| Blogs > RoadNeverTaken > Just saying.... |
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My new anti-hero Kurt My name is Beth and I am a readoholic. This addiction has interfered with my duties as a mother and wife and can even affect my own health. My knew if Mom was in the middle of a book, canned soup and a sandwich was the dinner menu. I often chose to finish ‘reading this chapter’ as opposed to responding to my husband’s advances. Now that I live alone, I often eat whatever is easiest to prepare with one hand, just so I can use the other to hold my book. I have always enjoyed reading mysteries. Worked my way through all of Agatha Christie, Nevada Barr, JA Jance, Robert Ludlum and countless others. I read with real interest the cases of Donna Leon’s Commassario Brunetti’s Venetian mysteries. I enjoy the Eastern flavor of the Japanese mystery writers. I find Margaret Coel’s Father John and Vicky Holden an endearing detective team on the Wyoming Wind River Reservation. But I admit that my addiction has become even more serious now that I have been introduced to Swedish mystery novels. What is it about the Swedish mysteries that cause me to like them so much? I know I like to read mysteries that take place in a foreign venue (or foreign to me at least). I like the Japanese mysteries, the Italian mysteries and even the mysteries on the Rez. But I don’t have a stack of those books on the floor near my reading chair waiting for me to finish one so I can pick up another. I have become a chain reader. I suppose part of it IS the Swedish culture that seems acutely tied to the Swedish land and seascape. But it is the protagonists of Swedish mystery that draw me in. Perhaps those same protagonists are developed to mirror those land and seascapes in mind. Let’s all admit it – Lizbet Sanders has to be one of the most original anti-heroines even to step out of the page. “Expressively unexpressive” one film critic called Noomi Rapace’s portrayal of her onscreen. Her womanizing associate in uncloaking crime Mikael Blomkvist is also someone I generally like – even if I personally am uncomfortable with his relationship choices. And then there is Henning Mankell’s Kurt – Kurt Wallander. He is an absolute study in conflict. He is a Swedish Everyman. He is dumpy and sometimes dresses off the floor. He sometimes needs his gun and can’t remember where he put it. He hates to put bullets in it. Kurt is unhealthily overweight but he relentless pursues his target, doggedly extending his physical limits. Kurt believes in the law and then completely ignores it when justice is better served by rejecting legalities. Kurt’s relationship with the law often keeps him distant from those closest to him. His relationship with women reminds me of a middle-school boy. He is shy with women, prone to pouring his feelings out after a few drinks or in a fit of malaise. His colleagues put absolute trust in him but recognize that sometimes he is not above vigilante justice and that makes them uneasy. On the other hand, they worry about the lengths to which he will go in order to apprehend the culprit and will go wherever and whenever they have to in order to back him up. Kurt draws me in by the shear complexity of his nature. I’m not sure I would invite him to one of my parties, worried that he would rudely leave mid-sentence. I think I would enjoy having dinner with him if I knew he would really show up. I’m not sure, however, that anyone, even his , penetrates the veil to see what is really going on in his mind. I think I like him so much as a character because he is so difficult to categorize. He is predictable only in his unpredictability. And his tenacity. If I were a victim, I would want Kurt Wallander on my side. If I were a perpetrator, I would make sure I committed crimes outside of his jurisdiction. Oh, but wait, Kurt is not above violating jurisdictional boundaries to get his ‘man’. I’m not sure Kurt Wallander could keep his job if he was a detective anywhere in the United States. The law often speaks more loudly here than does justice. Kurt would be a thorn in any DA’s side. Maybe that’s why I like him so much. |
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11/11/2010 4:57 pm |
The thing I wonder about Kurt, as portrayed by that Brit whose name escapes at the moment, is when does he shave? He always seems to have three day's growth, no more, no less. How does he do it?
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11/12/2010 5:45 am |
Thanks for your response. I suspect I will keep writing the way I write becuase that is what I like to do. I would rather have a smaller audience who enjoys thinking more critically than a larger audience that would enjoy lighter writing. I guess it's the difference between those who would choose Marley and Me over a classic like Call of the Wild. In the end, both enjoy themselves so it's all good.
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