Episode 4: Iceland and Finland join the fray

SPS.com.au Welcome to Noir here, this podcast with me, Johan Goprielsson In each program we showcase some of the best writers and we meet the people behind the popular TV shows that have spread Noir around the world Today we travel to Finland and Iceland Two countries that could not be further apart when it comes to crime Finland has the highest murder rate of any Scandinavian country, whereas Iceland has won all the worlds lowest But Iceland has more crime writers per capita than any other country in the world To find out why we talk later to Gunthorne Gudman Stockter, professor of comparative literature at the University of Iceland We also meet award-winning writer Rangajona Somm who began his career at 17, translating Agatha Kristi novels into Iceland But first we got to Finland to meet the former crime reporter-toned successful crime writer Jarko Sipley He is famous for his accurate account of Finnish police procedures, having worked for many years as a crime reporter for Finland's largest daily Helsinki cinema His famous detective Takamaki is known for his clear head and pedantic way of solving crimes Far removed from the boost up detective one finds in other Scandinavian crime stories Has Finland developed its own unique style of Nordic Noir? But are the Finnish late-comers on this crime wave that had sweep through Scandinavia? Not really late-comers, I don't think we've never ducks on the train at all Looking at the beginning because the Finnish we didn't have in the 90s or in the early years of the century We didn't have any agents here, so there was nobody to promote the Finnish stories abroad and the Swedes and the Nordwiens And now the Finnish ones have done it much better than the Finnish ones, the teams are not very living marketing Naja Kauinenau, what's the difference between your books you think in other Finnish crime writers? Maybe the biggest point is the realism, I think it's because of my journalistic background that first of all when I started the Helsinki Homicide series I wanted to write kind of like a police prosecutor that I was about to claim that could really happen in Helsinki And I like to describe the police where that really goes and maybe that has been my personal mark in this crime fiction scene But then again I didn't really want to go to be really that much to the personal lives of the police women or the ladies But to describe the policemen and the criminals, how they think and what things lead to the crime and what happened after that Can you explain to me Finland has one of the highest murder rates in Scandinavia, it's double than Sweden, what is the reason for this to you think? I think the number one big main reason is alcohol The murder rates are coming down, there used to be kind of like a typical Finnish murder second degree worst that you have five men drinking together And one takes a too long of a seat from the vodka bottle and then the other one gets angry and stabs him with his knife And in the morning nobody remembers who killed this one fellow There's a lot of crime related to mental issues and people men killing the woman who wants to lead the marriage and so on But if problem and alcohol is the main reason You said somewhere that crime fiction did rise in popularity in the mid 90s then it was a clear reason for that in Finland Can you tell me about that? The criminal world first of all changed a little bit and we actually got the gang at that time in Finland And because of change also in let's say drug usage so people started using more and more drugs which meant that they were more and more imported and the criminal world got harsher And because there was more money involved and people were murdered and so on And that might be kind of like the changing the criminality was one thing also Again we got the new writers which were pretty good and kind of like some of them paid the way for newcomers when I started in the 19s I was one of these and that kind of to applying start and maybe the crime fiction stories were a little bit under-explanated in Finland We have not seen a good literature but when good writers started to write them the popularity rose and people started buying that And maybe one phenomenon that is happening now is that the mainstream writers are working more and more on crime fiction stories We heard Jarko Sipille Rangna's Rangna Zuna-sum published his first book Snow Blind in 2010. It caused a literal sensation not only in his homeland but also across the world. The book quickly topped the Amazon Kindle chart. Rangna Zuna-sum became fascinated by crime writing through the English Queen of crime Agatha Christie. He has translated 14 of her novels into Icelandic. His own books have been published all over the world and Snow Blind was the first book in the Dark Icelandic series with its main character, R.E. Thor. Let's listen now to an excerpt from Snow Blind. It is bitterly cold as we hover over the Icelandic town of Siglafjörður. The red stain was like a scream in the silence. The snow-covered ground was so white that it had almost banished the winter night's darkness elemental in its purity. It had been snowing since that morning, big heavy flakes falling gracefully to earth. That evening there was a break in the snowfall and no more had fallen since. Few people were about. Most people stayed indoors, happy to enjoy the weather from behind a window. It was possible that some of them had decided to stay at home after the death at the dramatic society. Tales travelled swiftly and the atmosphere was heavy with suspicion, in spite of the town's peaceful outward appearance. A bird flying over the town would not have noticed anything unusual, would not have sensed the tension in the air, the uncertainty and even the fear, not unless it had flown over the little back garden in the middle of the town. That's the beginning of Rangajona's first book, Snow Blind. So what does the term "nuriknoar" mean for a writer who many describe as taking the genre to a new level? Maybe the emphasis on the landscape and the weather, we write these books in a it is Nordic setting, maybe especially of course Iceland, the weather can be unpredictable and it's a bit colder than you know for the town itself. So the weather and the nature is often also a big part of the stories, the landscape and the the isolation and maybe the dark winter nights or the bright summer nights. Do you feel when you write that you are in a genre in a genre of Nordic noir and that you are playing by the rules of that genre when you write your books? A little bit, although I think I've made in some ways my own rules because I'm a big fan of the Northeastern Prime tradition, but I also am also a big fan of the old golden age mysteries from the UK and the US from the 1930s and 1940s, where there was this element of a detective story, where the detective is investigating a sort of a classical mystery with this fair play, the reader and the twist in the end, because I like reading this book from this era. I think, you know, maybe consciously or unconsciously, I've tried to include that in my own writings, so maybe the books are a little bit of both automatic and maybe the old classical styles. Can you tell us about your relationship with Agatha Christie, because it started quite early? Yes, well, I thought this reading Agatha Christie may be at the age of 11 or 12, I instantly fell for her books and I thought this reading everything I could in Icelandic to the point that, you know, when I ran out of books in the library, I went to the National Library, which where I could only go once a week and had to sit there on Saturday mornings, inside reading the books that were out of print in Iceland, and then I had finished reading everything I could find in Icelandic, so I thought that Agatha Christie basically made me discuss reading English, so I picked up books in English and started reading them in English as well, and then I started translating some short stories for market-eat-neared Iceland, and when I was 17, I had the idea, which was maybe a crazy idea at the time, that I could translate a whole novel, and I went to Agatha Christie's I got the professors and, you know, presented myself, there was probably too young, given to drive, so my mother took me there, and I didn't expect to get back from that, but they called me back a few days later, and I just made to pick a book to translate, and so I translated my first book at the age of 17, and I did this all through school, I sent to law school, and even after I started working, that's how I relationship evolve, and then I moved on to writing my own books, so I haven't been able to find the time to do more Agatha Christie translations, I tried to have a little bit of, you know, the link in my books as well, some references. What is it in her writing that captivated you right from the beginning? I think it's two things, one is just a plot, people say that Agatha Christie has really written every single good plot there is, and I think there is something in that, because she has developed every single twist, every good twist there is, in some way, in her 80 books or so, and it's always a simple plot, yes, absolutely brilliant, and you can explain it in one sentence maybe, and yet it's so good that when you read the book, you have my idea, what's happening? The other thing, which I think makes her books very strong, is her sense or setting. Usually, the book is in a remote location, whether it's a couple of cottage or an orient express room, the nile, but it's always very distinct and fascinating, which gives the book, you know, cozy atmosphere. Do you still read her? Do you still go back to her books and read her books for inspiration? Absolutely, I have all of her books in English now, and I'm actually just rereading them now in order, just because, you know, they are very comfort and reading. Your first book, Snow Blan, your debut, what made you decide to suddenly just write a book like that? Where did that idea come from? I had written one book before in Iceland, which has been translated. My publisher, Sharon Eichelb, they liked that book, but the lead character was actually the same guy, but he wasn't a policeman, so they liked the character, they suggested to me, I should maybe do another book, and that time it would be a proper crime mystery with the same guy. So that was the start of this series, which started with Snowblan, and I decided to set the book in the northern most town in Iceland, Secretary of the Year, which was simply because the town I know in Iceland is where my father grew up and my grandfather slipped at the town I visited since I was maybe three, most old or something, every year, many times a year, and it's a very historic town with a perfect setting for a crime book because it's only accessible to an old tunnel, so it's like a rampant hole that you were there in different places where anything can happen. So that's really how this adventure starts, it may be almost 10 years ago now when I started writing Snowblan, it's five books it totals now already, which are set in this town or around the town. Can you tell me about that detective though, because his character fascinates a lot of people, Detective Ari Thor, how was he born? Where did you get influenced to create this compelling character? He's a bit younger than I am, I think a few years younger when I started writing, so he's grown with me, but he's always a few years younger than I am, so the idea behind that was basically you know right what you know, so you write about a young guy and you know how it feels to be like 20-something because you already been there, but a lot of his characters is of course just made up, but there was another you know maybe another liquid, I got a Christie is when I created this young guy, in the back of my mind I had you know remembered something I got a Christie once said somewhere in an interview or biography that he always requested having created the Hathjule Paro at this marble, already quite old, it's where when they first appeared in her books they were already retired, so she sort of complained later on that they couldn't really grow with her. For me I thought I'll make this guy young and so maybe I can use him going forward. We heard Rangar Jonasson. What's behind this successful wave of Icelandic crime writers like Rangar Jonasson, Arnaudur Indrason, Ilusa Siguradotir, and Viktor Anar Engolfsson, is it something in the eyes? I asked Professor in comparative literature at the University of Iceland, Gunthor and Gjudman's daughter. Crime writing in Iceland is very much influenced by Scandinavian crime writing by the original Swedish police procedure and all of that, things like Kyrgyll and Valu and Henning Munker and so on. Initially it was very much influenced by that and you can see there are certain aspects of it like engagement with social issues and so on, but now that we have many more crime writers than we have ever had before, the field is more diverse, so you have courtroom dramas and you have the journalist detective and you have more kind of a thriller-like element, so it is much more diverse than just one Nordic novel. Of all these diverse events of all these different styles, is there something you do come across that is only happens in Iceland? I think some authors use particular Icelandic features such as remote landscapes and use that as a space for crime and suspense. And some use Icelandic folklore, sort of belief and ghosts and so on. So there are things that are particularly Icelandic but not something that is overall in all Icelandic crime writing. You said that crime writing in Iceland just took off when did this kind of wave of crime writing takeoff and what was the course of that, do you think? It didn't really take off until the late 1990s without another interest on work. There had been sporadic sort of writings for instance in the 1920s and again in the 1970s but nothing that spurred a tradition or a field. I think one of the reasons is just the modernization of the Icelandic society, especially of the urban society, not necessarily more crime because there is not much crime here, but there was just a sense that there is something hidden that needs to be discovered or need to be written. So there's not just one explanation why it started but because of interest on popularity, he became quite popular quite quickly. Other writers just saw an opportunity and publishers wanted to publish more crime writing and so it's sort of escalated from there. Do you have a feeling where we are in this wave of Icelandic crime? Is it at a peak? Do you see any signs of it abating or haven't we seen the top yet? We probably still not have not seen the top. I think one of the reasons it is so popular amongst authors and publishers at the moment is how popular is abroad. So it's easy to get things translated. Historically it's been very difficult to get Icelandic literature published and translated abroad. We are a very tiny society with there's not been much interest except in a couple of countries for Icelandic literature. But because now it seems that Icelandic crime writing travels quite well, it is quite popular among authors and publishers and I counted some of the titles that came out last year and I think there were about 14 crime novels which is quite a high number within this tiny market. And of course some of them don't sell at all and don't get any attention but still in the best selling The film is art-nilter, it's a serialer that I always thought of. It's still going strong. We haven't seen the pig yet, I think. Is there a spillover, do you think, from the popularity of Icelandic crime into TV shows and films that are being made in Iceland as well? Yes, but this has just happened in the last few years. There have been a couple of series that were made from Icelandic crime writing. There was a series from the books of Ivan Erdjosepson, and then there's a series that has been going for some years. There's a sort of a courtroom drama called Court, which is now being sold abroad, but I think the real break who came with the 2015 series Trapped. It was an original series not based on any books, but it really caught on an international attention quite quickly. How do you respond to people that say, "Island is a very small nation. They have maybe one or two murders a year, and they have this huge wave of crime writing." I think it shows very clearly that crime writing doesn't necessarily reflect any reality. The crime reading is a literary and cultural and an entertainment value rather than a reflection of actual crimes being committed. I think it just shows how little connection to any kind of criminal reality there is in crime writing. For instance, in the UK TV series, like Barnaby or something, where these tiny villages in the south of England are riddled with crime and murders, but of course we know they aren't. I think it just shows that it is much more a literary cultural factor and an entertainment factor rather than a reality. Iceland is very famous a couple of years ago of a big bank crisis that shocked the foundation of Iceland. Is that being reflected in crime? Seriously, this writing? Yes, it has in some ways. In some books it's more of a background, it's there because you can't ignore it. It was such a fee-small change in Icelandic society that's there in the background. Some people are addressing it directly. If the sea were to daughter in one of her books, part of it takes place in almost unbuilt neighborhood which was abandoned during the crash and so on. So it is definitely a feature. Gunt Thorin-Gudman Stotter. Thanks for listening to our Nordic Noir podcast. The reader in this episode was Billina Hoor. Production is by me Johan Gabriel-Sohn and Technical Production by Vlad Ladma. In the next episode we get the ingredients of the most successful TV shows to come out of Nordic Noir and we examine what we can learn or human nature from the world of crime. If you like what you heard, tell your friends, review us on iTunes and subscribe via your favorite podcast app. Goodbye. [Music]