When reading Peter’s post at Detectives Without Borders Test detect traces of humor in Swedish crime novel immediately sprang to my mind another example from one of the bleakest voices in Nordic crime, Arnaldur Indridason:
‘In the middle of the Christmas rush,’ he groaned. ‘I can’t understand how this could happen! How could it happen?’ he repeated leaving them in no doubt as to how totally perplexed he was.
‘Is he up or down?’ Erlendur asked.
‘Up or down?’ the fat manager puffed. ‘Do you mean whether he’s gone to heaven?’
‘Yes,’ Erlendur said. ‘That’s exactly what we need to know…’
A Crime is Afoot 
I’ve also made a post about Arnaldur’s jokes in “Arctic Chill”: http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/2009/09/icy-jokes.html And how about the opening scene of “Silence of the Grave”? He may be bleak, but Arnaldur is capable of good jokes and amusing scenes.
Ah! Eso es, Jose Ignacio. If there is indeed a Nordic or Scandinavian sense of humour (and I have it in mind that the peoples of those states may not like us lumping them together as we are for the purposes of this thread), its hallmark is dryness, and it’s dry as a Tanqueray martini in Iceland’s case. You offer a perfect example. I’ve read about twenty-five Scandinavian crime writers to date, and I can’t say that a sense of humour has been much in the air. In Sweden, Sjowall and Wahloo certainly have/had one, and it is certainly dry. In Norway, Jo Nesbo bypasses dry, goes straight to sardonic, then plunges down the black hole from which no humour can emerge.
José Ignacio – Thanks for sharing this little dose of dry humour. That dry humour (and it’s sometimes even more subtle than the example you mention) can be a really welcome relief when a a novel is particularly bleak.
José Ignacio – Thanks for sharing this little dose of dry humour. That dry humour (and it’s sometimes even more subtle than the example you mention) can be a really welcome relief when a novel is particularly bleak.
Jose Ignacio: I never expect humour when reading crime fiction. I consider it a bonus if there is some humour.
I dunno. Sometimes the very lack of humor — and the glacial bluntness — is funny. It’s part of what makes so much Nordic crime fiction so ripe for parody.
“Olaf Fliggersensen came home from his morning jog to find Milla, his boss’s wife and his former lover, naked and hanging from a hook in the ceiling of his bedroom. She had no pulse. He got a large pot of coffee brewing and called the local police.”