University Place

Scandinavian Noir

[gentle music]

Nete Schmidt: Thank you so much to everyone for showing up tonight. It’s really nice to see faces, and I hope we’re gonna have a nice hour together. Thank you so much to Rachael for inviting me. It’s always fun to go out and talk about something that you’re interested in and that you hope others will also be interested in. And that’s what I’m going to do tonight.

So, I put down for the title “Nordic, Scandinavian Noir.” And that’s because it actually kind of started out with Nordic. And my name is Nee-ta Shmit, in Danish, Nay-te Smit. Kind of the same, but easier to say Nee-ta Shmit.

And I have been a proud member of the UW-Madison for many, many years, since 1998. And, of course, I am in the Nordic unit in German, Nordic, and Slavic, a merged department at UW-Madison.

So, my first question to you is, as good students, what are the Scandinavian countries?

Attendee 1: Sweden.

Nete Schmidt: Sweden.

Attendee 2: Finland, Denmark.

Nete Schmidt: Denmark.

Attendee 2: Norway.

Nete Schmidt: Norway, good job. Denmark, Norway, Sweden. And what are the Nordic countries?

[pause]

Ooh! Silence. Somebody said Finland. Yes, please. What else do we have up there, in, you know, the dark and the cold?

Attendee 1: Greenland?

Nete Schmidt: Yes.

Attendee 1: Iceland.

Nete Schmidt: And Iceland. And one more that you didn’t think about. The Faroe Islands.

So, Scandinavia, the three. And then this is where they are. And you can see that Greenland is a part of Denmark. It’s in a kind of community, like a commonwealth, with Denmark. It has independence. We have Iceland. That also used to be a part of Denmark, up ’til 1944, when they declared independence. Then, out in the middle, we have the Faroe Islands. And it’s a tiny, little island group, very rocky, very, I mean, all these countries are worth visiting. So I can definitely kind of encourage you to go there and see for yourself.

Faroe Islands are a part of Denmark, and both the Faroe Islands and Greenland have members and representation in the Danish parliament. Then we have, as you can see, Iceland down there, Faroe Islands. Then we go on to Norway. And it won’t surprise you to hear that Norway was part of Denmark in the Kalmar Union for many, many years, from 1397 to 1815.

And Sweden was also a part of this Kalmar Union. And I want to mention it because it was actually created by a woman. If you can imagine, back in 1397, the first Queen Margaret of Denmark. She created this union. And it lasted ’til 1815 with Norway. Sweden kind of stepped out in 1526. They were not as interested. And, then, finally, we have tiny, little Denmark, as you can see. That’s where I’m from.

I put Aarhus, the second-largest city. That’s my native town. And it’s about, well, a little bit bigger than Madison, about 350,000, 375,000 people. And still the second-largest. And the largest, of course, is Copenhagen. So if you find me to be a little prejudiced in my talk about Denmark, then that’s why. I was born there and lived there for many, many years.

And then I married my wonderful American husband, and then we started traveling a lot back and forth. And in 1998, we decided that it was worth a shot. And I got the job in Madison and we moved over here, and the rest is history. And we just kind of stayed. And we have five kids, and two of them are still in Denmark, and three in the U.S.

So that’s kind of my background story. And I’ve taught at various institutions. The University of Aarhus and junior colleges in various places, also in the U.S., in Massachusetts. But definitely University of Wisconsin-Madison is my home, so to speak.

This is what you’re looking at. And what are we going to be doing today? Well, we’re going to be talking about a lot of the background for why Nordic noir became a phenomenon, primarily in 2005, when Stieg Larsson’s, the book in Swedish, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, or the Swedish title, Men Who Hate Women, when that hit the scene. Because that was a revival of this phenomenon called Nordic noir, or Scandinavian noir.

But we’re also going to be talking about the whys and wherefores. Why from these countries did we have this phenomenon of murder mysteries and so on? In other words, you can start by asking yourselves, “Well, are they crime-ridden countries?” No, and that’s what I’d like to go through with you, a little bit of the background, the cultural background, and also, the background for crime stories per se. A little bit about police, and then moving into the phenomenon itself.

And I want to share with you some of the authors that I really like, some that I don’t really like, and try to give you an idea of where you may go if you want to, you know, just pursue reading these books. And like they said, if you have really pressing questions, just jump in there with them. But otherwise, please keep them ’til the end because I can always repeat questions.

So, my first question was crime in these Scandinavian countries. So, I’ve been doing a lot of searching here for statistics. And as you can see at the bottom line, that was the latest I could get. No, not really. Homicide in Scandinavia compared to the U.S. is very minimal. I chose here Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. Those were the easiest to find. But I can still remember when a homicide happened in Iceland and the president called the family of the bereaved to give her personal condolences.

And you’re thinking, “Oh, okay. So it’s not something that happens every day. It is something that makes the headlines of the newspapers.”

The next one is the Global Peace Index. I don’t know if you know this figure, but it was created many, many years ago. And it covers various parameters that you can use to measure how peaceful a country is inside, domestic violence, et cetera, and outside towards its neighbors. And it’s actually, I mean, recognized as this statistic tool to discuss peace.

And as you can see, Iceland is a proud number one. Then we move down, and Denmark is number eight, Finland number 13, Norway 28, Sweden 39. And the United States a proud 132. I thought I should show you the one that’s last on the list, which is Yemen, Sudan number next to the last.

So the Scandinavian countries do not have very many homicides. They’re very peaceful countries. And again, I want you to keep at the back of your mind why, then, do they write these stories that have gained renown worldwide?

Incarceration rates. Do we put people in jail? Yes. But if you look at it, and you can see Iceland, which has about 393,000 people all together. Well, 37 per 100,000. Finland has 5.62 million. And these are the latest, again, the latest figures I could find. 51 people per 100,000. Norway, 57, a country of 5.59 million. And then you look at Denmark, and it’s so similar to Wisconsin. I hope you know that Wisconsin has 5.9 million inhabitants. Well, so does Denmark. So, we have 72 incarcerated per 100,000, and Sweden 74.

The reason for this is that the philosophy behind putting people in jail is that they need to be resocialized, they need to be reentered into society as full members, and we need to get them out as soon as possible. If you are sentenced to a life sentence, in Denmark, it is 16 years. And that would be in case of homicide, murder, something that is preplanned. That would be 16 years in jail. And you’d get out after 12 with good behavior.

So as you can see, the emphasis is on socializing people, getting them back into society, getting them to function. And that’s why these incarceration rates are so tiny compared to other countries. As you can see, not to all countries. Japan is doing very well in this respect. Switzerland, Austria, Canada, the U.K., Russia, and then the United States. Once again, you can say that we are filled with records here, 531 per 100,000.

And right now, it’s Mississippi and Wisconsin that are– oh. I put MI, isn’t that Michigan? Oh, ah, that is a huge mistake. I’m sorry, it’s Mississippi and Wisconsin. So here are just, you know, food for thought, right? What is going on in these countries? Are they poor? No, they are not poor.

There’s another way of comparing. You can do the GDP and PPP. And I’m not very good at this. So, I’ve been reading up on it, and the way you can think about it, which was, you know, making sense to me, is that the PPP is kind of like a basket of goods. How much does it cost in any given country if you have the same kind of currency and you say it’s a dollar? So that’s where you can see that Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Finland are pretty well-to-do countries and actually better than the United States.

When it comes to Norway, that’s the richest country. And do you know why? Oil. They found oil out in the North Sea, and they actually have a pension fund for all Norwegians so that the state has put money from the oil finds aside for all the members of the society. So you have money from the oil, and it’s being shared with everybody. So, again, a different kind of mentality, a different kind of background.

You should also take into consideration that tax rates are high. In Denmark, you pay about 40%, 45% in taxes. But wages are also twice as high as here. And you don’t have to tip when you go to restaurants, because they actually get very decent wages. So there’s a different attitude to going out and tipping. That’s something that you have to get used to when you move here from one of the Scandinavian countries. Oh, gosh. And my daughter, who worked as a bartender, she said, “20%, Mom, no less than 20%.” So I said, “Okay, okay.” So that’s when I learned.

But as you can see, they have good purchasing power, and they are doing very well.

So, let’s move into a different aspect. This was just figures for you to think about, okay? These countries are well-functioning.

So, what happened to start this trend of “Let’s have crime stories. Let’s have them written down?” Well, as you can imagine, in order to do that, you have to have two elements. You have to have some criminals, and you have to have somebody chasing those criminals for some reason or other.

And it started in France with the Conntable in 1337. And they were actually trying to keep highwaymen off the roads so you could travel around peacefully. So that’s how the police force started around the world. This is interesting. In 1626, the Marchausse, they were protecting the road still and trying to do better and better. And finally, if you look in 1791, you have the gendarme, which means “people with arms.” And that’s the Gendarmerie.

And the gendarmes that we have today, mounted military police force right before the French Revolution, 3,660 men. So we did have police, but in France.

What about, well, Les Misrables ringing any bells? Yes. And you know that there is Jean Valjean, who’s the good guy, and then there’s Javert, who’s the bad guy. And this man, Eugne Francois Vidocq, he was both. He started out a criminal. And then at some point, he thought, “No. I’m gonna be a police officer instead,” and changed his destiny.

And he is the model for Victor Hugo’s both, you know, both of those characters, Jean Valjean and Javert in Les Misrables. And so, he published his memoirs. He didn’t write them himself. He had a ghostwriter. But the famous sentence, a lot of it was totally made up, you know, just total fiction. “I am Vidocq, and I arrest you.” So that’s how he became famous. You know, some detectives always have that, “Mm! Now, what is my line here?”

Edgar Allan Poe, I’m sure you know him as well. And he started what can even today be called the modern detective story. I don’t know if you ever read his first story, “Murders in the Rue Morgue.” Oh, I can so recommended it. It is so different from anything you would read today. The first two pages are about the difference between playing chess and checkers. And you get completely lost, and you think, “Is there a story here?” And that’s just his philosophizing about how, you know, you create a crime and what the motives can be. So it’s fascinating.

And then you move into a story that is completely different from anything you’ve ever read. And he introduced C. Auguste Dupin, the first brilliant detective. In the first three stories, I just took “The Mystery of Marie Rogt,” and then “The Purloined Letter” is the third one. But he was the one who showed us that when everything else doesn’t make sense, you just have to use your reason. Then you will find the answer. So pretty way ahead of his time with that. And he was, I mean, he’s a brilliant writer. You all know “The Raven.” Isn’t that still read in high school or, I’m sure you could all probably recite a few stanzas of that. And his horror stories as well. But I love his detective stories.

Then, from that, we moved on to something a little bit lighter. They were called yellowbacks, because they were kind of disposable books. They were very cheaply printed. They had a yellow cover, and they were basically meant to be thrown away afterwards. But as you can see, the yellowbacks also comprised Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White, really a good read still, and The Moonstone. I like Wilkie Collins. Les Misrables, that I’m sure you all know. And if you haven’t read it, but just seen the, seen the theater play or the musical or the movie, it’s fine. But it’s a great story. And of course, Charles Dickens also jumped on the wagon with The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

So these were light, lightweight detective stories. They were considered lightweight at the time. But at the same time, we see the emergence of police force, first in London, and then Boston was second. After that, the New York City. And we have detectives a little bit later. And the CID, you have Charles Vincent. I love that picture. But I love this one, the Criminal Investigations Department and the caption to that picture, “CID officers cunningly disguised as dockers during an investigation into drug smugglers at Limehouse Docks.” And I just love that, so I had to share that with you. Okay, then you see them in their normal clothing on the other picture. Okay, so here they’re very cunningly disguised. So Criminal Investigations, they’re your detectives. We’re getting closer to that.

And from Edgar Allan Poe, the next great person that you all know, I know, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Actually, he’s always called Conan Doyle, but Conan is part of his first name. So there’s a little bit of discussion about where that came from. Sherlock Holmes.

If you haven’t read any Sherlock Holmes, you’ve probably seen Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes, or others portraying it. Basil Rathbone was the first. One of my favorites, The Hound of the Baskervilles, from 1902. And Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was an amazing man. He made the pattern for the great detective. Very arrogant, as you can see, omniscient, self-absorbed drug addict. But also a wonderful person, of course, when it comes to reasoning and solving crimes and puzzles that nobody else can solve. So Arthur Conan Doyle was absolutely amazing in this respect.

He was also much more than Sherlock Holmes. And the funniest thing of it all about Arthur Conan Doyle is the anecdote that he’s actually a doctor. He’s a doctor who turned into an ophthalmologist, started a practice as a doctor. No patients. No money. “Oh, let me write another Sherlock Holmes story.” Ophthalmologist. No patients. No money. “Let me write some more Sherlock Holmes.” So if he hadn’t been a doctor without patients, we probably wouldn’t have had Sherlock Holmes. So he’s a fascinating character to read about.

History, women. Where are the women? Well, women were also incarcerated. So finally, they started saying, “Well, maybe it shouldn’t be the men taking care of these prisoners that are female. It should be women.” So we had women introduced into the police force. They were usually described, which is interesting, “stout Irish women.” So that’s, I think, what the first policewoman in England is supposed to look like, a stout Irish woman.

Those short stories that had been so popular, the yellowbacks, they were declining. And instead, we got Agatha Christie in 1920. Of course, we also had the Roaring ’20s and the World War, first the First, and then prohibition of alcohol. So a little bit of history in there that also was an inspiration for the writers.

And we come to the Golden Age. That was primarily British, as you can see, Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers. Wonderful, wonderful people and great writers. Agatha Christie had the most amazing life. If you read her biography, you will be just fascinated by what she did. And she still has The Mousetrap running, her famous play where you cannot say who did it to anybody.

We’ve seen it, my husband and I, and they had huge signs when you exited, “Please don’t share the secret. Don’t ruin the play for anybody else.” Agatha Christie also did a little different approach to the detective, the classical detective story, right? But now we have clues, puzzles, timetables, and we have a great detective with reason and deduction, rules, the bourgeoisie. You can all imagine those British mansions, right? And then all the suspects gathered in one room, and then the detective facing them and saying, “I know which one did it.” I mean, there’s your story, right?

Hercule Poirot, the Belgian, and Miss Marple were her most famous ones. Dorothy Sayers actually didn’t really want to write crime stories either, but did it just for fun. She taught herself old Italian and translated the works of Dante. That was what she really wanted to spend her time doing. But in between, she could throw out a few Peter Wimsey books. So she was an amazing, an amazing writer.

Georges Simenon, another Agatha Christie, and– Oh, sorry, not another Agatha Christie. Georges Simenon, the French writer, who at the same time invented Inspector Maigret. So those were the three big ones in the Golden Age. British.

What did we have in the U.S.? Hard-boiled, of course. And it has to be Humphrey Bogart, you can imagine. Who else would you say is the hard-boiled crime fiction? Hammett, Dashiell Hammett, and Raymond Chandler. Dashiell Hammett with Sam Spade, Raymond Chandler with Philip Marlowe. And a pulp magazine, which means it was really cheap, very cheap paper.

But they started the dark side of society. As I said, the criticism of the U.S. at the time. We are, as you can see, in the late ’20s into the ’30s, and all of a sudden, we got a much darker approach. Not that cozy English kind of mansion sensation of, “Ooh, we’re all a little bit upper class. And now somebody did something horrible.” Here, we have really dark and very rainy books sometimes. You feel almost wet when you’re reading them because it’s raining all the time, and you think, “What are they doing?” Well, they’re solving serious crimes.

So the omniscient and arrogant detective, he was out of there. And we had darkness.

And the darkness leads me to police force. We have a police force that’s very strong in the U.S., and I usually tell my students that I go to Denmark for about three months in the summer. I see maybe three police cars, if I’m lucky, you know. [gasps] “Larry, did you see that? There was a police car!” It’s kind of something you mark. You know, a notch in your belt. You know what it’s like in Madison. You’re outside for ten minutes, and there’s your first police car of the day, right? So it’s a very, very different situation.

So I thought you should also hear about police forces in our three Scandinavian countries. It started in 1241, in Denmark with the law of Jutland, where the king was the police. Denmark is the longest-standing constitutional monarchy in the world. Constitutional monarchy. And then, they got ordinances, and then criminal police, and then state police. And you could say there’s so much. There was a new… They were calling it some kind of improvement in 2007. It hasn’t proven to be an improvement because they wanted more police on the street like here, and they just haven’t had the money. But as you can see, they have batons, they have gas, they have pepper spray, they also have weapons. And there have been a few incidents of what they call terror in Denmark. So the police is armed as needs be.

In Norway, they were armed from 2014 to 2017 because of terror actions, but otherwise they’re not armed. And it’s the same, goes back to 1300. They started finding the need for somebody to keep the peace. And as you can see again, police reform, Police Directorate, and the organization in all three countries is run by the state, and the police in Sweden is always armed. So they have probably the highest incidence of crimes and feel the need to be armed. But they also started back in the Middle Ages. So police forces are nothing new, and near police reform in Denmark, that definitely was a police reform. So just a little bit about police forces. Very, very different from the American police force in these three Scandinavian countries.

The spy novel. Well, you heard about that. And I’m sure you’ve seen movies, too. And these are undoubtedly very well-known names to you, Ian Fleming, did you know that he started back with James Bond in 1953? It’s amazing he’s still alive in so many variants. And the British tradition was much more cozy, the cozy, still literary crime novel, a little bit more highbrow than the American one. And here are some of the names.

The American tradition was more hard-boiled. Some of these you may know. There are, of course, a million to choose from. But I have to get to Scandinavia, and we are now coming to two Swedes, Maj Sjwall and Per Wahl.

This is the beginning of what you could call Scandinavian noir. And they did it in the ’60s and the ’70s. So it started a long time ago. They wrote police procedurals. And what is a police procedural? Well, it’s a book where everything is explained and you turn the page and you want something to happen, and it takes a long time and a lot of patience because you go through step by step by step, and at the end, you get the culprit. So it is slow going from time to time.

But they were very political writers. They sat down and said, “We are going to write a series about a crime, and the crime is the way the Swedish society was treating its citizens.” They were very left wing. And when I say “very left wing,” you can’t even conceive of it in the U.S. It’s, like, really left wing. And they saw the police force as a crime against the people living in the country. The citizens.

Per Wahl is dead. Maj Sjwall is still alive, but they wrote together as a couple, and they were developing their characters throughout the series in the most wonderful way, and I can highly recommend them. They are translated. They wrote ten, but they also wrote novels separately. But the first ten here was their story of a crime. And they called it a crime. And the crime was society. The way society treated its citizens.

So a very different take on crime. And these are the ones that they wrote. The beginning of Scandinavian noir. The phenomenon called Scandinavian noir. Police procedurals, where you follow the crime and the police officers that solve it and get those culprits to their well-deserved punishment. And very political. So they started it all. They started the entire wave of Scandinavian noir.

And then there are tons of other writers. And I could, you know, have– I could have just stood here and spent my time giving you names. But I don’t want to do that. I just want to point out that there are lots and lots of great Scandinavian writers. And of course, you’re saying, “Why is that when Scandinavian countries are so peaceful?” Well, your answer is as good as mine. You know, you can guess. Well, maybe they’re bored. Let’s write some crime stories, because the rate of crime is definitely very low in the Scandinavian countries compared to, for example, our country.

Some of these, let me show you. Maj Sjwall and Per Wahl, they wrote ten books. Then Karin Fossum is Norwegian. And I’ve just given you a few titles here so that if you, you know, if you want to read something or you are looking for an author that you like, these are some of the ones that I like.

Henning Mankell was the most amazing, I think, one of the most amazing writers. He died a few years ago, and he wrote a series. Normally, you would write a series of, like, ten books or more. And he did that. Faceless Killers is Wallander. I don’t know if you’ve seen it. It’s definitely also a TV series, Kurt Wallander. And that was a very famous protagonist.

Kerstin Ekman, who also writes very amazing, more autobiographical, kind of magical realism novels. Liza Marklund is a huge name, Swedish. And like Kerstin Ekman, and Swedish, and she wrote 11 books in her Annika Bengtzon series with a female protagonist, and it’s hugely popular. This is a really good example, Red Wolf. You don’t have to read them in order, but if you do, you’ll get her story as well. You know, you get the family story.

Jesper Stein is Danish, and he has written a series around Aisha about immigrants in Denmark and crimes committed by and against immigrants. Very dark, so very, very dark books.

Jo Nesbo, I’m sure you– many of you know him, Norwegian. The Devil’s Star is one of my favorites. Otherwise, I think he’s too bloody. I like psychology more than blood and gore.

Johan Theorin is from land, the land islands, and he writes wonderful books. Great series. So he’s also, they’re all translated, all ready for you to go to. And Arnaldur Indridason is from Iceland. Go for it. So many books, so many things to read.

So what happened? Well, of course, you all know Stieg Larsson. And I’m going to choose. I’ve chosen to talk about two authors today because, whew, I can’t talk about them all. But I can certainly, I hope, whet your appetite so that you can say, “Ooh, I would love to read some more.”

So in April 29, 2009, and this is absolutely a ways after he died, because he died in 2005 from a heart attack, very suddenly, very unexpected. He had just submitted three manuscripts. The three original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo books. And then he died of a stroke. You know, it’s really interesting when you read about it because it’s described as if, okay, he had an office which was up on the seventh floor, and he walked up because the elevator wasn’t functioning, and then he fell down. He was a chain smoker. So he was not living the healthiest of lives.

And he was an incredibly active person, trying to do so many good things and writing and working nonstop. He was the top European adult fiction author. He got translated pretty quickly after his books were published. And as you can see, 13 of the top 40 authors were writing in English: Henning Mankell, Liza Marklund, Jan Guillou, and Jens Lapidus. And they’re all writing really good crime stories. So you can just start looking for Scandinavian crime writers and you are home.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, 2005. Also seen as a postmodern crime story. And what do I mean by that? Well, it’s a story that is fragmented. It’s a story that includes reality. And that has a lot to do with the society that surrounds us and is very critical of that.

Stieg Larsson himself was a very interesting person. How interesting? Well, his books have sold more than 100 million copies. A hundred million, could you imagine? Could you even begin to imagine? Well, journalist, author, communist. Sweden, of course, is a country that is further to the left than the U.S. But few communists remain in Europe. And he died in November 2004, after he had just submitted the manuscripts for the first three books in the Lisbeth Salander series.

Wonderful translation, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo because the publishers did not want it to be called Men Who Hate Women. That is the original title. They said, “No, that won’t sell.” But it is about men who hate women. And then we had Lisbeth Salander, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest. And they were all three developed or given to the publishers at the same time, right before he died.

So quite a tragedy that he didn’t get to really benefit from all these, you know, wonderful reactions to his books. They got, his heirs, that was his father and his brother. And his “common law” wife was pushed to the side, pushed to the other side, didn’t get anything. So that was very sad. They’d been living together for 32 years. So that’s a very sad kind of side story. She’s written about her years with Stieg Larsson and talked about it.

David Lagercrantz, he continued the story, hired by the family, the father and the brother to make them more money. And he did that. And then Karin Smirnoff was the one who was hired at, when he kind of got tired and said, “I want to write something else.” There’s, you know, very divided opinions about these kind of sequels, because Stieg Larsson had set out to write ten books, like Henning Mankell, like another man we’ll talk about later. Ten seems to be the kind of golden number. But of course, he never managed to do that, so that was very sad.

But he was a fascinating character because he was a real-time activist, struggled against racism, right-wing extremism. He had grown up with his grandfather, his parents were too young to take care of him, and his grandfather actually spent World War II in an internment camp because he was a Marxist. I mean, if he had been in Germany, he would’ve been killed, but he was in Sweden, so he was just put in a camp. And then Stieg Larsson took up that activism.

And Expo magazine was a magazine that was exposing crimes in society, real crimes in society. So he knew about what he sat down to write. And he was living with Eva Gabrielsson, who did not inherit him, for 32 years, and under constant threats because he was just too, well, good at exposing what was going on, neo-Nazism, et cetera in Sweden at the time.

He was also a workaholic and a heavy smoker, and he was writing the Lisbeth Salander series at night after he was done with his regular job. So there’s also been speculation that he simply ruined his health.

But The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the first one, you know, Swedish society and business fraud, you went up to the higher levels of society here. Serial murder, feminism, he was an ardent feminist, the writer Stieg Larsson. Investigative journalism, corruption, moral bankruptcy, you name it.

Have any of you read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo? Some of you have, yeah. And of course, it was also turned into a movie. Three Swedish movies. Please watch the Swedish movies. One American version. Okay, but not brilliant. But the three Swedish movies are brilliant. And there are subtitles, don’t worry. So go for it, it’s definitely worth it.

And the moral bankruptcy of Big Capital, of course, since Stieg Larsson was kind of very left wing, he wanted to expose that, and he did. He managed to do it, and also show the right-wing extremism, the neo-Nazis in Sweden at the time. You, we probably all think about Sweden as this incredibly peaceful, progressive country, but they have a lot of issues and they have a lot of problems with immigrants, et cetera. And he was talking about this. He was really attacking everyday problems.

So he was so popular after that. And I was lucky enough to have a visit from one of his friends, who came and talked about Stieg Larsson and their friendship and how he started writing a book. And it was basically because he and Eva Gabrielsson, they were on vacation and she was going nuts because he was walking around in circles, didn’t know what to do. She was writing a book about architecture. And finally, she said to him, “Do something. Write something. Focus and do something to get out of my hair.”

And he said, “Oh, I’ve written all these little pieces of paper, you know, with kind of themes, maybe. Could you take a look and see if one of them appeals to you?” And she said, “Sure.” Just to get him out of that living room. And then he started writing The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. So it was totally random.

So if you’ve ever read the book, you’ll notice that the first 80 pages are kind of scattered all over the place, and then all of a sudden, oh, that’s when the action starts and it gets really interesting. So I’ve always thought, that’s my personal opinion, of course, but I’ve always thought that he took some time to kind of find his own voice with those books. But that was Stieg Larsson, and he’s absolutely wonderful.

And my other author that I’ve chosen to talk a little bit about is from Denmark, because, of course, being from Denmark, I know more about Denmark than Sweden. I mean, we’ve always been right next to each other and sometimes rivals, and most of the time Sweden has won. But with crime stories, I think there is equality.

Well, Jussi Adler-Olsen from Denmark, he started writing in 2007, and he had done a lot of things before that. A very interesting person. And the first one was called Kvinden i Buret, The Woman in the Cage, translated The Keeper of Lost Causes. You’re thinking about those translations now? What are they doing? Well, they’re trying to say the woman in the cage, ooh, it sounds like some sadistic experiment. It’s not, really. Maybe it is. If you haven’t read Jussi Adler-Olsen, you know, go for it. It’s really amazing. The Keeper of Lost Causes, and then, you know, he went on with a number of stories, a number of books about this Carl Morck detective.

And he’s called Carl Valdemar Jussi Henry Adler-Olsen. He’s an absolutely fascinating writer. He’s visited my classes a couple of times, and he’s just really interesting and a very exciting man to talk to. Lives north of Copenhagen, and he’s very active, just like Stieg Larsson, very active with politics and things happening around him.

And as you can see, favorite Danish author. More than 27 million books so far. And of course, when I look up these numbers, it could be 50 millions right now. I don’t know, because I found the 100 million about Stieg Larsson kind of randomly. So we know they sell a lot of books, and they are translated, and very good translations. So this is his books.

Starts with The Keeper of Lost Causes, The Absent One, A Conspiracy of Faith. And as you can see, they’re all translated. The Woman in the Cage, The Keeper of Lost Causes. What he did, he finished his series. He had, like our first authors, he wanted to write ten books, and he did. Sjwall and Wahl, they did the ten books. And he finished it and he said, “I’m done,” 2023.

And there are police procedurals as well, but with an array of people. And he also talks about immigration because one of the main characters is an immigrant. And there are so many very, very interesting side stories in all of his books. If you haven’t read any, I can highly recommend it. The number ten book is out in English in December, and that’s it. And they are really worth reading because you get a lot of laughter, but also a lot of reality. It’s real with what’s going on in society today in the Scandinavian countries.

What are the themes? Well, you know, I could go on and on and on, but I thought I would mention a few: revenge, human nature, indifference, control, finding peace, redemption, sarcasm. Sarcasm is really big in Scandinavia. That is how you survive. And so, I’ve had to learn to tone down my sarcasm when I moved to the U.S., to the extent that when I got home to visit my sister, she would say, “God, you are boring.”

[audience laughing]

“What happened to you? I mean, everything is so serious now.” And I said, “Well, I live in the U.S. We can’t be sarcastic all the time.” But that’s definitely a tool to survive.

Rules, directives, politics, politicians, he mentions it all, immigration, and immigrants. And as you know or may know, in the Scandinavian countries, immigration is a huge issue and being debated near and wide and far. Elitism, classes, homelessness, organized crime, corruption, you name it. He’s got all these in his ten books, and at the same time, he’s a perfectly wonderful, nice man that– I never met Stieg Larsson, I just met his friend. But I’ve met Jussi Adler-Olsen and he is a wonderful man, really nice and a family man. And you think, “Where did he get it all from?” You know, “Where does it come from when it comes out?”

TV series and movies, okay. So I thought I would just mention those two big authors, Stieg Larsson, Jussi Adler-Olsen. But of course, go and watch Scandinavian noir on TV or in movies.

The Killing is from Denmark and Sofie Grabol, the main character there, she got famous because of her sweaters. She was always wearing these Icelandic sweaters, home knitted. So everybody started knitting homemade sweaters, as you can imagine. And they’re very warm, very nice, very pretty. Great series.

The Bridge, Broen, that was a collaboration between Denmark and Sweden, because you might know that from Denmark to Sweden in 2000, they built a bridge so you don’t have to sail across. It was, like, 20 minutes sailing. Now it’s just driving across, and right in the middle, ooh, the first crime happens. Oh, now you have to see what it is. So very good series.

And then there’s Trapped from Iceland that I can highly recommend as well. Because all of a sudden you realize, well, I’ve been to Iceland a couple of times and it’s definitely icy. And you think, “Wow, this is really good.” The way they describe the environment and the people, an incredibly interesting mixture.

And of course, you have movies. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Department Q movies, that’s Jussi Adler-Olsen. So far they’ve made six. They call it Department Q. Kurt Wallander, numerous series. I don’t know if you’ve seen Kenneth Branagh as Kurt Wallander. And The Snowman, Harry Hole, that’s Jo Nesbo. So, yes, lots and lots of movies or series that you can delve into and get caught up in. And it’s interesting, and they’re all subtitled. I don’t know if any of them are actually dubbed, but I think most of them are subtitled. But that’s not really bad.

Now we get to the last section of my talk. Why is it that in these peace-loving, nice little kind of idyllic countries, we have all these, well, welfare states? They’re welfare states, which means that everybody is taken care of from cradle to grave. And yes, there are homeless people primarily, often because they prefer to be homeless, et cetera, and yes, you don’t have to be homeless. You don’t have to be poor. There is a social welfare system, welfare states.

Boredom, maybe that makes you bored. You want something that’s exciting. So these are all the questions that you can ask yourself. And I’ve asked myself all these questions as I’ve been reading all these numerous stories.

Work ethics. You work a lot, but not as much as here. You really do not want to work quite as much as in the U.S. Gender roles, much more equality. Women’s roles. Denmark has a prime minister who’s female. And Norway, too. I mean, we have many more women in political roles than here.

Of course, the thrill, the “noir” effect. That name that was invented, Scandinavian noir, Nordic noir. Yes, it’s pretty darn dark. If you ever go to Greenland in the middle of winter, you don’t see the sun, et cetera, or Iceland, it’s really dark. So you gotta have something to do. Maybe write a book about Nordic noir.

A sense of neatness, tidy countries. Yes, they’re all very well organized, from cradle to grave. And you pay your taxes and you are registered, and you cannot escape to another state and just disappear. You are a known entity. So maybe they’re bored and that’s why.

But okay, here is what it looks like in Denmark in 2024 with political parties. These are the parties that exist and are all in the Parliament, 179 members. So there’s a lot of variety and you have a lot of choices. You can go left or right or in the middle, depending on what you want to do.

They’re welfare states with the “Folk-Home” as the background, which means cradle-to-grave security. You are taken care of and you know that the state takes care of you, so you do not have to suffer. Taxation is that great equalizer that enables the states to take care of you. But, of course, there are rich people, financial crimes, power plays, and you know everything, everything that is crime-ridden, it exists because there will always be underground. There’ll always be gangs. There will always be people who want to exploit the system.

And then there’s also generation gap right now, maybe like here, technology. Who knows more technology, the young ones or the older ones. So we see that as well. Free education. So in the Scandinavian countries, you go to school, you start at 6 or 7, and then you can finish with your PhD and it’s all paid for. So that’s what you use your taxes for, among other things. So that’s not such a bad deal if you think about how long an education is.

And then there’s the immigration issue. Like I said, Jussi Adler-Olsen is talking about that. His assistant is an immigrant from Syria. So lots and lots of various things you can add into these books.

And for that, I just wanted briefly to mention that there was a real crime that created what was called the Muhammad Crisis in 2005. And that was because 12 editorial cartoons actually depicted Muhammad. And, you know, for Muslims, that is a crime. And it created an uproar. And this was in Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. And they said it was “an attempt to contribute to the debate regarding criticism of Islam and self-censorship.” Reprinted in more than 50 countries. And oh, boy, did everything explode. And Denmark was definitely put on the blacklist and the draw– The person who had drawn the best one, there was an attempt at his life and so on, and consumer boycott and burning of flags.

And that is probably the biggest real crime during the time that these books have been written. And brings me to my next question. As you can see, I’m searching, why is it so popular? Why is it so good?

Boredom? Are we that bored in Scandinavia? Yeah, maybe. We’re so nice and middle of the road and you are all pretty well-educated and pretty well-behaved, et cetera. So the thrill that you don’t have in your real life, you can find in a book if you start writing it.

Drudgery, yeah. Children? Oh, you have childcare, so you’re fine. You have money, well-functioning, carefully planned lives. Does it sound boring, or does it sound relaxing?

Marriages happy or deteriorating? Of course, I thought I’d share the divorce rates with you. They’re pretty astonishing, actually, when I looked them up. Lots of divorces. Lots of people who also live without being married. But, so what is the reason for this? That’s what I’m coming to.

What about work ethics? Do we work as hard as in the U.S.? No, no they don’t. As you can see, not really a 40-hour week. And they usually make twice as much as we do, but then they pay half of it in taxes. So I’m generalizing, as you can tell, broadly.

But yeah, so as you can see, I’m reaching. You know, what are the answers to this popularity? Working above and beyond expectations? Yeah, maybe not. But the procedurals, the police procedurals, they kind of also incorporate the drudgery of everyday life.

Then the immigrant workers, some people that work more, lots of social issues that can give food for thought, and gender roles, of course, is one of them. A lot of gender equality there. Feminine, according to Geert Hofstede, if you know his cultural dimensions, women are in the workplace. Salary inequality still not in the public sphere, but in the private sphere. The public sphere, there is equality.

Maternity leave? One year, thank you! With pay, so there you go. I mean, that’s a difference. And today, it’s shared, so that the mom gets some months, the dad gets some months, or you share it and you figure it out. But actually, it’s seen as an important thing to have babies, and the states feel that that should be rewarded.

Leadership inequalities in the private sector, many, many more men than women. The glass ceiling, that’s where you hit it, if you are a woman in the private sector. Nurses, teachers, doctors, pedagogical assistants? Guess what? Women still. Yes, also doctors. Ministers? Well, it’s about 40% women, 60% men. So, not so bad. Especially not compared to the U.S.

And immigrants have been an issue for a number of years, and still is something that the countries are struggling to find that ultimate solution to.

So what is the thrill? Where does that come from? Well, I like the possible identification and identity formation. If you can identify with a character in a crime story, I think you find it really relevant and exciting and maybe you can learn something from it. So there you go. That’s why real crimes, real people, real solutions, even though you could say, “But there aren’t any crimes in these countries.” Well, not that many, but there are enough that they can spark some imagination about it.

Okay, well, I don’t know if you’ve ever been to the Scandinavian countries, but they are neat. Tidy, homogeneous people, it used to be more homogeneous. Now about 10% of the population is immigrants. Clean cities and roads, of course, environmental concerns, everybody’s going green and lots of wind power, solar power, thermal power, electric cars all over the place. Electric cars are incredibly popular. Much, much more so than here.

Bikes and e-bikes, especially e-bikes. I know people who have been riding their bikes their entire lives. That’s their means of transportation. Doesn’t matter if it’s 30 miles. Oh, it just takes a little bit longer, et cetera.

Cleaning up after criminals, yes. And like, remember, when you go to jail for life, 16 years, and you get out after 12, rehabilitation.

So under the surface, there are still problems. I’m not trying to present to you the Nordic countries as ideal. They have different issues and they do have problems with immigrants that are not used to this kind of “lifestyle” or choice of lifestyle.

Trafficking in women happens especially in Sweden. The underworld and the gangs are now beginning to be more, well, ubiquitous, you could say, especially in the bigger cities, especially again in Sweden. Sweden has more problems than Denmark and Norway.

Social system as a trap. Well, you get from cradle-to-grave in a way. So maybe you’re not spurred on to be more ambitious, to become a millionaire. It’s not that important because you will be taken care of.

Waiting lists and bad service, well, because it is, you know, paid for by the state. So maybe that private initiative is lacking a bit. High taxation, so a lower standard of living, even though the salaries are higher. Inequalities still. And it’s not 50/50 with men and women. I’m not trying to paint a rosy picture.

But what is left? I didn’t want to end on that, “Oh, my gosh, everything is horrible in Scandinavian countries.” So here are some of my nine grandchildren that are very nice, and hygge, of course, the ubiquitous concept everywhere. And you do a lot to hygge because winters are dark and long. And you light candles, and they can be electric candles or real candles, and you make sure that you have something good to drink, tea and a good book and some home-knitted socks, et cetera, and then you make sure to have some grandkids and a sunset, and all of a sudden, it’s not so bad after all.

I hope I answered some of your questions, and if not, I am very happy to answer them now.

[audience applauding]