkus-starred and critically acclaimed White Shadow, the second Barrøy novel, was published in North America by Biblioasis in 2021 and followed by Eyes of the Rigel in 2022. 

Brief Observations

It is sometime after World War II. Ingrid, the protagonist, who is referred to as “just a mother,” (p. 310), the novel’s title, is a member of the Barrøy family, and as a young woman she inherited from her parents, Hans and Maria, Barrøy Island in northern Norway. Ingrid had given birth to her daughter Kaja. The father of Kaja, Alexander, a Russian P.O.W. had been rescued from the wreck of the Rigel. Ingrid also raised Felix and Suzanne after the death of their parents, Zezenia and Oskar Tommesen. In addition to these children, Ingrid also took in a girl named Nelvy who died young, and Mathias—also referred to as Mattis—son of Olavia Storm and a German officer, Ottmar Ehrlich. After the disappearance/abandonment of Olavia, and the death at sea of her husband, Johannes Hartvigsen, who was twice her age, Ingrid, with the assistance of Pastor Samuel Malmberget, eventually adopted Mathias.

Pastor Samuel studied in Germany, expounds on Luther’s Bible, and likes to show up for surprise visits of his parishioners. Regarding himself as shy, he and Anna Karina Storm marry.

Barbro is Ingrid’s aunt, sister to her father Hans. She is the mother of an adult son, Lars, named after a Swedish worker on the island who may be his father. Barbro lives with Ingrid, offers hospitality to visitors, helps out with chores, and sings in the church choir. 

The novel goes on at length to describe the isolated way of life on Barrøy Island, relying on boats to bring in supplies, mail, etc., no electricity, struggling to eke out a living with gardens, fishing, animals, and collecting eider down.

Mariann Vollheim was another lover of Alexander, after Ingrid. She is married to Olav, and lives in Trondheim with her daughter called Little Ingrid. Ingrid Barrøy and Mariann communicate with each other via letters, and have somewhat of a complex and conflicted relationship. However Mariann arranges for Kaja and Mathias to attend school in Trondheim. Mariann inherited an estate, and was a teacher at the Trondheim Cathedral School. 

There is a lengthy process of selling local properties in order to build a new school. Ingrid employs stalling tactics to try and get as much money as possible for the Johannes Hartvigsen property, the proceeds of which would be given to Mathias. 

The men of the community travel to Lofoten to fish during the winter months. However one year that changes, and Barrøy is never the same again. 

The novel highlights, among other things: the importance of and tension within community relationships, childhood curiosity, traditional rural island and modern urban life, individual and collective identity in relation to the environment, psychological and theological issues such as guilt, shame, grief, anger, doubt, faith, sin, and the absence or presence of God in the lives and deaths of humans. 

I’m not certain if the author or publisher chose the title for this novel. However, given the complexity of human beings, Ingrid is certainly more than “just a mother.” She is a niece, a mentor and community leader, a gardener, a farmer, a neighbour and friend, from a faith perspective a child of God, and so on. 

The novel leaves this reviewer wondering if Roy Jacobsen will publish a fifth Ingrid Barrøy Novel, since the ending leaves readers curious about the future of a number of characters, including Ingrid.

A Brief Book Review: Remembering: A Novel

A Brief Book Review: Remembering: A Novel

Author: Wendell Berry

Publisher: North Point Press, paperback, 124 pages

Reviewed by Rev. Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson

The Author 

Wendell Berry, lived and taught in New York and California before returning to Kentucky, where he has lived for decades, writing and farming on 75 acres in Henry County. He is a social activist, environmentalist, a supporter of sustainable agriculture, advocate of rural communities, and a Christian pacifist. 

Content

The novel begins with two quotes and a prayer. The two quotes are: “...to him that is joined to all the living there is hope...Ecclesiastes 9:4, and “Let the fragments of love be reassembled in you. Only then will you have true courage.” Hayden Carruth Following these quotes, there is a prayer which is reminiscent of at least two biblical texts from the creation narratives in Genesis, and Isaiah’s call in Isaiah 6. The prayer, in part, begins as follows: “Heavenly muse, Spirit who brooded on the world and raised it shapely out of nothing, touch my lips with fire and burn away all dross of speech, so that I keep in mind the truth and end to which my words now move....” This prayer is followed by 7 chapters: 1. Darkness Visible, 2. An Unknown Room, 3. Remembering, 4. A Long Choosing, 5. A Place Known and Dreamed, 6. Bridal, 7. The Hilltop.

Brief Observations

The novel begins with Andy Catlett—the main protagonist—a small farmer near Port William, Kentucky, who is angry and grieving about the loss of his hand in a farming accident, and whose relationships with his wife Flora and their children are strained. Andy leaves the farm for an agricultural conference. At the conference, he is upset with industrialized-large agribusiness farming which, he believes only exploits both the land and human beings. It is too focussed on analysis rather than the importance of relationships with humans and the land, and caring stewardship of the earth. 

The novel mentions several people—past and present, whom Andy knew of, remembered, cared about, and mentored him. One significant encounter he had was with an Amish farmer, who, Andy thought, lived more in harmony with God’s creation than the large industrialized farmers. 

The novel’s final chapter is a kind of vision for all of creation being restored and renewed, perhaps modelled after Isaiah’s vision of shalom. There is beauty and wonder in the natural world, and forgiveness and reconciliation for human beings. 

One critique of the novel for this reader is that there was too much description—albeit sometimes very poetic—and inadequate dialogue and engagement between human beings. 

In light of Berry’s own life, the novel seems somewhat autobiographical. 

Book Review: The Citadel by A.J. Cronin

The Citadel

Author: A.J. Cronin

Publisher: Little, Brown & Company, paperback, 368 pages

Reviewed by Rev. Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson

The Author 

Dr. Archibald Joseph Cronin was born in Cardross, Scotland, in 1896. He studied medicine at Glasgow University, served as surgeon sub-lieutenant in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve in the first World War, practiced in South Wales for four years, and studied pulmonary disabilities, moved to London and practiced there, and became an author of a number of books, including the brilliant, 1941 novel, The Keys Of The Kingdom. 

Brief Observations 

The Citadel begins with 24-year-old Dr. Andrew Manson (several details of Dr. Manson’s life in the novel seem to parallel Dr. Cronin’s) arriving at his first post in Blaenelly, southern Wales. He is to be the assistant to Dr. Page, who is not well, suffering from a stroke. Manson had won “the Hunter Gold Medal, awarded annually at St. Andrews to the best student in clinical medicine (p. 14).”

Dr. Manson agonizes about his first patient’s illness, and struggles to diagnose her. He also thinks there are a few cases of typhoid fever, and contacts Dr. Griffiths of Toniglan, the District Medical Officer to inform him. Dr. Griffiths was unreliable, so Dr. Manson asked the advise of Dr. Denny. Dr. Denny told him it was caused from the contaminated well water. So Dr. Manson told everyone to boil the water before using it, and the typhoid problem was solved.

One night, because of the contaminated sewer, Denny and Manson secretly blew it up, and a new one was constructed.

There was a measles problem, and Manson thought Idris Howell should be isolated at home. So he went to school and had it out with the schoolteacher, Christine Barlow. Later he attends a gathering where Christine Barlow is present and he apologizes to her. 

Christine and Andrew become fond of each other. Andrew eventually is interviewed at Aberalaw, and is offered the appointment on one condition—that he is married. He tells the interview Committee that he is “engaged to someone in Blaenelly. I’ve—I’ve just been waiting on a suitable appointment—such as this—to get married (p. 86).” On his way back to Blaenelly, he agonizes over whether Christine would marry him or reject him. When he arrived back at Blaenelly, Andrew proposed to Christine. She accepted, they were married, and then moved to Aberalaw.

As Dr. Manson begins his new practice, he gets off to a bad start—he’s determined to employ the scientific method; however, he ends up losing patients because of an influential man and a nurse in the community who disagree with his approach.

Eventually Dr. Manson decides to write the most difficult medical exam, the M.R.C.P. It took him some time, and a lot of struggles, however he wrote the exam and passed. 

Back at Aberalaw, as he continues his practice, the community comes to trust and respect Dr. Manson, and more people choose him as their doctor. 

He then researched pulmonary diseases in relation to mining. As a result, he leaves Aberalaw and becomes Medical Officer of the Coal Mines and Metalliferous Fatigue Board in London. However, he soon resigned because he was not able to do what he believed was supposed to be his proper work. 

After some time, Andrew purchased Dr. Foy’s rather run-down practice. At first, he and Christine struggled financially. Eventually, he gains more affluent patients, and becomes more successful financially. Sadly, he loses his ethical idealism, and becomes more obsessed with climbing the financial and social ladder. He and Christine grow further apart because of his lack of ethical practice and growing affluence.

Manson was appointed to work with patients having specialized lung and bronchial conditions at the Victoria Chest Hospital. 

After much financial success, along with respect gained among both patients and colleagues, Andrew reached a breaking point of deep regret for having lost his ethical-moral idealism. He tells his colleague Dr. Freddie Hampton: “But I’m going to try and stop thinking of money and material success. That isn’t the test of a good doctor. When a doctor earns five thousand a year he’s not healthy. And why—why should a man try to make money out of suffering humanity (p. 321)?”

Andrew then expressed his deep remorse to Christine and is reconciled with her.

There are two trying events—one tragic—that brought on much grief and suffering for Andrew. In the closing pages of the novel, Andrew’s speech regarding the state of the medical profession was instrumental in determining Andrew’s future. 

Some readers of this review may recall that PBS dramatized The Citadel on Masterpiece Theatre. After reading the novel, I think—in part at least—I can see why. 

Book Review: Wolf Willow

Wolf Willow

Author: Wallace Stegner

Publisher: Penguin Books

306 pages, plus Introduction, Suggestions For Further Reading, Acknowledgments, paperback

Reviewed by Rev. Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson

Wallace Stegner was a 20^th century, award-winning, American fiction and non-fiction author, who spent several of his childhood years living in Eastend, Saskatchewan. In the novel, Stegner refers to Eastend as Whitemud.

    This volume is difficult to categorize, since it combines history of the Cypress Hills region, autobiography and fiction.

    In a conversation with Richard Etulain, Stegner confessed that he was ambiguous about his identity: “I wasn’t sure whether I was American or Canadian, so I decided I was Norwegian; I took my grandfather’s Old Country name and signed it in all my schoolbooks, which was quite preposterous except that it probably indicated a desire for a continuity that wasn’t there.” (p. xvi)

    The book is divided into four parts, each containing three or more chapters: I The Question Mark In The Circle, II Preparation For A Civilization, III The Whitemud River Range, IV Town And Country, followed by an Epilogue: False-Front Athens.

    Stegner—in contrast to a geologist who said southern Saskatchewan was “one of the most desolate and forbidding regions on earth” (p. 6)--goes to considerable length to describe the geography, ecology, etc., with awe and wonder. “It is a country to breed mystical people, egocentric people, perhaps poetic people. But not humble ones.” (p. 8) He is astounded by the wide-open prairie, the wind and sky, and birds like the meadowlark.

    The Cypress Hills were visited and sometimes occupied by the Métis, aboriginals including Sitting Bull, the Hudson’s Bay Company, and the North West Mounted Police. Stegner observes how ranchers and farmers struggled to survive in the area. He also describes life in Whitemud (Eastend): Main Street, the theatre, church, hardware stores, school, elevator, hotel, the confectionery store, the people who had ambitious dreams for the town, and those who became disillusioned and left.

    One of the deepest memories of his childhood in Whitemud was the “tantalizing and ambiguous and wholly native smell” of the wolf willow shrub. “It is wolf willow, and not the town or anyone in it, that brings me home.” (p. 19)

    Living in southern Saskatchewan during the homesteading days, Stegner states that his education was much different than growing up in Europe with easy access to art galleries, libraries, bookstores and museums. “Education tried, inadequately and hopelessly, to make a European of me.” (p. 24)

    One of the favourite childhood adventures in Whitemud was a visit to the dump ground. Here Stegner and his friends found a wide array of things that sparked their curiosity—everything from old bottles and smashed wagon wheels to bits of metal, worn-out furniture and field mice.

    Stegner admits that many of his contemporaries inherited prejudices about indigenous people without question or thought. He goes on to provide some history of several of the indigenous tribes including: the Blackfoot, Cree, Piegan, Gros Ventres, Crows, and Sioux. He also describes some of the injustices of the settlers towards the Métis and the heroism of leaders like Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont. According to Stegner, if you wanted to be accepted as one of the ‘in group,’ you had to be a white male, tough, stoic, and prejudiced against all other races, ethnic and minority groups, and all who seemed weak or too aristocratic.

    Reflecting on how Americans and Canadians crossed the 49^th parallel, Stegner observes: “Civilization is built on a tripod of geography, history, and law, and it is made up largely of limitations.” (p. 85)

    Stegner greatly admired the cowboy and ranching culture. However, the winter of 1906-07 brought about a major change from mainly ranching to more farming. Stegner describes that unbearably cold winter, which killed lots of cattle, and nearly killed the cowboys in a fierce blizzard. In spite of that Ray Henry convinces his Molly to purchase the T-Down ranch.

    Wallace Stegner was definitely a creative, accomplished storyteller. For this reviewer, who grew up in southern Saskatchewan, it was as if one was transported back in time to re-live one’s life growing up on the prairie.

Those readers who grew up or continue to live in the Palliser Triangle will likely identify with and appreciate this volume.

Brief Book Review: Notes From Underground

Notes From Underground

Author: Fyodor Dostoevsky, Translated and annotated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky

Publisher: New York: Vintage Classics, Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc.

130 pages, plus Forward and Notes

Reviewed by Rev. Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson

First of all, I shall preface my review by stating that I have read other Dostoevsky novels and appreciated them immensely—especially The Brothers Karamazov. However, Notes From Underground, I regret to say, is not in that category.

   I do not doubt Dostoevsky’s genius as a writer, and his knowledge of the works of other Russian and European novelists, poets, and philosophers—several of whom he makes reference to in Notes From Underground.  

   Dostoevsky begins by informing his readers that there are two parts to his work, an introduction to the main (unnamed) character, and the character’s notes. Dostoevsky claims the work is fiction, yet this reviewer thinks at least some of it is biographical.

   So who is this character, hero, or more likely anti-hero? He begins by describing himself as ‘sick,’ ‘wicked,’ and ‘unattractive.’ He goes on to say: “I’m forty now. I used to be in the civil service, I no longer am. I was a wicked official. I was rude, and took pleasure in it.” (p. 4) Then he suggests he is the opposite of all that, and ends up being what sounds to this reviewer like a nihilist: “…no, I never even managed to become anything: neither wicked nor good, neither a scoundrel nor an honest man, neither a hero nor an insect.” (p. 5)

   Most of the novel dwells on his existential self-centredness. He comes across as being so self-absorbed that he is unable to understand, show empathy and compassion for other human beings. He is up and down and all around: one moment totally obsessed with his own thoughts, emotions and motives, the next moment filled with suspicions and criticisms of everyone. In the depths of his being, he is so conflicted, confused, and disturbed that nearly everything he actually does turns out sour and alienates himself from everyone else.  

   Having said that, there are some paradoxes in the novel, which ring true for readers. This is my favourite, since I think Dostoevsky may be alluding to the suffering of Jesus and his call to all would-be disciples to bear their cross if they are to follow him: “And in fact I’m now asking an idle question of my own: which is better—cheap happiness, or lofty suffering? Well, which is better?” (p. 128) Be that as it may, six out of ten stars.