Comparing Phryne Fisher

Phryne Fisher

This entry was prompted by an anonymous note to another Swedish Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries fan on Tumblr, that got me thinking a little about the status of children's literature.

The Tumblr-note was about comparing Phryne Fisher to James Bond (e.g. here) and Indiana Jones. The latter was actually used by one of the producers, Fiona Eagger in the article about the future of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries I shared in my discussion about the subject. The anonymous author of the note also suggested Pippi Longstocking as a better comparisson and I could not agree more.

Phryne is an Astrid girl, which I have written an entry about before. (I have also discussed Jack Robinson as an "Astrid boy" here and here.) Pippi is good to use worldwide since she is the most famous of them, not least in the English-speaking world since I have understood that none of Astrid Lindgren's other books are particularly well-known there.

Pippi Långstrump, Herr Nilsson and Lilla Gubben
Orginal illustration by Ingrid Vang Nyman

As I talked about in my entry about Phryne and the Astrid girls, I think Madicken is an even better comparisson than Pippi because of the time period, the beautiful dresses, the little sister, the recklessness, the air planes and social issues. However, Pippi and Phryne certainly share a lot of qualities as well. Pippi is reckless, brave, outspoken and strong (both physically and mentally), but she is also tender, loving, caring and compassionate. Just like Phryne!

The latter, traditionally more female characteristics do both James Bond and Indiana Jones lack. Both of them are quite stereotypical macho men and this is the main reason why I do not like to compare Phryne to them. Unlike both Mr Bond and Dr Jones, and similar to both Pippi and Madicken (and the other Astrid children), Phryne uses her empathy and compassion as a strenght. This, I feel is extremely important to point out. We have a pop-cultural situation where the "macho man" is the norm and the only female characters who are considered strong, are those who are more or less just female version of that stereotype. I have discussed this topic before in both my Heroine entry of Phryne herself and the one about Johanne Hildebrandt's book Idun. We do not need any more emotionally closed off characters in today's pop-culture and comparing Phryne is actually sort of a depriciation of her as a character.

Madicken and Lisabet
Orginal illustration by Ilon Vikland

I have no idea why no one of the people creating Phryne have ever said anything about her similarities to (at least) Pippi. It might just be because of Astrid Lindgren not being so well-known in the English-speaking parts of the world, but it might also be the usual depriciation of children's literature.

Traditionally, children's literature has had a lower status and the ones writing for children have been seen as secondary authors. This actually even happened to Astrid Lindgren in the 1970's when there were first talk about giving the Nobel Prize to her. This was also a time, when the Swedish Academy (who are in charge of the Nobel Prize in litarture) was looking into taking in more women. Astrid was already then so famous and loved, that she would have been an obvious addition. However, she had some enemies, not least the author Artur Lundkvist who more or less meant that children's authors could not write real books.

I do not agree to this view at all. I think children's literature is the most important one. Reading as a child most often leads to you reading as an adult. Reading literature can change us and our perception of the world. It gives us knowledge but also the ability to process that knowledge to reach deeper understandings, something that is extremely forgotten and overseen today. This is why I think you should read, but you need someone to show you the basics first. So never underestimate children's literature. Good role models are always nice to have and if you find similarities with a character you have just got to know and want to tell someone else about, use them!

"I want to write for a readership that can create miracles. Children create miracles when they read. That’s why children need books." 

~ Astrid Lindgren

And about the quarrel between Artur Lundkvist and Astrid Lindgren. One can say that the former is almost totally forgotten among Swedes in general today while the latter has more or less become a saint...

The Detective and the Rose - Jack Robinson and Rosie

Jack and Rosie, Murder most scandalous

I mentioned Rosie Sanderson in my post about Jack Robinson, but never talked about her so much and I know you all prefer Phryne Fisher as Jack's companion (the whole Phrack thing) and I do too, but I think it is important to talk about Rosie as well.

We do not really get to know much about Jack's first marriage more than the fact that the First World War drove he and his wife apart. Rosie is vaguely mentioned already in Murder on the Ballarat Train and we get small glimpses into their estranged marriage, until we hear they get a divorce in Murder in the Dark at the end of season 1.

We (and Phryne) get to meet Rosie for the first time in Murder most Scandalous, the first episode of season 2 and she is part of the overarching plotline in that season. She is the daughter of the Deputy Commisioner, George Sanderson and we and Jack find out that she is now engaged to her father's godson Sidney Fletcher.

Rosie, Marked for Murder

I do not hate Rosie! In fact I feel sorry for her. She does not really do anything wrong. She seems to come from a privileged household and she was probably raised into a traditional female role. I discussed the thought of "the ideal woman" in my entry about Phryne and the Astrid Lindgren girls. It originated among the bourgeois in late 18th century Europe. The bourgeois woman was considered more or less too fragile to do anything.The man was the one out in society. He created it and did so to fit himself. The woman, on the other hand, was confined to the home where her main task was to please the bourgeois man who's guidance she needed to move through life. She was her husband's subordinate in everything and she was supposed to love him submissively. During the late 19th century, these gender roles spread to other social classes, which is quite strange since experiences from basically every other social class proved that women were just as capable as men.

These gender roles are interesting in relation to Rosie, Phryne and Jack and explains their characters and actions pretty well. We do not know if Rosie belonged to a working class family before her father gained power and titles in the police force. The fact that she married a working class man (Jack) seems to indicate this. She could have married "down" of course, the system provided women with far more opportunities to move in the class system of that time than men, but we can assume she was born rather privileged. This would also mean that she was raised to fit into the category of the ideal woman at the time, described above. This means that she was raised to not have anything to do with society outside the home and to marry and support someone like her father.

Phryne meeting Rosie for the first time, Murder Most Scandalous

Compare this to Phryne who was not raised among the bourgeois. Instead, she was raised very poor and in the lower societal classes, the women had to be out and about to provide for their families just as the men did. In theory, the women were subordinated the men, but in practice they were more or less equal. This meant that she is much more used to defy the norm of the woman (and the man) that is considered a static trait among the bourgeois. Instead of idolising her father like Rosie does hers. She more or less loathes him.

Jack and Rosie, Murder most scandalous

This background explains how they both deal with men, including Jack. Rosie idolises her father and wants Jack to have a career like his. The series has not given us any facts about Jack's character prior to the war. Therefore it remains my own speculation to think that he was probably not too content or happy with the prospect of imitating his father-in-law's career even then. For short, Rosie is not used to bend societal norms. She treats Jack like her father, because that is the only type of man she knows of. I also think this is why her marriage to Jack collapsed after the war. Again, we are not told or shown what actually happened, but due to Jack's sensitive nature, one might guess he was depressed and/or shell shocked which was the term used for PTSD at the time. This was probably something entirely new to Rosie and the fact that she was raised to more or less "obey" the norms to whatever cost probably did not help.

Jack and Rosie, Murder Most Scandalous

Similar to Rosie, Phryne also treats Jack like she would her father. Actually Concetta Fabrizzi  is the only one of the three women in Jack's life that we are aware of, that does not seem to do that (I am saving Concetta for a future Phrack post.). Phryne also tend to seek male bed partners that is similar to her father. However, Jack is nothing like Henry Fisher and while Rosie does not really seem to realise she hurts Jack, Phryne does. Even though Phryne is unfamiliar with men like Jack, she does not follow the norms as strictly as Rosie does and therefore is not unfamiliar with people who fall out of them... like Jack.

Jack, Murder most Scandalous

I have compared Jack to the Astrid Lindgren boys before and the comparison works even in this case. He is neither like George Sanderson nor Henry Fisher. He is sensitive, introvered and rather emotional. I find it interesting to compare him to the hero of the book Mio min Mio (Mio my Mio). When he lives in Stockholm and is called Bo Vilhelm Olsson, he learns that boys need to be tough and brave and should never show emotions. He is never happy with this and really blooms out only when he gets to Landet i fjärran (The land of far away) and becomes prince Mio. There he can really let go of the boy norms and show how scared he is, be emotional and even hug his best friend Jum-Jum. This is also when he becomes a super hero, saving all the children from the evil Riddar Kato with a heart of stone. Jack is pretty much the same. He becomes happy when he can break free of the male norm and be his own fantastic self.

Jack: "I went to war a newlywed"
Phryne: "But you came home."
Jack: "Not the man my wife married... 16 years ago"

 ~ Raisins and Almonds

Like I said in the beginning of this (too) long post, I do not hate Rosie and I do not think the series wants us to either. In fact, Rosie's plotline is a rather tragic one. Rosie does everything right according to the book, but still comes out on the losing end of things and I do not think she ever understands what went wrong. It is obvious that she still trusts and cares for Jack (not least because of the fact that she is openly jealous of Phryne), but she does not know how to love him. The same goes for Jack I think. He still cares for Rosie (He comforts her at the end of Unnatural habits.), but he knows he cannot be the man she needs and he does not love her (He goes to Phryne instead.).

Jack and Rosie, Unnatural Habits

A continuation of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries?

There has finally been some news about the future of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries which has made the fanbase more or less totally crazy. I have to say though, that as much as I want more about Phryne Fisher, Jack Robinson and everyone else, I still cannot help feeling a little cautious towards it.

Now, before you turn against me completely, please hear me out on this! A lot of franchises have suffered in recent years more or less due to overuse just because they became so popular that their creators would not let them finish.

I have seldom seen this issue being addressed, but Swedish comedian and author Jonas Gardell did so in the Swedish newspaper Expressen in March this year in the wake of the Swedish rock band Kent announcing they were going to retire. (Both links are in Swedish.)

"Lena Philipsson sjunger att kärleken är evig! Men hon sjunger det bara i tre minuter!" ("Lena Philipsson sings that love is eternal! But she sings it only for three minutes!")

~ Jonas Gardell, Modigt av Kent att sätta punkt

Gardell talks about the trend in pop-culture of today that nothing gets to have an ending. Even the more serious dramas do not get to end, with lesser quality as time goes by. Gardell himself wrote a series of three books called Torka aldrig tårar utan handskar (Never dry tears without gloves) about a group of homosexual men in Sweden during the 1980's when the first outbreak of HIV happened. It is such a wonderfully, sad plot that really touches your heart. (I have long intended to make a post about those books and the three part TV series that goes with it, but it is emotionally exhausting.) Both books and TV-series have had a lot of international success and the US industry thought about doing an American remake of it. However, they changed their minds because they did not know how to make more. Everyone dies!

I think Jonas Gardell has a point in letting something end even though there is a demand for more from the public. I love Phryne Fisher and all the others and I love Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, but I do not want it to turn bad just because of the demand for more. Fiona Eagger says in the article about the future of the show: "The fan base is so passionate. If you've got a successful franchise, why not (make more than one movie)?" which actually served as a warning bell to me. If they should continue the Miss Fisher universe, I think it would be best if they focused mostly on the matter of having a story to tell. And I might be an archaeologist, but I do not want a "female Indiana Jones". I want Phryne! I am for them making films, but they need to do it for the right reasons. Back in May I wrote a post on my Tumblr blog about how amazing it could be if Phryne would go to Sweden. The Nordic countries are often sadly overlooked, not least historically (For example the Tudors pale in comparisson to the contemporary Scandinavian royal dynasties!). We have a lot to offer and Phryne would probably fit in very well. I imagine she would like the Folkhemmet ideal (the open-minded and including part, not the racist and elitist one!), befriend Swedish forensic scientist Harry Söderman. Sweden was actually the country which invented scientific racism as a discipline back in 1922, we also passed a law of compulsory sterilization in 1934 because some people were not considered fit to procreate. I think this would be able to serve as a backdrop for a Phryne plot line. After all, there is a Swedish Murder Mysteries series about these issues. However, I would not want a story because it is a popular franchise. I want it only as long as it is good!

And about the whole prequel: I have a hard time seeing how they can make it canon based on the facts we have been given about Phryne's background in both books and TV shows. To me, Phryne is the way she is because of the war and René Dubois. An 18 year old Phryne would not have had time to reflect on the war which would probably make her rather much of a mess. René would also be lurking around the corner and I just do not see how they could make it work with a teenage Phryne being the same as her fantastic, hedonistic wonderful adult self.

I am sorry that I am so pessimistic towards a continuation of the Phryne Fisher franchise, but I have seen it happen to the Swedish Beck and Wallander franchises and I see it happens to the Harry Potter one at this very moment. Series that were once good, but then became overused and empty, turning fans against them instead.

Death at Victoria Dock - TV vs Book

Phryne Fisher

Death at Victoria Dock is the fourth book and the fourth TV-episode about the Honourable Phryne Fisher. However, the second book, Flying too High was never turned into a TV episode. It is still the fourth episode however, since for some unknown reason the TV version of the book after, The Green Mill Murder, was placed before Death at Victoria Dock in the line up of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries episodes from season 1. Because I could not really compare the book version of latter to the TV version of the former and vice versa, I needed to make a similar switch.

In the book Phryne happens to be witness to the murder of Yorka Rosen while driving past the docks. On TV, however, she hears him being shot outside, while meeting with Mr Waddington. On both occasions, he dies in his arms and also on both occasions, Phryne takes his death pretty hard.

Phryne Fisher

As I said in the entry about the book, I like vulnerable Phryne. It has nothing to do with me not wanting her to be the fabulous, reckless super hero. It just shows a much more complex character, letting her have a tender, vulnerable side to her. It makes her human and I love her even more because of it! I am so glad her feelings towards Yorka's death was left in the TV episode.

This is the book in which we first get to meet Constable Hugh Collins, but in the TV series, we have known him since the beginning. In the book he is Catholic, while his protestant faith clashes a little with Dot's Catholic one on TV. I was also really pleased to see that Hottie was actually canon even in the books. Dot and Hugh are just the sweetest couple ever!

Phryne Fisher

The depiction of the anarchist plotline is actually interesting in the book. We have already from the beginning known that Bert and Cec are communists and that Phryne accepts them just as they are anyway. The Death at Victoria Dock book actually dwells further into the socialistic bracket of the modern political scale and it does it very well. It is far from the Hollywood demonization of it.

Socialism is a very big field with lots of different variations, just like any other political ideology and movement. Some are better and some are worse than others and everyone of them has its benefits and its problems. I do not like to get into politics so much on this blog, but some things need to be clearified because there are a lot of misunderstandings going around about every one of the political ideologies.

In the wake of the US election Swedish media has had some sort of a wake up call and there have been a lot of discussion of the "bullying rhetoric" spreading from there to here. So the last couple of days have been a lot about that and lots of politicians have shown what great friends they are with and/or how much respect they have for politicians on "the other side of the scale". Just because you do not have the same opinion, does not mean you cannot share a friendship and/or respect for one another which both book and TV Phryne shows very well. She builds her own sort of family of people she likes. She never looks down on anyone or judge them for their opinions, their heritage or their personalities.

Phryne Fisher

In the TV episode, there is a lot less talk about different types of socialism in the TV episode, even though Bert and Cec tell Phryne about different variations as they go to the Latvian club and there is some talk about anarchism. It manage to show us that anarchistic methods might not be the best way to handle things (Just like the book do.), but it does not demonize all of socialism like many American films and TV shows tend to do.

There are a few changes to the more domestic plotline in the book where Phryne takes on the case of the missing teenage girl Alicia Waddington-Forsythe (Lila Waddington in the TV episode). Her father has remarried and she does not like her stepmother. When Phryne investigates, she finds Alicia's story is deeply tragic, being sexually abused by her brother who then moves on to get their stepmother pregnant and forced into a mental institution by that stepmother where they try telling her she is crazy for more or less telling the truth.

Jack Robinson

Lila Waddington's story is not as tragic. Her brother has still impregnated their stepmother, but the stepmother then tricks her into thinking she sees tears on her madonna painting and in the end it drives her to the mental hospital where Phryne and Jack come to save her. Her father is also the boss at the docks and there is a strike as Phryne goes to speak with him about the case in the beginning of the episode. Phryne also convinces him to talk to his workers in exchange for her discretion about his family "problems". We also get to know that Jack Robinson was part of the police strike of 1923, which Phryne did not expect.

Yes, Jack is in this episode even though he barely gets a few mentions in the book. Before I talk about him, I think I need to address the response to the blog post I wrote all about him a couple of days ago. I am both overwhelmed and scared about the whole thing. Social media is so strange. I shared the post on Tumblr myself since it is there I have "friends" I normally discuss Miss Fisher with. The fact that it was shared on other social media platforms without my knowledge does in fact frighten me a bit. This blog is my oulet for thoughts and feelings I have about subjects I am nerdy about. Because the entries to this blog are so deeply personal to me, I would like to have at least some sort of control about where it is being shared and what is being said about it. Not least so I can explain uncertainties and/or defend myself against criticism. I am so happy and overwhelmed and humbled by all the positive response to the Jack entry. I love that so many people have read it, but if you like something I have written and want to share it anywhere on the Internet, please use the comment section underneath any entry and tell me that you do so it will not be such a shock that I suddenly have had hundreds of visitors in a day.

"It'd be a tactical error to think you had med pegged just yet, Miss Fisher"

~ Jack Robinson

But, back to Jack. As said above, he only gets a few mentions in the book and keeps himself a little more in the background in the TV episode as well. Because of the switch in order between Death and Victoria Dock and The Green Mill Murder, it is a little hard to tell all of Jack's character in this entry without giving too much away from that episode. Jack still tries to remain firm about not letting Phryne in on the investigations (and she shamelessly uses Hugh to still be able to medle), but you also see him softening towards her. When she gets shot at, he seems really worried for her safety. The Green Mill Murder and this episode are also when I first started to realise that there was more to Jack than what he first appears to be. Over the course of the series, he is much like a chiffonier where Phryne and the viewers continuously find hidden compartments, not seldom where they least expect it.

Death at Victoria Dock was actually one of my least favourite episodes, but rewatching it now, after having read the book, I saw it in a rather different light. From time to time the plots of the episodes in the TV series can feel a bit forced together (probably to make Phryne only investigate one case instead of many like in the books), but this one flows better. The two cases (Lila Waddington and the anarchists) are still kept apart, but held together through Lila's father at the docks where Phryne more or less picks up both cases. It only shows that ones opinions might change based on circumstances and that Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries is a series one must watch more than once.

Phryne Fisher and Jack Robinson

Detective Inspector Jack Robinson

"You might as well call me Jack. Everyone else does."

~ Jack Robinson, Murder on the Ballarat Train, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries

Vemod is a Swedish word that is not exactly easy to translate into English. It can best be described as an underlying, longing sadness. A sadness that is actually rather positive how strangely as that sounds. The concept might not have an equivalent in English, but I still think it summarize the character of Detective Inspector Jack Robinson perfectly.

I have talked a little about Jack in most of my previous entries about Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries and the Phryne Fisher books. However, I have long felt a need to give him an entry totally on his own.

To this date I have only read four of Kerry Greenwood's books about Phryne Fisher and even though I enjoy the books just fine, I really miss the Jack of the TV series while reading. In the latest one, Death at Victoria Dock he only gets a few mentions and, unlike in the TV series, has remained pretty much in the background in the other three as well.

From Murder on the Ballarat train

There are also som major differences between the TV and book characters as well. Book-Jack is happily married with children and has much easier time accepting Phryne's meddling in police work from the very beginning. TV-Jack is far more reserved and at first thinks Phryne is a stupid socialite in need of a hobby. However, as they continue to meet at different crime scenes, he starts to respect her more. This is as far as I will take the comparison between the two. This entry will henceforth be entirely about TV-Jack because he was the one I fell in love with in the first place.

"I see a very careful man, who professes to be cynical in the face of mysteries he can't explain, and claims to have no passion in spite of a heart that runs as deep as the Pacific Ocean"

~ Phryne Fisher, Death Comes Knocking, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries

Jack is a very private man. Therefore we do not know much about his personal life or his background and we have never visited his home.The little we do know is that he was married to the Deputy Commisioner's daughter Rosie, but that their marriage got destroyed by his participation in the First World War and he tells Phryne that Rosie has been living with her sister for "quite some time". They get a divorce at the end of season one.
There is a lot to say about Rosie and Jack's relationship to the other women in his life, Concetta and last, but certainly not least Phryne. However I have noticed a tendency in the fandom on the internet to view Jack only through those relationships (Especially the one he has to Phryne.) and I do not think that is entirely fair to the character. Because of this, I will focus on him in this entry and only briefly go into his relationships.

"It'd be a tactical error to think you had me pegged just yet, Miss Fisher"

~ Jack Robinson, Death at Victoria Dock, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries

From Murder and the Maiden

In June this year, I wrote an entry in which I discussed the similarities between Phryne and the girls Astrid Lindgren (She would have turned 109 yesterday, 14th of November, by the way.) wrote about. The Astrid Lindgren parallel actually fits very well for Jack as well. He is more or less like a typical "Astrid boy". He is somewhat lonely, introverted and brooding and like them he needs to show himself worthy of the super hero title Phryne (and the "Astrid girls") have from the very beginning. The series is also extremely good at not showing all of him at once. This might be because the show is so focused on Phryne (Which it should be. It is her show!) and we get to know the other characters through her.

At first I thought he would be like so many male detectives in murder mystery franchises. Aloof and haughty and having trouble with their bosses and their women and using violence as a mean to enhance their position. But Jack is not at all like that. I actually appreciate how the series depicts him. He deals with his experiences both from his life as a policeman and from the war in a way that is quite unusual in pop-culture of today. Especially for a male character. He desperately wants to hide his emotions, but they more or less run straight off of him anyway. Nathan Page is also extremely good at showing them without saying a word. You see it in his face, usually in less than a second so you miss it if you blink. (Essie Davis, who plays Phryne, is just as good at this.)

From Dead Air

While Phryne is the super hero, Jack is totally human. He really feels compassion for both the victims and the criminals, not least shown through his special relationship with Elsie Tizzard that is revealed in Blood and Circuses. His way of dealing with violence is similarly refreshing. He does not, like for example the character Gunvald Larsson from the Swedish police film series Beck, do it to enhance his position at all. He limits it to when it is inevitable to use it to save himself or someone else and even then he seems to be unwilling to use it to kill someone.

From what I have gathered from fan discussions and fanfictions on the Internet, Jack is generally understood as "broken", but I do not really see that. I think he might have been broken when he got back to Australia after the war. He says the war changed him and he probably has suffered depression and/or PTSD. However, he is not broken when we meet him and this is actually where I think the vemod comes in because there really is a sad longing to him which is positive in nature and makes him a rather unique character. He is definitely the best depiction of how someone who has gone through a depression really is. There will always be a sadness left, but that sadness is not exactly negative and does not prevent you from having fun. I know. I have suffered from depression myself. Besides, the word vemod itself is poetic and beautiful. Just like Jack!

Jack and Phryne

Kerry Greenwood - Death at Victoria Dock

The fourth book about lady detective Phryne Fisher is called Death at Victoria dock. In this one Phryne first gets involved in a shooting as she is passing through the dock late one evening. A couple of anarchists have shot a young one of their own and he dies in Phryne's arms. Her other case is a domestic one as usual. The books start to feel a little formulaic to be honest. This one is also with a young girl who has been abused sexualy. Anyway Phryne is also hired to find Alicia Waddington-Forsythe who has gone missing. In this case Phryne gets help from her adopted daughters Jane and Ruth who go to the same school as Alicia.

There are sadly just a few mentions of Jack Robinson in this book, but we get introduced to Constaple Hugh Collins and Dot already from the start takes a fancy to him.

'That nice young constable is coming at eleven, Miss, and I thought you'd prefer rolls and marmalade today.' 
'Phryne thought she detected a blush on her maid's cheek, but it might have been the sun. (---)
'What is his name Dot? The constable, I mean.'
'Hugh, Miss... I mean Constable Collins Miss.'
It definitely was a blush, no doubt of it.

~ Kerry Greenwood, Death at Victoria Dock

Like I said in the entry about comparison between the TV episode and the book of Murder on the Ballarat Train I am a huge fan of Hottie. They both are so unbelieveably sweet together in the TV series and, unlike Phrack, this seems to be pretty much comes straight from the book.

Since this is one of my least favourite episodes of the TV series, I did not really expect to get into it so much as I did. I enjoyed Phryne showing a more vunerable side of herself. She seems really humble in the face of death this time and I cannot help loving her even more than I did before because of it. I know a lot of people want her to be totally unapologetic and do whatever she wants, but to me a really strong character is one who still can be humble, emotional and admit that she is wrong and apologise if she hurts someone. In light of recent event I think showing compassion is more important than ever. It is not that she hasn't shown compassion before, but she has never been so emotional. Getting shot at while driving seems to have really shocked her and I like it that she can be, but how she does not let it scare her off. It just adds to her strengths. It makes her human!

I must be going mad, she chided herself. I've seen lots of dead men. And I do not smell of blood. It is washed off me and I am wearing different clothes.

~ Kerry Greenwood, Death at Victoria Dock

As a Swede I couldn't help but smile at the telling of the colonial interest Sweden has had in Latvia, a part of history most Swedes do not know anything about at all. Yes, Sweden did have colonies as well. We were actually the big super power in Europe during the 17th century, but we mostly focused on colonising our neighbours.

 The second image was borrowed from here.

Disney - Zootopia

I recently watched Disney's animated film Zootopia and I can seriously not understand why it has not got more publicity, not least over here in Sweden. The film is seriously very good and extremely thoughtprovoking. It is an interesting take on "multiculturalism" and go against "racist" stereotypes.

The film centers around Judy Hopps who becomes Zootopia's first rabbit cop. Zootopia is a city where all types of animals (predators and pray) live in harmony. Or should I say, pretend to live in harmony... On a closer look, however, things are not as harmonious as they first appears. Predators are kidnapped all over the city and Judy teams up with the nice, somewhat criminal fox Nick Wilde to solve the case. They both also need to face the prejudices others have about their spieces and the villain might just be a wolf in sheep clothing...

The theme of the film is a really interesting and fits extremely well into the politics of today. Not least questions about biological differences in spieces that are living together. It is all about fighting racism and living together in peace even though you are very different. It is also about how outcast "people" might be made prejudice just because they feel left out and powerless. The film also shows that it is a choice how we deal with this powerlessness.

I really wonder why it has not got any more publicity and I think the reason is the over-exposure of Frozen, which the film actually jokes about quite a bit. I like Frozen just fine, but this film deserves to be acknowledged and praised, not least because it deals with topics that we really need to discuss more. This is why I can overlook the (too common) use of Stone Age as something savage.


Image borrowed from here.

Playground, Etnografiska museet

Today I visited Etnografiska museet in Stockholm with a friend. They have a new temporary exhibition called Playground which was about norms and about questioning them. I had been looking forward to it. I was at the museum only a couple of days before it opened and it looked promising. Therefore I have to admit that I was somewhat disappointed. Not that it was a bad exhibition per see. It was just that I had expected a little bit more.

So, what was good about it? I really liked that it explained what a norm is and how it is used in society both in the past and present. I liked how it showed that not everyone will be able to live up to the norms and that it is nothing wrong with that. I also enjoyed how it got you to question norms and asked you how privileged you are. It was also good that they had made signs telling about norms and norm breakers in their permanent exhibitions.

Despite all this I never got engaged in the exhibition for real. It was interesting, not least to read about HBTQ people in Vietnam and see the photos of the colour scheme of people's skin and everything. However, there were just so many longer texts. I would have loved to read people's stories and all that, but there were just so many of them. I think it would have been better if they had made shorter texts and refered to a website for more studies. Some of the interactive "tests" were also a little hard to understand.

The exhibition was not bad. I think I just had hoped it would be more. I love questioning norms and my own worldview! Maybe it was because I had read the opening sign (shown in the photo above) beforehand or maybe it was because I liked the Vodou exhibition they had a couple of years ago so much. I just got the feeling that the exhibition could have been so much more.

Johanne Hildebrandt - Estrid, Sagan om Valhalla

The fifth installment in the Sagan om Valhalla series is Estrid. I had the great honour of reading it in advance thanks to the author Johanne Hildebrandt.

Estrid is the daughter of Sigrid and Svend (Tveskæg) although everyone except for Sigrid think she is the daughter of Erik (Segersäll). She is also twin sister of Olof (Skötkonung) who will be king of the Swedes. Estrid gets kidnapped, and struggles to get back to her mother.

In the beginning of the book, Estrid belongs to the death goddess Hel (just like Freja eventually did in the first trilogy). I have sort of thought about having death as a theme for one of these entries about the series, because it is an over-arching, ever-present theme throughout all of the books. However, again there is a theme I thought more about as I was reading Estrid, so I will have to postpone it again. It seems fitting also, since Estrid is said to choose life over death as she converts to Christianity.

I somehow find Johanne Hildebrandt's depiction of the convertion in line with all the other supernatural things in the world she builds up and it certainly is quite imaginative. For real, however I think faith had extremely little to do with why people in Scandinavia became Christian. My MA thesis in Archaeology was about how the Christianisation can be shown in burials from the time ca AD 800-1200 in the Mälaren region in easternmost Sweden. (It is in Swedish, but can be found here if someone wants to read it, because much of my thoughts that I will write bellow is further developed there.)

To me the time period had much more to do with changing power structures and identities. It is the time of the centralisation of power, of town establishment and really also the time from which we get our first power figures that can be named and at least to some extent fleshed out from written sources. Traditionally this time period is often thought of as the time of the foundation of the Swedish (and Norwegian and Danish) nation states, but I will say that it is not. That concept was not made up until the 19th century (first and foremost to get the citizens's loyalty) and historical and archaeological research about the past was an important part of the creation of the concept.

So what did really happen then at the end of the time period those same scholars named the Viking Age? There are certainly a change towards a much more centralised power. The picture of this is also coloured by the 19th century and not least by the theory of the male conqueror (which I will probably have the opportunity to get back to in some entry later), but we can say that the power changed from being more localy based to more centralised.

The other major thing that happened  during this time period that we actually can say for certain happened: the Christian (Catholic) church was established with clergy, parish organisation and everything. This is really the aspect of the period which I find so interesting. There are actually great differences in what the different types of resources tell us about the Christianisation. Everyone who has gone to school in Sweden have to have heard the name of the German monk Ansgar. He is said to have been sent to Scandinavia as a missionary and there is a biography written by another German monk called Rimbert about him. This and the history of the Hamburg-Bremen archbishopric written by Adam of Bremen has been very influential on the research perspective of the Christianisation. The archaeological material from this period does not show a cut between the older and the newer traditions as clear as the written sources want. Instead the borders are fluid and there is no clear indication as to what is Christian or Pagan. The discussion, especially in the Contract archaeological sector, tends to end up in more or less stereotypical interpretations. The problem I think is that there seldom are any stereotypes in real life. It is easy to write about them and make life black and white, but the truth is that it really is not. Everything is put in the grey area in between the extremes and that is really what the archaeological material show us. As for who was Christian or Pagan, I think it was based on the social context. If one needed to be Christian, one was, and if one needed to be Pagan, one was. Knud den store (the great) is actually a very good example of this. He ruled as a Christian among the Englishmen and as a Pagan among the Danes. Sigrid Storråda is interesting in this aspect, because she seems to have been content in her Pagan faith. I wrote about her probably having a great political mind in my entry about Sigrid and this might seem to contradict it, but maybe it says more about what power she had. Maybe her power was so well-founded in society that she did not have to turn her coat depending of who she spoke with?

Olof's coin

The historical Olof Skötkonung is mostly famous for having been baptist by the English missionary Saint Sigfrid in Husaby in Västergötland, Sweden and for being the first to mint coins in Sweden with the help of English mint masters at the end of the 10th century. It is most likely that the name Skötkonung means Skattkonung (treasure king) and derives from his minting activities.

Because of the minting happening in my home town Sigtuna and the plot actually involving Olof, the choice for this entry's archaeological find was pretty easy. The text on the coin says OLOF REX SVEVORUM, which means Olof, king of the Swedes on the other side can be read SIDEI which has been interpreted as either a spelling variation of the name Sigtuna or an abbraviation of Situne Dei meaning God's Sigtuna.

Since I read it as a script directly from the author, the cover was borrowed from here and the picture of Olof Skötkonung's coin from here.

International Day of Archaeology

Apparently it is International Day of Archaeology today. I had absolutely no idea until I saw it around the Internet. I have to admit I have a lot of questions about this holiday. How did it come about? How are you supposed to celebrate it? Are you supposed to have cake?!

I have celebrated it by handing in a grad school application. I do not know if I have any chance at getting it, but I hope to at least get some response on my project plan this time. The picture to the right show some of the books I have been using.

As might have become evident by many of the entries in this blog, my greatest interests are Vikings, cultures and colonialism. So of course I am trying to mix them together into one research project, trying to discuss how the Vikings viewed the concept and how the research tradition being caught up in nationalism of the 19th century having applied to the period making it more of a Viking version of the 19th centry than anything.

Anna Lihammer - Medan mörkret faller

Today is my birthday and even though I have other things I really need to do, I spent all morning reading.

I have long thought about reading the mystery books by Anna Lihammer because people say that they are good and Medan mörkret faller (While the darkness falls) was elected best mystery debute of 2014. Beside, Anna is a colleague of mine, being a Swedish archaeologist and Medan mörkret faller is set in 1934.

The time setting in the 1930's made me draw lots of parallels to the books and TV series about the Honourable Phryne Fisher. Mostly the episode The Blood of Juana the Mad, because Lihammer's book is about somewhat the same themes and is also about a gruesome murders among medical staff in a university milieu.

The story is a reaction to Lihammer gaining the knowledge about skull collections in Sweden, but also the fact that in 1934 the Swedish parliament voted for a law about compulsory sterilization of people who weren't considered fit enough for "carrying on the Swedish race". The law remained in place until 1976.

I really enjoy this book and I think it is very evident that Lihammer is an archaeologist. She dwells into the time period, making it come alive just like in the books/TV series about Phryne Fisher.
She also talks about how human bodies (both alive and dead) are treated like objects. Of course this is something archaeology deals with all the time and which I think we need to discuss more than we do.

Det var inte första gången någon reagerade på hans utseende, det hände ofta och det var inte alltid negativt. Men intresset brukade inte så tydligt göra honom till ett samlingsvärt objekt, uppmätt och liksom klart för sortering (Not for the first time, did someone react to his appearance, it happend often and not always in a negative way. But the interest seldom so obviously made him into a collectable, measured and ready to be sorted.)

~ Anna Lihammer, Medan mörkret faller

The book also reminded me of an episode of History Cold Case. It also dealt with human bodies as collectables and study objects and discovered a story about a child who probably was killed because of human bodies being coveted for the study of medicine. It is a terrible, dark side to the more recent past of Sweden and many other Western countries. Evil done in the name of science. One might wonder how people can become so cold blooded, but I do not think it is so strange somehow. It all has to do with who you define as human.

Den nya tiden. Den moderna tiden. Han undrade hur många av besökarna som skulle passa in där. Och vad som skulle hända med dem som inte gjorde det, för visioner brukade förr eller senare leda till att de som inte kunde uppfylla dem sorterades bort. Ju storslagnare visioner, desto hårdare sortering.  (The new time. The modern time. He wondered how many of the visitors would fit in there. And what would happen to the ones who did not, because visions sooner or later used to led to the ones who could not fulfill them being sorted out. Greater visions led to harder sorting)

~ Anna Lihammer, Medan mörkret faller

The Swedish law of compulsory sterilization is actually one expression of this sorting, scientific racism another and Lihammer builds up the book plot surrounding this question of who are defined as humans. It is dark and gruesome and really horrible. A dark past that is poking on the present still.

My Heroines: Rory Gilmore

Today's birthday girl is Lorelai "Rory" Gilmore (Alexis Bledel). She was born 4:03 AM on October 8 1984 and is the daughter of Lorelai Gilmore and Christopher Hayden and together with her mother the main character of the TV series Gilmore Girls and one of my biggest Heroines!

Rory is very close to her mother. Lorelai was only 16 when she had her and the two of them are therefore often more friends than mother and daughter. She often has a much more difficult relationship with her father. Christopher has never rejected his daughter, but Lorelai has spent most of the time raising Rory alone. Later on, Christopher gets to try single parenting himself, when his partner Sherry abandons him and their baby girl Georgia, called Gigi (A nickname also being a tribute to the series itself - GG.).

Rory and her mother Lorelai

Rory is kind, clever and in the beginning of the series, her biggest dream is to go to Harvard and study journalism and political science. To achieve her goals, she gets into Chilton Academy. It costs a small fortune and Lorelai at last goes to her estranged parents, asking for a loan. They demand a weekly dinner with their daughter and granddaughter.

Rory lives in the small town Stars Hollow where everyone knows each other. When asked about her lack of social activities, she tells the principal of Chilton that living in Stars Hollow itself is kind of a social activity. She is much beloved, by the other townspeople and in the first few seasons quite sheltered.

She graduates from Chilton at the end of season 3 and decides, after a lot of thinking and pro-/con-list writing to go to Yale, her grandfather's alma mater, where other aspects of life than books and studying, sort of starts to sip into her world in a way they have not done before.

Rory is a very special character to me. Not only because she was born only two days before me (My date of birth is October 10 1984.), but because she was the first fictional character I could really relate to. Just like me Rory is sort of nerdy and takes a great interest in school and learning. she is very smart and proud of that.  And the greatest thing about it is that neither the other characters nor the show itself looks down upon her because of it. Because she had Rory so early, Lorelai did not get to go to college, but it is evident that she still reads a lot and no one beats either Gilmore Girls in knowledge about pop-culture.

Rory and Jess

Neither of the Gilmore girls are dependent on men either. They have men in their life from time to time and also goes through some heartache, but they are still independent character with their own lives and free will both in and out of relationship with men.

Another reason why I connected on a quite deeply level with Rory has to do with her relationship to books. We both read just about everything we come over and things she did (like bringing many different types of non-school-related-books to school just because she does not know which one she wants to read during lunch or bring books to parties no matter that there will not likely be any down-time) I thought I was the only one doing.


Gifs from Tumblr. Pictures from here, here, here and here.

Murder on the Ballarat Train - TV vs Book

Phryne Fisher (Essie Davis)

Where to start with this one? There are actually some major differences between the book and the film adaptation here. There are some new characters like Mr Tobias Butler (Richard Bligh), Jane (Ruby Rees-Wemyss) and, because they play such a big part in the story: Phryne's house Wardlow and her Hispano Suiza car probably should be mentioned in there as well. They are important parts of the show and nearly characters in their own right.

Two characters from the books are left out, or does not play such a big part in the show as in the books. Mrs Butler is the wife of Mr Butler. Both of them, together with Wardlow are introduced already in Flying too High and Ruth (Lara Robinson) plays a much greater part in the book than in the TV episode. Phryne (Essie Davis) even adopts her together with Jane and she is the one with no family, where in the TV version, she has a grandma, who Jack later on finds. I can understand the need to simplify it to just one girl, but I still thought it strange that we do not see or hear more of Ruth in the show's later episodes. She and Jane seem just as close as they are described to be in the book, but after this episode, she just vanish all together from their lives.


It is in this episode that Bert (Travis McMahon) and Cec (Anthony Sharpe) also come to work for Phryne for real if a little reluctantly in the beginning. She also gives them a new taxi, which they buy by themselves in Flying too High.

"I didn't invite you along to be useful Dot. I invited you so we could have some fun!"

~ Phryne Fisher, Murder on the Ballarat Train (TV)

Phryne Fisher & Jack Robinson (Nathan Page)

The premise of the plot is the same in both book and TV-series: Phryne and Dot (Ashleigh Cummings) are taking the train to Ballarat. In the book, she and Dot are going to there to visit some of her relatives, while in the TV episode, they are going to pick up the Hispano Suiza. The narratives in the different mediums are different as well. In the TV episode it is straight forward: First we see Phryne and Dot at the station, boarding the train and then we follow them throughtout the train ride. In the book, on the other hand, we only get to experience the train ride first hand while Phryne, Dot and some of the other passangers are being chloroformed. The rest of the journey is retold to us as the victims of the chloroform incident, which has afflicted more people in the book than on TV, (mainly Phryne herself) are interviewed by the police. The investigation is also to a larger extent accompliched on the train itself and Phryne takes part in the search for the murdered victim. The scene when she, dressed in high heels (!), more or less runs away from the police men along the train tracks is hilarious. I also cannot help but laugh when Detective Inspector Jack Robinson (Nathan Page) sees through Phryne's small lie about opening the compartment of Mrs Henderson (Abbe Holmes) and her daughter Eunice (Maeve Dermody) with her golden pistol.

Dorothy "Dot" Williams (Ashleigh Cummings)
and Hugh Collins (Hugo Johnstone-Burt)

Aboard the train, we also get our first indications of both Hottie and Phrack. The former is the name for the pairing Dot Williams with Constaple Hugh Collins (Hugo Johnstone-Burt) (Sadly, the latter is not in the book.) and the latter is the pairing of Phryne and Jack. Both names were made up by the fandom of the show and I love how both Phryne and Jack seem to ship Dot and Hugh just as much as the fans of the show do.

I have not talked so much about Hottie (nor Dot or Hugh as characters) on here and it will for certain be more in the future, but I just have to say that they are among the cutest couples I have seen on TV.

When you have watched all the existing three seasons of the show and you go back to these first few episodes, you really realise how much Dot's character evolves throughout the show. I will probably write an entire post about her at some point, because I love her. I have talked about this topic in many other entries to this blog (Not least in the one about Phryne in my My Heroines series, but mostly in my entry about Johanne Hildebrandt's book Idun. Sagan om Valhalla.), but I think it is so wonderful that neither Phryne nor the show judge Dot because of her conservatism and the fact that she shows characteristics traditionally ascribed to women. Instead, Phryne actually encourage her to find her confidence no matter what her beliefs are.

Jane (Ruby Rees-Wemyss) and Phryne Fisher.

Phrack is a different love story that I will most definitely come back to in later entries since it is just a small embryo in this episode. In fact, Jack seems very firm to not let Phryne in on the investigation at first and she is also thwarted by the other police men that first arrived at the train. (Hugh seems to like her, even though he, just like in the TV version of Cocaine Blues, he has no idea how to handle her.) However, this is also the episode where Jack and Phryne really start to cooperate on the case. At the end of the episode he, however, comes over and the routine of the nightcap is put in place.

Jack plays a bigger part in both the TV episode and the book. His character is quite different between both mediums. Even though there is nothing wrong with him in the books, I cannot help but miss the TV-version while reading.

In the beginning of the episode a little boy runs around on the platform and Phryne tells Dot that she cannot stand children. When the police later on catches a teenage girl with the murdered Mrs Henderson's missing jewelry, she is very reluctant to help out at first. Jane's story is quite different in the TV series to the one in the book, where she has lost her memory and it turns out later that she is hypnotized by Mr Merton (Jacek Koman). In the book he, and who I think is Jane's real aunt, Miss Gay are more or less exploiting teenage girls (and young women?), molesting them and/or sending them off to brothels, which is where Jane is going on the train. In the TV episode, Jane comes from a situation much similar to Oliver Twist, where Mr Merton is a Fagin-type of character, collecting what the girls have managed to steal.

Phryne: "Sorry I forgot to telephone ahead about my extra guests. We've all been somewhat distracted by Eunice's mother's murder."
Mr Butler: "A murder miss?"
Phryne: "I do hope they chloroformed her first, but hanging is never pleasant. Keep your eye on this one. She's a stowaway, a thief and probably needs delousing. I expect the police will come looking for her, but you can just refer them to me. Oh, and while I remember; careful with the hand luggage. My pistol's in there somewhere, and it may still be loaded."

Another character that is different between book and TV episode is Eunice Henderson. Not least regarding her involvement in the plot. In both she has a boyfriend called Alastair (David Berry), but whereas Lindsay (Dale March) is just his friend in the book, he is Eunice's cousin in the TV episode. The plot kind of differs more when it comes to her. In the TV episode, she plots together with Alastair to steal her mother's jewlery on the train, while in the book, he works totally on his own. In neither plot line is she the one who kills her mother, but she sort of lets it happen in the TV episode. Alastair's motive of the murder is also somewhat different. In the TV series, he seems to just wants Lindsay's inheritance, while in the book he thinks he is a superman, getting rid of unwanting people (and getting rich at the same time). I find the latter plotline much more thrilling, while I like Eunice better in the book. In the book, she becomes a writer to support her mother, who has lost all her money in a scam. This gives her a similarity to Lydia Andrews in Cocaine Blues and I find the idea of women having to provide for other family members lack of economical sense intriguing. It makes up for an interesting plotpoint and shows something about upper class women too. (Women of the lower classes ha always had to work.)

On the train, Phryne is reading a book. And not just any book, but Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence. The book most have been very new at the time , because it was published in 1928 and has a rather interesting story, especially in Australia according to Wikipedia. It was banned from many countries and was subject of a trial in the United Kingdom in 1960 and a book describing this trial was also banned in Australia. However, in both cases it, by extention, led to the censorship actually being loosen. The book is a perfect fit for Phryne, but I cannot help thinking about the creator of the show giving the audience something to look up.

The pictures and gifs in this entry were found on Tumblr except the last one of Jack, which is a screen cap I made, because he was set so beautifully. (And before you ask, I do have a "small" collection of pictures from the show on my computer. I am totally nerdy about this show if you have not noticed it before.)