DETECTIVES TO REMEMBER (AND ADMIRE)–PART 2
A detective from fiction whom I greatly admire is Kurt Wallander. By now, Wallander and his creator Henning Mankell have both attained legendary standing. Three different actors–two Swedish (Krister Henriksson, Rolf Lassgard) and one British (Kenneth Branagh)–have played Wallander onscreen, testament to the character’s mystique and following.
Wallander lives in the southeast Swedish town of Ystad. Mankell often drapes his scenes with the cold and dark of winter, but in real life, Ystad summers exist and can be lovely.
Ystad, summer. Murder in such a delightful setting? (Photo: blojfo)
I must confess that after seeing the Swedish TV series with Henriksson, I find it unsettling to watch the BBC series, which has characters speaking British English in the middle of Ystad with its Swedish street signs and police vehicles marked Polis.
Street in Ystad (Photo: Pawel Szcepanski)
Swedish police vehicle ( Photo: Tupungato)
Anyone want to have a go at translating the word LEDNINGSFORDON in the above photo?
The clarity of Mankell’s writing style should not be mistaken for simplicity. Rather than showing some parts of the story in real time, he often tells it so that the reader experiences the passage of time in “chunks,” as in this passage from The Fifth Woman in which Mankell describes Wallander and his team working a case:
They continued with the painstaking work. They recorded everything they knew about Eriksson’s life. Svedberg spent long evenings reading carefully through the books of poetry Ericsson had published. In the end, he thought he would go mad if read any more about the spiritual complexities that existed in the world of birds, but he’d gained no insight into Eriksson.
In other words, Mankell chose not to play the scene(s). We don’t know, for instance, how many long evenings Svedberg spent going through Eriksson’s books of poetry. Playing a scene in real time might read something like this:
Two days later, Wallander walked into the office to find Martinsson and Svedberg painstakingly recording everything they knew so far about Eriksson.”I was up until nearly midnight reading Eriksson’s poetry last night,” Svedberg was saying. “I think I’ll go mad if I read anything more about the complexities of birds.”
Does this challenge that well-worn maxim to writers, Show, don’t tell? Maybe, but then Mankell is Mankell. He can do what he wants. It’s part of his style, and his readers like it.
Wallander himself is complicated (I avoid that worn phrase, “complex character.”) Sometimes while on a case, his mind wanders to other things related or unrelated–how his father or daughter is doing–and sometimes the thoughts just pop into his head. I consider this one of the unique aspects of Mankell’s stories and portrayal of the character. Wallander also sleeps poorly and often has vivid and unpleasant dreams. In the novels, he and his team drink liters and liters of coffee–far more than shown on the TV show–probably in keeping with Sweden’s massive consumption of the beverage and the tradition of fika. Wallander also consumes a lot of alcohol, especially when he is brooding or despondent, which happens often and seems to match the long, dark and brutally cold Nordic winters. Mind you, he doesn’t complain about the cold. No true Swede does.
We love Wallander because of his humility and ordinariness in the midst of his brilliance. He has tenacity even as he sometimes wonders about the futility of life and the grisly deaths he investigates.
Next: Inspector Morse
