Swedish Crime Fiction: Karin Alvtegen and Henning Mankell

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I've just read Betrayal ^second and Sidetracked ^first one after another after receiving comments from Bookpusher and Reg Keeland on my Stieg Larsson post The Girl Who Played with Fire, and I thank them for introducing me to more Swedish writers of crime fiction.

Apart from anything else it's the cultural voice that attracts me. 'Foreign' crime fiction is a hybrid form of travel writing. Exotic. Different customs.With violent death thrown in as an extra cultural custom. Setting is a major factor in my enjoyment. And the anthropological archaeology of everyday life. I'm fascinated about what people have for breakfast and where they live and why they live there and how they balance life and work and childcare and work. And what they offer visitors for refreshments. Does the word 'thermos' have the same meaning as here - an insulated liquid container used for traveling. In Sidetracked someone offered Wallender coffee from a thermos. It seemed very odd in the context of home. And I'm interested in how the weather affects them. Why would all the parents meeting in the childcare centre all wear blue plastic booties?? Who supplies such things and why? And I'm interested in how the national political climate impacts on them. The gender balance in parliamentary representatives. And the frequent references to boats and the leisure lifestyles of sailing. They seem so common. Very attractive for this Australian landlocked lubber. And cultural aspects of crime where criminals escape seamlessly to neighbouring European countries or to former colonial outposts not familiar to this 7th (I lose count, it's a long while since James Ogden boarded 'The Alexandria') generation descendant of an English convict.

I need to have confidence in the translation and I'm still working out how this is achieved. It's that elusive 'voice' factor again. Mimetic rhetoric. And how on earth do you translate style and flair? Still, I know from reading other translated works over the years that enjoyment of same is entirely possible. It's just that I need to cogitate on it a little longer.

As a former ESL teacher with a Grad Dip in teaching English as a foreign language and a Masters in teaching English to speakers of other languages, I have quite a keen appreciation for semantic nuances and style and voice that may be quite difficult to reproduce in another language. The Karin Alvtegen website contains a few such typos or mistranslations - glaring enough to be off-putting for a native-speaker. Surely Alvtegen means that she avoids fiction when writing her own (not non-fiction) so that she doesn't mime the voice of another writer?

What is it about violent crime that is so fascinating? Why do we follow the plot glued with bated breath? Blood of others freaks me out. My own blood gushing isn't so exciting either. Is it the compelling horror of psyches acting out their distorted dramas in real life? And why is it always usually the damaged relationship with the mother that has caused such evil to erupt? A psychological truth common to all cultures?

I preferred Alvtegen to Mankell whilst thoroughly enjoying them both. Sidetracked was a classic police procedural: divorced copper struggling to maintain personal relationships whilst devoting most of his time to the greater good of society (and inflicting infinite irreparable harm on his own relationships); professional rivalry at all levels; the extreme dedication required for the job; the combative relationship with the media; police molls; prostitution rings involving slave-trading in very young 'foreign' girls; powerful men with venal urges and the money to satisfy them; the arrogance of wealth and its comparison with middle-class values; the personal threat to the detective. I hesitate to say cliched because the characterisation of the killer was skilfully done integrating Native American rituals and the trauma of child abuse. The initial connecting of links between the serial murders was also an enjoyable cerebral puzzle. At first I thought the Epilogue was unnecessary but then I understood the need for the reader to be cleansed of such horrific mental stigma; it represented a deliberate effort to return the reader to a world where good people still live attempting to repair the damaged relationships in their own lives where all win. And it was all about the evil of the male gender. Again. The sexual excesses. The sexual perversions. The physical strength and violence to act out on those excesses. This surely should be the subject of your next doctorate.

Betrayal was none of that. It did share a youthful damaged male protagonist with a violently truncated maternal relationship and a violent home life where the male parent philandered to his heart's desire demanding that the child collude in his evasiveness. The innocent blank canvas of the young soul that is butchered and battered as a byproduct of the behavior of the developmentally delayed older generation. Alcohol. Absent father. Shady work practices. Poor education.

However the theme and fulcrum of this novel revolved around marital fidelity. Honest and open communication. And the sheer revengeful energy that can erupt when this goes wrong. A woman spurned and all that. Think The Ex-wives Club in Swedish with one character. The interesting aspect was the normality of the reactions. No child-damaged psyche here for the wife at least. It could happen to anyone. Betrayal (how apt the title) charts the territory of sexual jealousy and the archaeological minefield of emotional trust.

It's about moral bankruptcy in such a way that places much of the interest in the beautifully devised plot on the philosophy of sexual fidelity. There's a reference to an Ekhart lecture along the lines that each time we act, that we do something, a choice presents itself and this is momentous.There's an emphasis on choices and consequences and our total responsibility. So obvious is this theme that Alvtegen speaks further about this on her website:

"That it is the little moments in life we should treasure, because nobody knows what may happen next. The only thing we know for certain that will follow us throughout the rest of our lives, are the consequences of those actions and choices we are making at this very moment."

I noted the comparison to Ruth Rendell on the back cover but Rendell has never plotted so skilfully as this. Sustained the same tension through psychological terror, yes. Structurally organised her novels as perfectly as this? Not that I remember. A kind of structural chiasmus occurs between the first and last chapters. Same circumstances. Different coma victims.This is a textual integrity that is breathtaking to observe. In particular there are two mirror chapters from two different perspectives on the placement of a diary and a non-gendered message and a non-gendered blond lock of hair in the wife's underwear drawer. Another form of structural chiasmus used brilliantly to reference the same event and to convey two different perspectives and to show how easy it is to draw two different and erroneous conclusions. Brilliant plotting using such technical devices. Breathtaking.

I was very interested in the moral implications of the rage of the childcare centre workers and parents when Linda attempted suicide. Was Alvtegen being ironic? Attempted suicide invokes sympathy overriding moral indignation when the same person seduces the father of one of her toddler charges, thus destroying the stability of the child's home. Is this a Swedish cultural attitude that I don't get?

For a slightly different view on Sidetracked you can read The Genteel Arsenal's review.

Will I be reading more Swedish crime writing? Just try stopping me!

Comments

[Sharon (Bookpusher)]

Another great insightful post. I also wonder about translations. I also enjoy reading books from places other, from cultures foreign, for similar reasons, looking for that insiders view. Sweden has suddenly become rather interesting. Always really enjoy reading your posts, you have a great knack of enhancing the reading experience.

[Reg Keeland]

Steph, Thanks for an amazingly insightful analysis of these two books (both translated by me, Steven T. Murray -- real name -- although 6 years apart). Look at my Wikipedia page for some more suggestions. And Karoline, it's not always the translator who engenders the puzzlement: often the author, the Swedish editor, and/or the English editor have a big hand in it too! The translator is the closest reader the text will ever have after the author is done with it, having to take sentences apart brick by brick and reconstruct them in another language, while retaining the author's original tone as much as possible. One reason why almost all good translators are middle-aged; it takes years of practice. Thanks for reading! Steve/Reg in New Mexico

[Karoline]

that certainly sounds interesting. I find it hard to find "outside" crime fiction. I do recall some Japanese authors but alas, sometimes the translation is so muddled you're left being puzzled. I think it's always the translation that's the problem with reading fiction from other parts of the world.