Italian Shoes by Henning Mankell

Italian Shoes by Henning Mankell

Italian Shoes sounded like an intriguing title for a Henning Mankell novel, a departure from the police procedurals he is best known for, so I embarked on it as a sort of neutral “palate cleanser” between other more controversial books. It defied my expectations. The protagonist is an aging, misanthropic former surgeon, Frederick Welin, who self-isolates on a rocky outcrop of Sweden’s remote northern archipelago after a disastrous surgery mistake. For twelve years his only regular contact with the world is the postman who comes on his hydrocopter every week. In winter the ice is so thick even the sea is frozen, and he can walk across to the mainland. The day by day, hour by hour shifts in the weather; the turning of the seasons; the details of every rock and inlet of this barren islet, form not the backdrop but an essential, active agent in the story.

One day, the hermit’s self-imposed isolation is invaded by a woman he brutally abandoned thirtyfive years ago, announcing she is dying of cancer and that he has a daughter he knew nothing about. Now he must face his ugly past, not only with them, but with the patient whose life he ruined on the operating table.

The characters are typically unforthcoming, but when they do engage in long expositions of their feelings, they sound stilted and totally unconvincing. No one speaks like that, not even in Swedish. Also, Mankell spells out every metaphor, even the most glaringly obvious. Finally, a caveat: the book can affect you with its Scandinavian gloom—even on a sunny Carolina day.

Deja Vu

Déjà Vu

Where does it come from, this overwhelming sense of Déjà vu I get watching the coverage of the Minneapolis protests? Then it hits me. Another city, fifteen years ago. Cairo. Tahrir Square. The Arab Spring. A particular incident, the torture and murder of a young man by savagely empowered law enforcement, proved to be the spark that set ablaze fury and resistance to encrusted brutal policing.

The same scenes as in Minneapolis, but to the scale of a city twenty times its size. Eventually a million protesters, mostly idealistic young people, camped out in Tahrir Square, ground zero in the city. Police and security forces, many out of uniform, cracking down on them with tear gas, clubs, violence. And in sympathy with the protesters, a citizenry mobilized to bring food, water, medical supplies and moral support. Even people who did not necessarily sympathize with the cause of the protest were shocked by the brutality of its repression.

At some point, army tanks rolled in, and the desperate protesters turned to the soldiers as saviors, protectors from the police. The same dichotomy, in reverse, as the role played by state as opposed to federal forces in Minneapolis. But in the case of Tahrir, this alliance between the army and the citizenry did not last. In the end, though , when public opinion had reached the tipping point, the regime of thirty years capitulated. Whether or not what replaced it was an improvement is not the issue here. But Tahrir Square reminded the world that the cycle of fear can be broken.

The determined citizens of Minneapolis must be tired of showing up for their most vulnerable communities, day after day, week after week, in freezing temperatures, at the risk of their own lives and safety. Who knows how this story ends? One thing is certain: they have reminded the country, and the world, that “this is not who we are as Americans” is not an empty slogan.