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Another tough book to review--mainly because it has already been reviewed so well by folks like Kalliope and Manny, among others. Let me say that 'The Long Ships' was the most fun read I've had in a long time. Many books I read seem almost obligatory, and being a slow reader, I slog through even books like 'The Long Ships' that I genuinely like. It took me almost two weeks to read this book, but the average reader on here, whose brain is more functional (than mine), could probably finish this book in a couple of days. The story chronicles Viking life and, specifically, the missions of the book's main character. Many people in the book were actual historical figures and Bengtsson does an excellent job of portraying some of them, esp. King Harald.

It is, as has been noted many times, an adventure story set in the late 10th Century, featuring the protagonist Red Orm of Scania/Skania (a part of Southern Sweden). Orm is waylaid by Viking privateers in his teen years and goes "a viking" with them and has many adventures and misadventures, among them being captured by Spanish Moors and forced to toil as a galley slave until, through connections he has made in his travels, he comes to serve at the court of Almansur in Cordoba, Spain. He is forced to convert to Islam and works as one of Almansur's royal guard. Al-Manzur is quite avaricious so Orm is in many battles as the Moors go forth to seek more plunder. On one expedition to raid and pillage Christian churches, Orm and his comrade Toke escape with one of the Caliph's ships and a large bell stolen from a church in Asturia said to house the grave of the James the apostle. They deliver the bell as a gift to King Harald Bluetooth, potentate of Denmark, who has converted to Christianity. Orm and Toke experience much revelry as guests of King Harald and Orm falls in love with the King's daughter, Ylva, who nurses him to health after he is injured in a duel. The duel occurred at a Christmas feast where another Viking demanded Orm's gold chain, a stupendous necklace of incalculable value given to Orm by Al-Manzur. Orm slays the Viking but is severely wounded in the battle.

Several more big adventures are to come. Red Orm goes to England with Thorkel the Tall to fight and win the Battle of Maldon, and afterwards extort protection money from the misnamed "Ethelred the Ready," King of England. Orm also reunited with his Ylva, who escaped to English after Harald's son, King Sven, usurped the throne. Orm marrieds Ylva and returns home and builds a house in the forest. He also has converted to Christianity and builds a church and settles down, to the extent that is possible. One more expedition is undertaken later in his life to recover some gold bequeathed to Orm by his late brother in a far distant spot in modern-day Russia. Every expedition is fraught with peril and death and these are accepted as normal occurrences. Even at Viking gatherings of various tribes, called "Things," where disputes were arbitrated and issues discussed, most attendees were disappointed if no duels took place and no one perished.

This brief account of the happenings of the novel does not do it justice. 'The Long Ships,' in the main, is a chronicle of Viking life in the late 10th Century. It is an adventure story similar to The Icelandic Sagas and the works of Alexandre Dumas, Pere, as several reviewers have noted. The book's captivating stories serve to depict Viking life and morals and customs at a changing time in the world's history, i.e., the Christianizing of Scandinavia and Eastern Europe/Russia. This was a particularly challenging area to Christianize, as the novel indicates by the frustrations of one of the key priests who is trying to convert the "heathens." Setting aside that they had their own gods and religious rituals, consider the climate of Scandinavia and then try to imagine one of them in the 10th Century, C.E., understanding the concept of hell.

The book is actually a conflation of two novels that Bengtsson wrote, both with the intention of simply telling a good story--an intention he accomplishes--and, possibly, as a dig at Nazi Germany. One of the "connections" who saves Orm from life as a galley slave is Solomon, a Jewish silversmith in Seville who had been kidnapped by Vikings and found his way aboard Orm's ship, where he led Orm and other Vikings to a rich city in Spain which they besieged and eventually plundered. Solomon, though a Jew, has much respect in Moorish Spain and is able to arrange what by comparison is a sinecure for Orm, through the intervention of one of Almansur's wives who also factors into the story. Bengtsson hated Nazi Germany and some reviewers feel he used the character of Solomon, a positive figure, as a dig at the Nazi's. He also refused during his lifetime to allow the novel translated into German.

The book is meant to be a convoluted story because it parallels actual Viking life, which was many things. Not all Vikings went plundering. Many stayed home to do chores and guard the homesteads. The Vikings were products of their time and a lot of their European looting was done not just because they were rascals by nature. Much was done to augment their incomes and provide for their families back in Scandinavia. Theirs was an honor culture, where a wrong needed to be avenged, though vengeance was not always meted out by violence. Courage was expected of a man, and cunning in business dealings was also highly regarded. There is some evidence that Viking women also served as warriors. The book is also about the civilizing of Viking culture, a culture that had honored plunder, murder, wife-stealing and other things that would not be PC today, and were not too PC in some parts of the world in the 10th Century, either.

There is much humor and irony in this book which captures the wit and irony of the Viking people, and helps to humanize them.

As Michael Chabon says in the book's introduction:

"Though at times the story, published in two parts each consisting of two parts over a span of several years, has an episodic feel, each of its individual components' narratives is well constructed of the soundest timbers of epic, folktale and ripping yarn, and as its hero grows old and sees his age passing away, that episodic quality comes to feel, in the end, not like some congeries of saga and tall tale but like the accurate representation of one long and crowded human life."

If you enjoy novels of action and tales and myths of glory, love, hardship and war, you will probably enjoy 'The Long Ships." As another reviewer noted, it paints a far more realistic picture of how the Vikings actually thought and lived as compared to the depictions shown today on television and movies.