Journey To The End Of The World (2008) - Plot & Excerpts
This book... how can I begin to describe it? I started reading it, by chance, a week away from my high school graduation. Quickly, I read the first two parts. I loved every character, each seen through the eyes of Joel. Gertrude, Simon, Samuel, Sara... They were all dear to me, and in my heart I felt like I loved them as much as Joel did. Then came the third book. In this one, Joel is growing up. He starts leaving his childish things behind. Gertrude, the dog, the imaginations.. he wants to be tough, to travel, to see the world. Whereas before he was content with his local world, the river, the bridge, the people, he grows restless, not unlike Mother Jenny must have been.Throughout the books, like life, there were many things left unresolved. Sometimes in life we start stories, but they never find closure, like in The Neverending Story. However, it is never done in an unsatisfactory way, it's just life. The last book... well, let's just say it hit home. I am moving soon, after living most of my life with my single mother. Looking at Joel's journey is a lot like looking at my past, and a little into my future. I'm not going to be a sailor, that's for sure, but, like him, I hanker to see the world, and live in it. This book means, for me, much more than the story of four years of Joel's life. It means the journey through childhood... perhaps even through life. If you read this book, be prepared to read a slow story. No magic, except that of childhood. No romance, except that of foolish teenagers kissing in a dark theater. But a lot of growing up, and a lot of life.
15 year old Joel Gustafson lives with his lumberjack father Samuel in the far north of Sweden, so far north that it snows on his graduation day in June. Joel cooks for his father, his mother Mummy Jenny left when he was only a baby. Samuel and Joel spend hours poring over world maps together dreaming of this time Joel will be old enough to leave school and sign on as a sailor, and they can sail away from the cold north together. But then a letter for Samuel arrives telling him where Mummy Jenny is and the pair take an overnight train journey south to Stockholm to find her. Joel's life begins to shift and change, Joel is coming of age, Samuel is ageing and the docks and the ships and sea are close at hand.At first I found the writing in this story quite stilted and alien but by the end I was fully engaged. Mankell's story of a boy stepping out into the world and the aching sadness of the narrative is slow burning but memorable.
What do You think about Journey To The End Of The World (2008)?
