Sjöwall & Wahlöö
In spare moments, I’ve been reading The Terrorists (1975), the last book of Sjöwall & Wahlöö’s crime series.
It begins with a scene of grotesquely comical political violence in South America.
My favorite policeman in the series, Gunvald Larsson, is on hand for the occasion. A fastidious dresser, he’s delighted to find that the banana republic he’s visiting has excellent tailors. (Apparently, tailoring is no longer practiced as a skilled craft in Sweden.) He commissions a new suit to be made for him.
This suit is, of course, ruined during the political upheaval.
A little later, in Stockholm, a young woman is brought to trial for robbing a bank. It’s proven that the “robbery” was a misunderstanding. All the young woman had done was to ask for money and to place a bag on the teller’s counter for the money to be put in. The teller had interpreted these actions as extremely threatening.
These facts are drawn out through the testimony of two other recurring characters, the bumbling patrolmen Kristiansson and Kvastmo.
Next, a famous pornographer is fatally coshed in his mistress’s house. The now very high-ranking detective Martin Beck is assigned to the case. He and a junior detective, Benny Skacke, spend a morning watching one of the pornographer’s movies, Love in the Midnight Sun.
At first, the junior detective winces uncomfortably at all the nudity. Then he yawns. The movie is very boring and unerotic.
This is clearly a lampooning of those Swedish “masterpieces” of the late 1960s, I Am Curious (Yellow) and I Am Curious (Blue), which are now in the Criterion Collection. (No, I haven’t watched them.)
As I’ve read through its ten books, Sjöwall & Wahlöö’s series has reminded me of something else I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Something with lots of recurring, cartoon-like characters and scenes of wry screwball comedy.
Now I know what it is.
It’s Tintin.
It begins with a scene of grotesquely comical political violence in South America.
My favorite policeman in the series, Gunvald Larsson, is on hand for the occasion. A fastidious dresser, he’s delighted to find that the banana republic he’s visiting has excellent tailors. (Apparently, tailoring is no longer practiced as a skilled craft in Sweden.) He commissions a new suit to be made for him.
This suit is, of course, ruined during the political upheaval.
A little later, in Stockholm, a young woman is brought to trial for robbing a bank. It’s proven that the “robbery” was a misunderstanding. All the young woman had done was to ask for money and to place a bag on the teller’s counter for the money to be put in. The teller had interpreted these actions as extremely threatening.
These facts are drawn out through the testimony of two other recurring characters, the bumbling patrolmen Kristiansson and Kvastmo.
Next, a famous pornographer is fatally coshed in his mistress’s house. The now very high-ranking detective Martin Beck is assigned to the case. He and a junior detective, Benny Skacke, spend a morning watching one of the pornographer’s movies, Love in the Midnight Sun.
At first, the junior detective winces uncomfortably at all the nudity. Then he yawns. The movie is very boring and unerotic.
This is clearly a lampooning of those Swedish “masterpieces” of the late 1960s, I Am Curious (Yellow) and I Am Curious (Blue), which are now in the Criterion Collection. (No, I haven’t watched them.)
As I’ve read through its ten books, Sjöwall & Wahlöö’s series has reminded me of something else I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Something with lots of recurring, cartoon-like characters and scenes of wry screwball comedy.
Now I know what it is.
It’s Tintin.