Crime
fiction is more popular than ever & Nordic Noir is a whole new genre in
books, film & TV. Stieg Larsson & Jussi Adler-Olsen are the leaders
here & I do not doubt their mastery of the genre. I just don't want to read
or see it myself. Two of Adler-Olsen's books have been filmed & in both
cases the trailers were quite enough for me. In a word - yuck! The second
started today, but friends who saw the first one have confirmed my first
impression; dark & gruesome - yuck! Some thought it was great anyway. The
English title is poetic: The Keeper of
Lost Causes, but the Danish title says it straight - Kvinden i Buret / The Woman in the Cage.
In hard
times, say the gurus & critics, crime fiction is especially popular because
it presents an awful situation - not unlike one's own only with murder as the
spice - but you get the solution at the end & if you've guessed right you
get that warm 'aren't I clever' feeling as well. Yep, that's us anno 2014 all right.
A month ago
the Svend Awards were awarded here in Svendborg. They are audience awards where
just plain folks vote for their favorites, professional reviewers
go hang. Two years ago the big favorite film got a hard time from the
critics, so the director gushed, very understandably, "These are the real awards!" Okay, films are made
to please moviegoers & pack the house, but if the critics like your film as
well, even better. The big winner this year was - you guessed it - The Woman in the Cage. They even had to
think up a new award - Best Non-Danish Actor in a Danish Film - so co-star
Fares Fares could join the fun. I voted for the film that is the Danish entry
for an Oscar, an intimate & painful story about the director's marriage
& career in the years after his wife killed their infant daughter (off
camera). The Danish title is Sorg og
Glæde, Sorrow & Joy. Who knows how they will translate it, but as usual
the Danish title says it straight.
But just to show that even a Scrappy Old Bat
can be up on trends, I here present World's Shortest Crime Novel / Krimi, in
both Danish & English:
DK: Den lyd igen – han
stod som lammet, bange, skamfuld. Hun var på fri fod nu og ingen kunne vide
hvad den skøre jaloux kælling, han engang elskede, kunne finde på. Søg i
mørket, rystende. Opfør dig som en mand. Han tog et enkelt skridt frem. Deres
tykke røde kat gled frem fra skyggerne og kiggede op på ham, undskyldende.
”Dumme
kat!”
Han grinede så højt at han slet ikke hørte
suset fra hendes kniv.
GB: That noise again – he froze, afraid, ashamed. She was free now, and who
knew what that crazy jealous bitch he once loved might think up. Search the
dark, shaking. Come on, be a man. He took one step forward. Their fat orange
cat slipped from the shadows and looked up at him, apologizing.
“Stupid cat!”
He
laughed so hard he never heard the whish of her knife.
My
copyright, everybody. Aren't I clever?
