Harbour [Hardcover]

Harbor was an intriguing novel. When I started it, I was a little apprehensive, as I was afraid I would be too scared - remember, I'm a wimp when it comes to reading horror - but while thrilling and frightening, it didn't give me nightmares. Instead its horror started with a creeping feeling of unease, of something off and, slowly, the true threat only becomes fully clear towards the end. I found myself eager to return to its pages each night and read until I had to turn off the light due to my eyes falling closed.

One of my favourite elements of this novel were the narrative structure and Lindqvist's prose. The book is set up in a double narration with switching points of view between Anders and his grandfather Simon, with interspersed breaking of the fourth wall by an unknown narrator and short pieces from the point of view of other Domarö inhabitants. I love these kinds of twined narratives, as they provide not just a way for the author to give us more information about what's going - as the saying goes: two heads always know more than one - but they also provide opportunities for miscommunication or non-communication between characters, where the reader knows more than the protagonists. Coincidentally, it can also lead to a frustrated outcry of "Why don't they just talk to each other?", but Lindqvist never falls in that trap. Yes, there is non-communication, but he allows Simon to decisively put an end to that. Lindqvist's prose, through the translation of Marlaine Delargy, is clean and clear; no purple prose here, though his descriptions of the stark and isolated landscapes and the small island community are lovely, if at times chilling.

I loved the character of Anders and I found the way Lindqvist describes his dealing with the loss of his daughter fascinating. The idea of losing one of my children - I'm already counting B2 as such, even if she isn't born yet - or my husband is my biggest nightmare and I thought Lindqvist dealt with both the madness of grief and the reshaping of memories beautifully. Anyone can picture what grief can drive someone too, whether drinking, like Anders, drugs, depression or self-harm. But I found Anders' reshaping his memories of Maja far more poignant, especially his inability to realise that he's done so until he's confronted about it by his grandparents. I think it's also something a lot of people don't realise--both that this is a natural reaction and that they've probably done the same with some of their own memories. All of this combined makes it hard to figure out whether what Anders thinks he's experiencing is true or whether they are delusions he's suffering due to too much alcohol consumption or grief.

The other main narrator is Anders' sort of grandfather. He's been together with Anders' grandmother Anna-Greta for fifty years, though they never got married and is as much a grandfather as Anders has ever known. Despite having lived on Domarö for over half a century and being partnered with the unofficial leader of the island, Simon is still an outsider in many ways, as he finds out when he discovers the island's secret. But Simon is also more than just an old, retired stage magician, he has real magic, though what kind and how he came by it, is something best left for the reader to discover themselves. I really liked Simon, he is kind, strong and tenacious and I loved his relationship with Anna-Greta.

Domarö and the sea are characters in and of themselves and are maybe the most frightening things in the book. Water can be the most destructive force on earth. It is everywhere and can penetrate everywhere. Water is patient and we humans cannot live without it. The Dutch have learnt to live with the fear of the encroaching water, to literally dam it out and in some ways to harness its amazing power, but we also know that water cannot be tamed and must always be respected. The inhabitants of Domarö respect and fear the sea in the same way, but in their need to placate the sea, they takes desperate and gruesome measures.

Harbor is a stunning story, which made for compelling reading. If you are looking for an intelligent, spooky and mostly non-gory horror tale, this third offering by Lindqvist is just the ticket. I know this first taste of his writing has left me curious for more. I have already read Niall's review of Lindqvist's latest book Little Star and that sounds as good or even better as Harbor and I look forward to checking that out in the future.

i kept thinking subtle weirdness and horror as I read this book, subtle, because the strange happenings crept up on you,nothing was immediate and i had no idea what this story was; except it began with the disappearance of a little girl while out with her parents,an unbelievable occurrence, one moment she is there, the next she is gone,gone from a vast expanse of flat icy landscape, nowhere for her to go and hide,but something has made her vanish.At first i thought i would be reading a story of just the child and the parents,perhaps i was a bit slow to realise there was much more to this book.There are quite a few main characters, each is given his or hers story and they all come together as strong components to make it all jel.There is a slug like thing kept in a matchbox and whoever has it has to look after it in a not altogether conventional way[normally you would just give it food would`nt you? Not so.]it apparently lives on the persons spit.Weird. The story moves along very nicely and i think is brilliantly put together by the author,each persons story is quite colourful and nothing detracts from the main.There are long parts of the story that just jog along; with people living ordinary lives on an ordinary island? then something happens and you are pulled from a scene of normal-ness into the supernatural and weird.I didnt even think as i read ,where were the police? and no investigation into the child disappearance? why not,but this is a very strange island and most all know what is going on,nothing credible thats for sure, i thoroughly recommend anyone to read this book if they like a touch of the supernatural and even if you dont there is nothing here that will give you sleepless nights,but it might get you hooked that you are reluctant to put it down,Think"The Whicker Man" and you have the gist of it but not the ending, that is completely different. The comparison i make here is the best way i can find to give a small insight into "Harbour,as I have not found anything else on the market to come anywhere near close to this story, this stands out on its own and i rate it the best thing i have read for a long time

Like others here, I bought this book having enjoyed "Let the Right One In". Lindqvist has been described as Sweden's answer to Stephen King. I disagree. Both employ a kind of magical realism (a fiction in which fabulous and fantastical events sit side by side with an otherwise normal and realistic report) but whereas I can suspend belief with King and believe it is really happening, with Lindqvist I found myself thinking "this is silly". There is a story here, of Anders whose daughter Maja just disappears into thin air one day when the family walk across the frozen sea to the lighthouse at Gävasten. Much of the story is about his search for her. However, the narrative is broken frequently by flashbacks, which disrupt the flow of the story. These flashbacks are short stories in their own right and so the book becomes a series of short stories threaded onto a rather bizarre storyline. The theme can be summed up with the title of the second chapter, "The sea has given and the sea has taken away". The sea is an entity, it is alive, it is malignant. Linqvist is a beautiful writer, a real wordsmith. There are some beautiful sentences in this book and wonderful descriptions. I would have liked to have given five stars for the writing, but the story just didn't work for me. It felt like a first draft of a complicated idea. To paraphrase, the whole was not in this case, greater than the sum of its parts. There were questions left unanswered: why did Elof tell Simon to call Anders at the lighthouse on his mobile and tell him "he ought to come home now"? What was it that Maja saw from the lighthouse which caused her to run out to find, and then disappear? The suspense is set up but not carried through. And what exactly was the insect, the spiritus? What is it supposed to represent? Sadly, despite the beautiful writing, I did not much enjoy this book., it didn't work for me.