Ian Rankin once said that if you want to find out about a country, read its
crime fiction. So it is with the novels of Arnaldur Indridason, the
Icelandic crime writer who has become an international sensation over the
past few years. This autumn Indridason has a UK hat-trick: the publication
of Arctic Chill (the English translation of his 2005 novel Vetrarborgin),
the release of a film based on his first novel, and the arrival of The
Draining Lake in paperback.
Indridason has written eight crime novels, five of which have so far been
translated into English. All are set in and around Reykjavík and feature the
curmudgeonly detective Erlendur Sveinsson, a middle-aged, divorced loner
with an estranged heroin-addict daughter and alcoholic son, who spends his
evenings alone reading true-life tales of people going missing in the
Icelandic wilderness.
The books give an insight into the idiosyncratic mindset of Icelanders,
something that has struck a chord with readers around the world.
Indridason's work has been published in 36 countries, and he's won umpteen
awards, most notably the CWA Gold Dagger in 2005 for Silence of the Grave,
an award that prompted the rather small-minded decision by the CWA to
exclude, in future, translated works from the main award, giving them their
own (less lucrative) International Dagger.
Indridason has single-handedly created the crime genre in his homeland, a
country whose famous medieval sagas left a legacy of high literary values
and a certain snobbishness about genre fiction. “We didn't have any
tradition in crime writing,” he says as we chat in the Nordic House Café,
views of Reykjavík spread outside the window. “It wasn't looked upon as any
form of literature at all. It was seen as dirt, considered cheap, a very
stupid thing.”
You wonder if anyone ever told him that to his face. In person Indridason is a
large, dominating presence with a serious expression, but he is friendly,
perceptive and soft spoken as we discuss his life and career.
Despite having a famous Icelandic writer, Indridi G. Thorsteinsson, for a
father, Indridason was initially reluctant to go into the family business.
He studied history at the University of Iceland, then went to work for the
national newspaper, Morgunbladid, as film critic. It was this experience, as
much as any reading, that bled into his crime writing. “I've seen so many
films, some good but many, many bad ones,” he laughs. “But both teach you
things. They teach you about character, constructing a plot, believability
and how to write a storyline. Movies had a great influence on me, people
often say they see it in my writing.”
The Erlendur novels are certainly cinematic, but there is also a sparseness
and a deadly dry sense of humour that make them distinctly Icelandic, both
traits found in the most famous Icelandic literature of all. “I am heavily
influenced by the Icelandic sagas,” he admits. “The sagas are huge stories
of families and events, murder and mayhem, and they were written on rare
cowskin so they had to be very concise. They don't use two words when one
will do, and I take my cue from that. If you describe things, keep it
simple, say what you need to say and go on with the story, never stop the
story.”
This storytelling ethic is one of the reasons for Indridason's success, and
his novels are certainly compulsively readable. They also cast insight into
the social and political upheaval in Iceland over the past couple of
generations; a society trying to balance a deep love of its heritage with
huge booms in technology, wealth and industry, trying to reconcile a love of
the past with a vision for the future.
“Iceland is a very exciting place to set a crime novel,” Indridason says. “In
the past 20 years it has opened up to all kinds of business and tourism and
we have our own history to deal with. We've changed from being a very poor
peasant society to a very rich modern society. Many people were left behind
and aren't at all happy with the new situation.”
Indridason tackles a lot of this through the relationship between Erlendur and
his younger and more forward-thinking sidekick Sigurdur Óli. It's an
archetypal central relationship for crime fiction, but Indridason imbues it
with unusual subtlety.
“I made Erlendur part of this history of Iceland,” he says. “I made him old
fashioned, looking back at the past and hating modern times. Sigurdur Óli
doesn't care a bit about the history of Iceland or the Icelandic sagas,
everything that Erlendur has so much feeling for.”
But Erlendur is far from being just a grumpy old man and shows great levels of
empathy with the victims he comes across. His one obsession is missing
persons cases, a very Icelandic phenomenon because of the merciless climate
and one of the highest suicide rates in the world. Erlendur's brother was
lost as a child in a snowstorm that Erlendur survived, and his body was
never found, giving the detective even more baggage to haul round with him.
Indridason may have created modern Icelandic crime fiction, but admits to
owing a debt to other Scandinavian writers, citing the likes of Peter Høeg,
Henning Mankell and the husband-and-wife team Maj Sjö- wall and Per Wahlöö,
who created the Martin Beck crime series set in Stockholm in the 1960s and
1970s.
“Those books were social realism,” he says. “Just the day-to-day doings, no
explosions or gunfights, just ordinary people like you and me. That fed into
my work, where I try to be absolutely real, write about characters who could
exist as real people.”
As the Erlendur series has progressed, Indridason has become more ambitious in
terms of subject matter and plot. In The Draining Lake, his fourth
translated work, the discovery of a body leads back to Communist East
Germany and deals with the conflict of political ideologies prevalent in
Iceland, where a strong Left-leaning populace was at odds with a vital
American military base. The new novel, Arctic Chill, deals with immigration
and paedophilia when a Thai boy is found stabbed near his school.
“I suppose my books do give an insight into the social and political life of
Iceland,” he says. “But it's not premeditated. I just write the story I want
with the characters I have, and it develops on its own.”
Meanwhile, an Icelandic-language film has been made of Jar City, the first of
the author's translated works (published as Tainted Blood in this country),
by Baltasar Kormákur, who directed the slacker indie hit 101 Reykjavík.
Released in the UK last week to critical acclaim, it is sure to boost the
author's profile. Indridason is in discussions about further film rights,
but for him the focus is on delivering more Erlendur books until he gets to
the bottom of his creation.
“Erlendur travels very well, doesn't matter whether it's Bulgaria, Greece or
Spain, he seems to have an effect on people,” he says. “And I still want to
know more about him. With every book I learn more. There will be more books
about him, until I've finished his story and it's time to get out. But I
don't know when that will be because he's still a mystery to me.”
Arctic Chill by Arnaldur Indridason, translated by Bernard Scudder and
Victoria Cribb
Harvill Secker, £11.99; 352pp Buy
the book here
The Draining Lake by Arnaldur Indridason, translated by Bernard Scudder
Vintage, £6.99; 304pp Buy
the book here
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