Not that many years ago, if you asked an avid mystery reader to name a foreign writer in that genre – the reader, after clarifying that you did not mean someone British – would come up with the name of Georges Simenon and that would probably be all. Asked the same question today, our reader would mention many foreign writers and the clear majority would be Scandinavian.
As you can see from my handout, most of the Scandinavian writers are Swedish – at the moment, Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson are probably the best known. The next largest number come from Norway – not many from Denmark and Finland, but one of the best of today’s writers is Icelandic – Arnaldur Indridason.
I would like to talk this evening about the appeal of these writers. They are popular all over Europe, not just Britain and the U.S. A Finnish friend, recently back from Venice, told me that she saw a guidebook, in Italian, to Stieg Larsson’s Stockholm and I understand that there are German tours to the small town setting of Henning Mankell’s books.
Most, if not all, of the Scandinavian mysteries are not traditional “who done it”. Rather, they fall into the category of crime novel. The crime novel emphasizes why, rather than who and how and focuses on the psychological realities of their characters – their inner lives and motivations. There is always suspense – these are mysteries after all, - just not rigid puzzles.
In many of these mysteries, the problems lie in the past, particularly World War II. Here I would mention the book “Redbreast”by the excellent Norwegian writer Jo Nesbo. This book deals with Norwegians who fought for the Nazis, as opposed to in the Resistance.
Interestingly, the great majority of Scandinavian mysteries are police procedurals, where the main character is a police officer, rather than a private detective. This is true of 9 of the 13 Swedish writers listed in the handout, all 3 of the Norwegians, and the Islandic author. Police procedurals add a senses of realism, bring in other continuing characters – the members of the police team – and perhaps indicate faith in the ultimate workings of the system of justice.
Most of the translated books are ones in series, with continuing characters. This raises for the English language reader one of the most frustrating aspects of these works. I am in no position to comment on the quality of the translations – they certainly read smoothly to me. But for some reason books in series are often published here and in Britain out of the order in which they appeared in their original language. This matters when there are solutions or references to earlier crimes as well as developments in the characters personal lives.
The personal lives of these police officers is one reason for the recurring comment on the darkness of Scandinavian mysteries . Often, the male protagonist suffers from depression, an excess of alcohol consumption, and difficulties with his children. While this is certainly true of some of the most popular characters – for example, Mankell’s Kurt Wallander, it is not limited to Scandinavians and it is not true of many of the Scandinavian police officers, particularly the women.
Many of today’s Scandinavian mystery writers are women – Karin Fossum, Helene Tursten, Mari Jungstedt. While women characters in Scandinavian mysteries generally do have positions of responsibility – they are not just the sidekick of the superior male officer – they still have issues of trying to balance work, home and child care. I would say that all of the main police protagonists, regardless of gender, possess an integrity and passion in their search for the truth.
I don’t see these crime novels as dark or “noir” to the extent that there is alot of gratuitous violence, tough guy attitudes and wisecracking. But there certainly can be a pessimistic tone. Henning Mankell, in the foreward to his lastest book published here wrote that the subtitle to his work should be ‘Novels About the Swedish Anxiety”. There is also a striking amount of social criticism. Illustrating this, and also the current international popularity of Scandinavian mysteries, are a couple of lines I read in a recently published Italian mystery by Andrea Camilleri featuring Inspector Montaldo. “ He sat outside… reading a good detective novel by two Swedish authors who were husband and wife, in which there wasn’t a page without a ferocious and justified attack on social democracy and the government. In his mind, Montaldo dedicated the book to all those who did not deign to read mystery novels because, in their opinion, they were only entertaining puzzles.”
The Swedish couple to whom he refers are Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo whose series of mysteries, published first in the late l960s, were very critical of Swedish society, particularly its committment to capitalism. They are considered the parents, so to speak, of the current Scandinavian writers.
Some critics attribute the negative views of society and the focus on its particular ills to the dark, cold climate and long winters. But for others, it is the contrast between the ideals of a perfect society and the reality, the growing gaps between rich and poor, and racial and immigrant tensions in societies which believed they were other countries problems.
For we who are friends of Scandinavia, it is easy to see the appeal of these books with their images of life – the food, everyone drinking coffee, the importance of nature, the longing for holidays in the sun.
But I asked myself if one weren’t interested in Scandinavia, would these books still have an appeal, and the answer – not just mine, but reflecting their sales, is “yes”. They are well –written and well-plotted. When you read them, you feel as if you are in contact with real people. And above all, they deal effectively, as one reviewer described, with “the slow rippling effect of a violent action in the minds, souls and social fabric of those they leave behind”.
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