The Long Ships (1941)

Fun read ( )

Who knew a pillaging, plundering, hypochondriacal Viking could be so endearing. Loved this book, loved Red Orm and his buddies. The friendships between the men in this book were just beautiful. Bengtsson writes with such a distinct, realistic voice that I was really transported to the age. ( )

For a book full of war and murder this was a really fun read. It is a pure adventure novel, with Red Orm our viking hero travelling the the world fighting, killing, and loving. I’ll admit, it took a couple of chapters to get into before I really *got* the style of writing, but once I did it was so enjoyable.

Orm starts out his viking life when he is kidnapped and forced to man the oars of a viking ship. He earns his place in the crew but before he can make his way home the ship is attacked and he is taken prisoner once more, a galley slave where he does nothing but row for years.

Eventually he escapes this life and many, many more adventures are had.

There is violence, a lot of fighting, and plenty of pillaging. War and gold, that’s what life is all about, isn’t it? But there is also religion and culture and births and all sorts of domestic life too. It is a really interesting book that is very wise to the lies people tell themselves about why they do certain things.

And if that isn’t reason enough to read the book then maybe I should tell you that our hero is also a hypochondriac viking, bet you’ve never read about one of those before! ( )

Så fantastisk god og fortælleglad. Orm og hans lange rejse først mod vest, siden hjem til Skåne og så mod øst og hjem igen. Mange bliver slået ihjel og kvinder bliver røvet, og hvis det skete sådan for 1000 år siden så er det vel bare socialrealisme. Ellers er det bare en god, gedigen og grum og sjov røverhistorie. HBO Vikings, go home! ( )

Hey thanks, Manny. I hate violence, historical fiction makes me throw up, I stopped reading adventure books when I was twelve and Viking gods bored me to tears when I was going through my pagan gods stage in primary school and - WOW....you've given me The Long Ships for my Birthday. That's so - well, I'm just lost for words - of you. What? Yes, I can see it was a big concession, really you wanted to get it in Swedish and I could put it on my list of languages I have to learn. And no, even though I adore knitting, really, this is so much better than that amazing pattern book I was admiring the other day. Truly. It's even better than that text book on computer humour you got me last year. What? Yes, good point, I can't really say that until I've read the book on computer humour, but you read it and so I heard a lot about it. In fact, I must remember to put that on my 'books I've lived through' shelf.

Rest is here:

http://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpress.com/2013/10/23/the-long-ships-rode-orm-by... ( )