Why Scandinavian crime fiction or Nordic Noir has become so popular around the world?
The wave of Nordic crime started in 1990s.
Ikea expanded in 1970s but mostly in 1980s and 1990s.
Lego has a longer history but grew to a decent size in 1970s and 80s.
For example in 1975 it had 2,500 employees but in 1985 it had 5,000 employees.
Crime fiction is similar to Lego or Ikea, puzzles that need to be solved.
Today our rooms are furnished by Ikea, our toys made by Lego, our bookshelves or TV shows
filled with Nordic fiction, and in the olden days we used to talk to people with Nokia,
but we no longer talk to anyone.
We are practically Scandinavian.
Nordic countries include, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland.
They’re like five siblings.
All have the same cross, just with different colours.
As it’s cold, all have some warm colours except, Finland.
They have the sauna to keep them warm.
Despite the cross, the majority of people consider themselves atheists.
In Sweden 75%, Norway and Denmark not far behind with 62 and 61% respectively.
Finland 55% and in Iceland less than the majority with 49% consider themselves atheists.
Sweden is the fashionable one but eats meatball every day.
Norway is the wealthy one but crosses the border to Sweden to buy cheap alcohol.
Denmark is the happy one, but so miserable that has replaced the sun with a candle yoga
called hygge.
Finland is the shy one, but always sitting naked in sauna.
Iceland is the aloof one but 60% of them live in one tightly-packed city, Reykjavik.
Okay enough of silly stereotypes, let me give you the rundown on best known authors of crime
fiction from each country.
Norway and Sweden excel in crime fiction while Denmark in TV crime series.
Norway’s most well-known crime authors are Jo Nesbo the King of Crime, Karin Fossum,
the queen of crime, Gunnar Staalesen the critic of Norway’s morally corrupt oil economy,
Anne Holt and Alex Dahl.
Sweden has Henning Mankell, Stieg Larsson, probably the most well-known and best-seller
and my favourite, and the duo of Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö.
Iceland has Ragnar Jonasson, Yrsa Sigurdardottir, Arnaldur Indriðason and Viktor Arnor Ingòlfsson.
Did you know that 1 in 10 people in Iceland writes a book?
The rest of them spend their time counting sheep or money in a bank or sing.
Denmark has Peter Høeg, Anders Bodelsen who questions materialism and consumerism, Sara
Blaedel and Jussi Adler-Olsen.
Finland’s most well-known writers are Matti Joensuu, Antti Tuomainen and Leena Lehtolainen.
My tongue has never had so much exercise pronouncing these names.
Now to the reasons why Scandinavian Crime fiction or Nordic Noir has become a global
phenomenon.
1 Capitalism: Crime fiction is the second bestseller after
romance.
Our daily lives can be quite superficial.
While reading crime, we get right in it, for some dark thrill to satisfy our dark side.
In a relatively safe, orderly and affluent countries there is more appetite for some
chaos of crime on the page, especially in cold winter days when you purr by the window
and read crime, like being chased by a pack of hyena.
2 Logical Crime fiction is like a puzzle or assembling
Ikea furniture.
Chaos at the beginning, but by the end every piece finds its place and we are satisfied.
They come with clear instructions and images.
Stieg Larsson’s Lizbeth Salander’s knowledge of computer and cyber world is so methodical
and meticulous that ends like assembling a Lego set.
If life doesn't make sense for the most part, crime fiction does.
For every mystery, there is an answer.
Nordic countries have become the logical cousins with their Lego, Ikea and now Crime fiction.
I say Nordic robots next.
3 Simple language Nordic crimes has little or no use of crazy
metaphors or grand similes or alterations, just simple old language.
According to a recent BBC article, Swedes don't like chitchat and want to get straight
to the point.
This linguistic efficiency is like flat-pack furniture neatly delivered to us without much
fuss.
Simple, precise and true-to-life language is like an Ikea dining table.
This language simplicity stems from a culture where people don’t talk without a reason.
Small talk in Swedish is kallprat, cold talk, or dödprat dead talk.
So its simple language makes Nordic crime fiction easy to translate, and more believable
and real because it lacks shiny words or literary flash.
4 Minimalist settings Nordic countries are large in area but very
few people live.
The entire population of all five Nordic countries is less than 30 million people, half of the
UK while the land area is almost 15 times bigger.
If one country, it would be the 7th largest in the world.
The sparse and secluded settings are peaceful, snow-covered countryside.
Even the Scandinavian fashion is quite minimal, black and white or grey.
This minimalism appeals to anyone without knowing anything about the culture or the
people.
Blood on the snow in a remote village is far more intriguing than a murder in a downtown
hustle and bustle.
We want our murders to happen in exotic, quiet and minimalistic settings, because we can
easily follow it, given how busy our lives have become.
5 Practicality: Scandinavian pragmatism and crime investigation
is a perfect marriage.
Nordic countries are cold.
You can’t laze around in the sun.
You better solve the mystery.
This pragmatism helped the Nordic countries to fully adopt capitalism long before others.
Hostile landscape needs a practical hand.
Nordic crime fiction is less focused on fast action, car chase and mass murders, or contrived
danger but rather on more realistic and practical issues.
6 Unexpected The stereotypes of Scandinavia as the happy
and safe is like some snowy utopia.
We become envious.
But when you read Nordic crime fiction, we find that the welfare system, gender politics,
and the general mood of the people are not as great as we thought.
Germans have a word for this.
Schadenfreude.
They are not so much better than us after all.
In a sense, these crimes novels are cries of pain.
Some say the new wave of Nordic crime fiction coincided with the end of the welfare state
and reflects the pessimism of the people about the future of once bright part of the world.
It paints a picture of Scandinavian utopia as slightly darker than we assumed, which
is unexpected as Roald Dahl might have said in his tales of the unexpected.
7 Social critique Dostoevsky often combined crime fiction to
tell the stories of our existential anxiety in the absence of god as a father figure.
Humans feel lost and anxious.
He used crime fiction to get deeper into social and psychological issues of the day.
Nordic writers have used crime fiction as a social critique, exposing deeper issues
in society such as class and gender inequality, anxiety over immigration, and the madness
of consumerism.
So Nordic crime fiction combines entertainment with social critique.
This makes them more powerful and profound.
8 Lonely Planet Nordic fiction employs many lonely girls and
miserable old men.
They’re not the macho bodybuilder type, but more like us.
Stieg Larsson’s Salander, Peter Hoeg’s Smilla are lonely girls who fight inequality
and social injustice.
Raydahl’s character Erhard, Manekll’s Wallander and Nesbo’s Harry Hole are old
men.
Outside crime fiction, two best sellers from Sweden, A Man Called Ove and by Fredrik Backman
and The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson
are also about old men.
Modern life makes us feel more and more lonely.
We relate to these lonely souls fighting for justice and fairness.
9 Humane But what’s really unique about Nordic crime
fiction is that humans are redeemable.
The blame tend to be on social policies, institutions and the establishment.
In American fiction, it is often the loner rotten apple that destroys the society.
In Nordic crime, the blame tend to be more on the system, institutions, government or
circumstance rather than the individual.
This stems from Lutheranism, a branch of Protestant Christianity originated in Germany in 16th
Century and spread to Scandinavia.
Lutheranism emphasised a form of capitalism based on fairness and equality, instead of
the ruthless winner-takes-all approach.
This helped Scandinavia to have a better welfare system than most countries.
Nowadays, we have little or no faith in authorities and see politicians as a bunch of liars and
corrupt.
And Nordic crime fiction agrees with us and better articulates our feelings about the
political and social institutions.
10 Wave A wave creates ripples.
Now with Nordic crime a brand, it attracts the best talents because that is where the
money is right now.
Many literary authors have dedicated their talent and time to crime fiction.
Whether this wave might hinder other genres of fiction in Scandinavia is remained to be
seen.
There is a great appetite among scholars to study Nordic crime fiction as they border
literary fiction in their subject matter if not the language.
In a way, Nordic crime fiction has given the genre a bit more respect among the literary
dinosaurs.
I don't read crime, but I have read a number of books by Nordic crime authors.
11 Distance The farther away the crime takes place, the
safer we feel.
Who cares if someone is murdered in the Norwegian countryside?
Crime in our town or neighbourhood is not entertainment.
That’s danger.
Distance also makes it more exotic.
Familiarity breeds contempt.
The unforgettable and unforgivable landscape in winter is not a place where people murder
each other, we think they rather help each other.
That’s what makes Nordic crime fiction so unique and unusual.
So to summarise, Nordic crime fiction, is very much like Ikea and Lego.
Our world has become more and more complex and we have become busier and busier.
We take whatever that simplifies that.
What better way to relax for a while then read fiction that gave us entertainment while
also telling us about deeper and real issues of our world in the simplest way possible.
It’s not that the Scandinavians are cold, it is our social world that is becoming colder
and colder, which is ironic as the earth is getting warmer and warmer.
Or rather our technologies, ways of living, urbanisation and societal expectations are
weighing down on us and we want to escape this.
It’s our attempt to escape the heat created by our frantic, hectic modern lives, for some
respite in the cold of Scandinavia, away from the crowd, people and humanity as a whole.
What part of the world do the Scandinavians make imaginary escapes to?
If you live in Scandinavia, please let me know in the comments’ section.
Thank you for watching.