The Wine-Dark Sea

There’s something magical about reading a book when you know absolutely nothing about it except that it’s been recommended by someone you trust. You dive into a mysterious place with no expectations for the journey, just the knowledge that a real adventure is hidden between the covers. (It’s similar with a movie that you know nothing about too, when it’s a good film and not just a blockbuster entertainment; but right now I’m talking about books.)

When I picked up the intriguingly named Italian Shoes by Swedish writer Henning Mankell, I knew absolutely nothing about the book or the author and the recommender is a friendly acquaintance rather than a close friend, someone I’ve only met briefly a couple of times and talked to a handful of times more on the phone. And yet I trusted her recommendation enough to pick up the book from the library. As often happens when I get unknown books from the library I was a little wary; but I decided to take the plunge. And then stayed up far too late several nights in a row because this is one of those books. The kind that grabs you and won’t let go.

So if you like that kind of plunge, stop reading now and go get the book. Then you’ll approach it with nothing more than I had going in. And maybe it will be magical for you too. If you need a bit more convincing, though, read on.

It’s not that the protagonist is a likable man. He’s not really. But he’s intriguing, an enigma, a stranger to everyone around him and most of all to himself. What was the mysterious catastrophe in his past? Why has he exiled himself on an island with a dog and a cat and no human contact except the occasional visits from the hypochondriac postman? Why is he so soul-dead that he must take a daily plunge into a hole cut into the ice to remind himself that he is still alive? And then who is this mysterious woman from his past who shows up one day walking across the ice with a walker? I suppose it’s not a surprise to find out that Mankell is best known for his mystery novels. This novel isn’t a mystery; but it does have much of the same flavor and structure.

I always feel more lonely when it’s cold. The book should have seemed cold and foreboding and yet there was a spark of life in the midst of this cold, frozen land. Something calling to the sleeper to awake? The ice is here to stay. The narrator wants to deny even the possibility of change. He has spent so much of his life running away from life, refusing to engage. He’s lonely, miserable, a snoop and a sneak. But for some reason I found myself rooting for him. I wanted the ice to thaw. I wanted to see what could possibly happen to wrench him back into the land of the living. And I wanted to know how he’d got to where he was. And what’s up with the title? How do Italian shoes fit into this grim ice-locked landscape?

Now if you’ve read this far you already know considerably more about the book than I did when I began to read. And I so want to preserve the mysteries to let you discover them for yourself. But I’m also dying to talk about it and don’t know anyone else who’s read it. I want to write about it because writing is how I process. So here’s the deal. I’m going to use a feature I don’t use very often and continue writing all my spoilers after the jump. If you want to read them, click “more”. If you want to just go get the book and read it with most of the mysteries intact, then stop here.

 

Now you’ve been warned. Don’t read any farther if you’re the kind of person who hates having the end spoiled. I won’t be held responsible.

So is this a story of redemption, as the jacket claims? There are obviously problems with that because at the end of the novel Fredrick is still rather cold and throughout he continues to make big mistakes. The worst being his attempt to molest Agnes, just when you’d thought he was finally getting it. And yet, I think it is a story of redemption, not a fairytale kind of redemption but the kind of redemption I do believe in. Because change doesn’t happen overnight and most of us will never be perfected of our flaws in this lifetime. That’s what Purgatory is for.

The more I think of it, the more I think I like the novel better because of the fact that he’s not really a very likeable guy at the end of the book. Instead of liking him, I feel compassion for him and I think that’s actually a greater feat of storytelling. Here’s a man who had cut himself off from all human contact. He’s alive in a biological sense but not really living, hardly human. And yet where there is life there is always hope.

When Harriet comes he’s presented with a choice. He could have said no and he didn’t. Though we never fully understand why he abandoned her almost forty years before, this time he does not turn his back on her. Rather, he accepts his responsibility for her, albeit with some starts and stops. And this responsibility becomes true love. Not romantic love, but a love which gives of himself. What struck me after I turned the last page was how much of his journey involved the corporal works of mercy—I think he actually hits all seven if you consider Agnes’ girls to be a sort of prisoners—and especially in regards to Harriet.

It’s not a romantic love story where old passion is rekindled. But at the end Fredrick takes on the duty that he owes to her. The duties that he would have undertaken had he stayed and become her husband of staying with her until her death and burying her when she dies. This stark relationship that they have—a clear parallel with the stark Swedish seasons where summer is a short blip in the middle of a long winter—this love that is not romantic and passionate, is somehow even more beautiful because it is so hard won. Fredrik is the lost sheep and I can’t help but cheer when he finally removes the ant hill from his living room. He has faced the deadness inside of himself and has chosen life and relationships with all the messy complications that always come when you allow yourself to be vulnerable.

I love the ending: We had come this far.

No further than that. But this far.

With all the weight of the years that have been lost, it isn’t possible, it wouldn’t be reasonable to expect that he get any further. And yet… look how far he has come. The harbor is still stinky and silted in. The island still contains a graveyard, the bones of all that has been lost and cannot be regained. And yet the ice has receded. There is new life and there is hope. His diary is no longer a record of a life that has lost its way. Dog, bone, sorrow. Three words mark a life that is connected, a heart which now feels, even if all it feels is pain, sorrow and regret. Yes, how appropriate is it that he develops angina, a physical heartache to echo the spiritual ache and to confirm that he is indeed capable of feeling.

The shoes turn out to be a wonderful image. They connect him with his father and with his daughter in a delightful way. Signalling an end to a kind of pain that is so pervasive no one really notices. And signalling his worth. He is worthy of the shoes, of these works by a master craftsman who shows him respect.

And the artwork. I notice that in the end he returns to the puzzle of Rembrandt’s’ Night Watch. Rembrandt and Caravaggio, two painters who paint darkness and light so well. Light emerging from darkness. Luminous moments of grace.

Grace. Yes, there is definitely a movement of grace through the novel. Harriet, Agnes and Louise are really three graces. Each of them is wounded but it is their very woundedness that calls to Fredrik, calls him out of himself and into service. Each of them is also at times an enemy, an antagonist. Which makes his service all the more grace-filled. It is an act of the blind leading the blind, the crippled rescuing the crippled as when Harriet pulls him from the frozen pond in that beautiful scene that symbolizes Fredrik’s rebirth.

That pool which in Fredrik’s memory was a green, mysterious living place is frozen over when Harriet and he arrive. It is too late for them. The summer of their lives is long past. The pond is inaccessible. And yet it isn’t too late. The pond still has a gift to offer. Though it’s life is hidden, it is still there under the ice, waiting for summer. The bottomless promise of the dark waters still lies beneath all that snow and ice. 

Louise is the character I still have the hardest time grappling with. She isn’t very likable either. Agnes is easier. I love her story about making the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela with a stone in her bag. She never hears God’s voice directly and yet she clearly does hear her call and finds a purpose, a way to serve. Louise moves beyond the letters and yet her act of protest still seems ridiculous and useless.

It’s late and I need to sleep and I’m not going to be able to wrap this up tidily. There are many places I could have ended this where it might have looked neat but oh well. I’ve written what I’ve written and this is a blog post not a book review or a term paper.