Das Schiff

I keep reading horror novels, and they keep disappointing me. The Ship wastes an interesting premise on wooden characters, flabby prose, and cascade of coincidences that drove me off before I finished the book.

A freighter is on its last run to Suriname before its owners fire the crew. A wanted criminal is stowing away, the alcoholic first mate is losing his marbles, and there's a satan-worshipper in the engine room. Oh and lots of other stuff too. Will any of the tormented crew make it back home?

The answer is I don't know, and by time I stopped reading, I certainly didn't care. This is a long book and Mani wastes too much time (over a hundred pages) before his cast even get on the boat. These pages are spent detailing dirty secrets show more crew members are hiding, derailing into side narratives that simply don't need the scrutiny, and giving pages over to clunky characterisation in the form of wooden interior monologues.

The derails disappear once we are onboard the ship, but the monologues don't, and they are compounded because Mani is expending all this effort explaining motivations that basically don't make sense.

There's a gem of an idea hiding out in here - the ship as a kind of locked-room drama, where the conflict is powered by human foibles more than the elements, but the execution is far too clumsy, and the hand of the author apparent at every turn.

The characters rarely make any sense - except in the context of a narrative that requires them to do certain things at certain times - and pages are devoting to persuading the reader otherwise.

This is compounded by a series of frankly ludicrous coincidences that pile up. One would have been fine; unexpected, interesting, a catalyst for action, but they keep coming. Mani gets around this by alluding to an otherworldly force manipulating events. But it's a dodge, and it feel like one.

I petered out at the halfway mark. So I guess in one sense someone didn't get off the ship alive, it's true. show less

This book feels as though it's been rather misrepresented, or at least mischaracterised. If you see it simply as a suspense drama, it's passable, if a little slow and clunky. Presented as a horror book with the tagline "a journey into terror and madness" it fails completely. Stefan Mani is apparently known as "The Icelandic Stephen King" but I can only conclude this reputation was gained from earlier books, because he certainly doesn't deserve it from this one.

Beyond that, the story takes too long to get going (one could argue that it never got going at all,) the characters are two-dimensional and prone to do weird things (for example, the Captain declares "I'm going for a nap" and walks off, in the middle of an emergency,) there are a show more bunch of weird coincidences that aren't really explained or explored, and ultimately the story peters out without having made me give a damn about any of it. show less

This wasn't really what I was expecting. It was interesting enough to keep me going, but the prose was clumsy in places (possibly due to being translated), descriptive passages were frequently too long, and the ending involved an element that was neglected throughout the rest of the book. The story was interesting, however, and if you like books set on ships, it could be worth a look.

Neuf hommes embarquent depuis l'Islande sur un cargo direction le Surinam. Chacun, ou presque, emporte avec lui pour ce périple un lourd fardeau ou de profondes blessures. Contrairement à un équipage classique, tous les marins n'ont pas le même intérêt à ce que le voyage aille à son terme. Les ambitions personnelles et les conflits d'ordre professionnel vont venir bousculer l'ordre des choses et compliquer une traversée qui ne s'annonçait pas sous les meilleurs auspices.

Le mal est éternel et toutes les bonnes choses ont une fin ...

Autant vous dire que l'on est très loin de la croisière s'amuse. C'est un univers totalement masculin, un récit de mer noir comme de l'encre à tel point que tout semble se dérouler dans la show more pénombre. Les évènements s'enchaînent à une vitesse incroyable et le destin de ces hommes semble tomber de Charybde en Scylla. On est happé par le récit et il est difficile de lâcher ce roman. Dans la grande tradition des huis clos, la tension est palpable en permanence. Attention cependant aux amateurs d'enquêtes car il s'agit ici d'un thriller et non d'un roman policier classique. Le pouvoir des forces de l'ordre semble bien dérisoire lorsque que l'on se trouve à plusieurs miles de toute côte habitée démuni face à une mer déchainée.
La narration est inventive et l'auteur utilise parfois une technique consistant à décrire la même scéne vécue au travers de points de vues différents (par des personnages différents). Pour que le lecteur se repère, il se sert de balises textuelles, des phrases qui marquent l'esprit, retranscrites à l'identique qui permettent au lecteur de se recaler dans le temps et dans l'espace. Cette technique est très intéressante car elle n'est pas utilisée systématiquement mais avec à propos afin de souligner certains passages. J'ai pris beaucoup de plaisir à lire ce livre même si j'ai été un peu déçu par la fin — mais ce ne sera peut-être pas l'avis de tout le monde. Dans les remerciements, l'auteur rend un hommage à Sartre, Lovecraft et Jim Morrisson. L'univers de Lovecraft est plusieurs fois évoqué de manière claire, la voix de Jim Morrisson est présente grâce à la cassette tournant en boucle dans le mess par contre Sartre ... Peut-être pour le huis clos ?
Pour ceux qui voudraient en savoir plus je suis tombé sur une analyse très complète. http://www.aubonroman.com/2011/02/noir-ocean-par-stefan-mani.html show less