Reykjavík Grapevine - 06.10.2017, Blaðsíða 46

Books 46The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 18 — 2017
The Viking Crimelords
Snorri Kristjánsson's Kin Takes Nordic Noir to
Strange Old Places
Words: Björn Halldórsson Photo: Gunnar Freyr Steinsson
Next March, Snorri Kristjánsson's
fourth novel, ‘Kin,’ will be released
by Jo Fletcher, a UK publisher fo-
cusing on works of science fic-
tion and fantasy,
and home to several
award-winning au-
thors. It’s the start
of a new series en-
titled ‘The Helga
Finnsdóttir Myster-
ies.’ Fans of Snorri
might already be
familiar with the
eponymous main
protagonist, who first appeared
as a minor character in Snorri's
second book, ‘Blood Will Follow.’
“[Helga] was a rather mi-
nor, two-dimensional character
when she first popped up,” says
Snorri. “But once she was there,
she was so much fun to write.
She started pushing against the
other characters, stepping on
their toes, and inserting herself
more and more into the story.”
The transition to a female pro-
tagonist is an abrupt change for
Snorri. “I'm actually a bit terri-
fied,” he admits. “My first three
books were—let's
face it—very male-
centric. Now, how-
ever, the main pro-
tagonist is a young
wom a n, a nd we
must face facts and
admit that I am not
a young woman.
I'm venturing far
outside my com-
fort zone. It'll be interesting to
see how that will be received.”
Crime in a lawless time
The book is a genre-bending work
that incorporates elements of Nor-
dic crime literature into a Viking
fiction setting. This came with
its own unique set of challenges.
“Providing an acceptable solution
to a murder mystery can get you
in a pretty tight spot when there
is no forensic science around,”
ruminates Snorri. “Also, ponder-
ing what constitutes illegality in
a world without a central legisla-
tive power; what is a crime, in that
case? That's when you realise how
thoroughly entwined with hu-
man nature the detective story is.”
Having a woman play the role
of the detective in an era when
women had little to no societal
power might seem like an odd
choice, but Snorri is adamant
that women's position at the time
contained more possibilities than
it might seem at first. “I tried to
weave in their everyday realities,”
he explains. “For example, the sig-
nificance of a woman losing her
husband, what it implies for her
and her daughter, and what means
they have of negotiating their own
situation afterwards. It's very in-
teresting to look at how female
characters navigate a world where
maintaining a threatening per-
sona is the major currency. They
either must find themselves a
man that can protect them with
the prospect of violence, or ne-
gotiate with other women who
are under the protection of such
violence. Another possibility is
sorcery. Someone thought to be
capable of sorcery gains a pow-
erful status in the community.”
Real-world presence
The gritty realism of the detective
novel did clash with the world of
Viking fiction. But Snorri found
ways of mitigating these differ-
ences. “It was important that there
was nothing that broke away from
reality,” he explains. “However, for
the Vikings, conferring with Óðinn
was part of everyday life. Maybe
that just meant knowing where
to pick the right mushrooms. But
their reality had more elastic-
ity to it. There was a thinner veil
between our own world and that
of gods, and magic, back then.”
Get Your Read On
Recommended Icelandic books in English
Words: Björn Halldórsson
Each issue, we take a look at two
Icelandic titles old and new, avail-
able in English at most Reyk-
javík bookstores. If you’d like
more ideas, or to read more on
Icelandic literature, head over
to gpv.is/lit for in-depth author
interviews, guides, and more
book reviews.
Arnaldur Indriðason –
Reykjavík Nights
Fans of Arnaldur Indriðason will
already be familiar with his lead-
ing figure, the brooding and misan-
thropic Detective Erlendur. In this
book, Arnaldur successfully pulls
off the crime writer's classic trick of
returning a major character to their
earliest years on the police force.
The action takes place in 1974. Erlen-
dur is still in uniform, crisscrossing
the city in a black maria along with
his fellow officers, rubbing shoul-
ders with the city's undesirables and
finding foes and confidants among
the crooks and derelicts. When an
old bum with whom he’s acquainted
is found drowned in a pond and a
young woman disappears after
a night on the town, no one sees
a reason to connect their misfor-
tunes except for Erlendur, who for
personal reasons has a keen inter-
est in missing persons. The delight
of the novel is the vision it provides
of the dark and gritty Reykjavík of
the 1970s—isolated from the rest
of the world and filled with des-
perate people recently arrived in
the capital in search of a better life.
Yrsa Sigurðardóttir –
Ashes to Dust
In 1973, the volcanic eruption of
Eldfell threatened to permanently
displace the people of Heimaey, the
largest of the Westman Islands and
home to 5000 inhabitants. Over 400
hundred homes were destroyed by
lava flow or buried in mounds of ash
during the eruption and the rescue
work surrounding the evacuation
of the islanders is a proud moment
in Iceland's history. These events
provide the backdrop for Yrsa Sig-
urðardóttir's ‘Ashes to Dust,’ which
is set in the modern day Westman
Islands. Þóra Guðmundsdóttir,
Yrsa's heroine from previous nov-
els, has gotten the job of helping
to retrieve a mysterious property
from the cellar of one of the buried
houses—something that the owner,
a teenager at the time of the erup-
tion, doesn't want anyone else to
see. When the contents of the cellar
are revealed to be human remains,
Þóra must start an investigation
to clear her client's name, but she
finds that the islanders are curi-
ously tight-lipped about the history
of the house and its inhabitants.
gpv.is/lit
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Snorri Kristjánsson
"For the Vi-
kings, con-
ferring with
Óðinn was a
part of ev-
eryday life."
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