Johanne Hildebrandt - Saga från Valhalla

Saga från Valhalla is the third book in Sagan från Valhalla series (All entries can be found here.) and the last one of the books set in the Bronze Age. The title character is Saga, daughter of Idun and Ull and granddaughter of Freja and Tor. She does not have her powers yet, but Freja is sure she will get them in time.

Alfhild, queen of Alfheim, is not as comfortable with the vanírs as she is in earlier books and you can glimpse a theme of xenophobia which is probably more on the agenda today than it was back when the book was published in 2004. There is also the matter of death that has been quite a consistent theme in the books already from the start, but I felt a need to talk about the Norse goddesses, not least Freja.

The goddesses seldom get a good portrayal in books about Norse mythology. Generally they are lumped together into one paragraph with only one sentence describing their character for each one of them. This when each and everyone of the male deities often get whole chapters telling everything about them and their home, animals and relationships to the other deities.

There are a lot of goddesses in Norse mythology and the ones I will talk about here are mainly Freja since Johanne Hildebrandt's books are mostly about her and there is much more information about her than all the rest.

Saga was a present from my mother
for my 20th birthday. Signed by
Johanne Hildebrandt.

Freja is often the exception to the "tradition" of lumping all the together. She mostly gets her own paragraph at least. However, she is still often reduced to "love goddess". She is much more interesting though.

She lives in Folkvang and travels around in a chariot driven by the cats Hogní and Þófnir (Tovner). Like her brother Frej, she is also associated with pigs. She owns one called Hildesvin and one of her many names is Syr which means sow.

Freja belongs to the Vanír family of deities and therefore got the nickname Vanadis. She represents female fertility and female sexuality, which is why the Christians did not look upon her fondly. She however seems to have been a particular favourite of the völvur, best described as Pre-Christian priestesses.

Her husband is called Od, but he disappears and there have been lots of speculations about it being one of the god Odín's many shapes. There are also speculations about her also marrying Frej and the giants always desire her.

Gabriel Hildebrand SHMM 2011-11-08

One of the aspects I enjoy most about Hildebrandt's Freja is how varied she is. Hildebrandt actually explores a lot of the goddess' different roles in her three books about her and her family. As a goddess of death, Freja is generally over-shadowed by Odín in popular culture. Britt-Mari Näsström talks about the problem Freja appeared to the male scholars, authors and artists during the 19th century in her book Nordiska gudinnor. Nytolkningar av den förkristna mytologin (2009). They thought they had been given the task of interpreting the Old Norse Literature for the less educated population. Richard Wagner, Esaias Tegnér and Viktor Rydberg for example either reduce her to a weak character or she is depicted as a fallen woman. This portrayal is more fitting as an example of the ideal woman in the 19th century than as a depiction of what Freja is like in the Old Norse sources.

Freja is so much more than a lovesick fertility goddess. She may be guardian of pregnant women, but she also takes an interest in warfare and death. All three of these subjects are big themes in Johanne Hildebrandt's books. I find it mostly intriguing how Hildebrandt looks upon her with much more interest than Odín in this case, letting her becoming the priestess of Hel (the goddess of the Underworld) in Idun. A role she seems much more comfortable with in Saga. Hildebrandt's books also accentuate how similar Freja is to Odín. Both of them takes care of fallen warriors at the battle field. Odín also has a connection to Saga, however. Odín is the god of poetry and Saga is connected with storytelling.

Because Freja is such a wonderful goddess I find it both strange and sad that Marvel comics wanted to make Thor a woman instead of using Freja as a whole new comic franchise.

Update 2016-09-01: I realised I forgot to include an archaeological find in this post like in the first two. This one is not from the Bronze Age, but from the Viking Age. It is a pendant depicting a woman with a swollen abdomen (due to a pregnancy). She was found in the ancient remain given the name Hagebyhöga 36:1 in Aska in Östergötland, Sweden. It has been interpreted as a portrayal of Freja.

Astrid Lindgren - Kalle Blomkvist och Rasmus

A good thing about this blog is that I get to revisit some of my old favourites and it has been quite a while since I read this one. The first time I read them I was about 12 and had just seen the newer two films that were made in the 1990's: Kalle Blomkvist - Mästerdetektiven lever farligt (Kalle Blomkvist - the Master Detective Lives Dangerously) (1996) and Kalle Blomkvist och Rasmus (Kalle Blomkvist and Rasmus) (1997). I have talked about the Kalle Blomkvist books in a couple of other entries to this blog (here and here).

Kalle Blomkvist och Rasmus is the third and last of the books about the Master Detective Blomkvist, first published in 1953. Now you might wonder why I did not start with the first book Mästerdetektiven Blomkvist (Master Detective Blomkvist) (1946) or even the second one, Mästerdetektiven Blomkvist lever farligt (1951). To be honest, I got a strong urge to reread it because of the Phryne Fisher book Flying to High. Parts of the plot in that book is similar to the one in Kalle Blomkvist och Rasmus. While the first two books deal with a jewel theft and a murder, this one deals with a kidnapping.

Eva-Lotta and Rasmus
(Kalle Blomkvist och Rasmus, 1997)

The plot surrounds, as usual, Kalle, Anders and Eva-Lotta. This time, however, they share the spotlight with five year old Rasmus Rasmusson. His father makes tin, but he is not a tinsmith. He is a professor. A professor who does not have a beard, but who drives a motorcycle. He has invented a special type of metal that is said to revolutionize the war industry. Engineer Peters wants that metal and therefore abducts both Rasmus and his father. Kalle, Anders and Eva-Lotta witness the kidnapping and Eva-Lotta climbs into the kidnappers's car so Rasmus will not feel lonely.

Kalle, Eva-Lotta and Rasmus
(Kalle Blomkvist och Rasmus, 1997)

I enjoy this kidnapping plot more than I did the one in Flying too High. Even though this is the one mainly aimed towards children (I remember who thrillingly wonderful all the Kalle Blomkvist books were when I was 12.) this is both much darker and more intense. Neither is it as straightforward as the kidnapping plot in Flying to High. One, or more, of Kalle, Anders and Eva-Lotta actually manages to flee multiple times both with and without Rasmus and this is really the main suspence of the book. Are their plan to escape the island where they are trapped before they get captured... again? And they do get captured from time to time.

Battle of the Roses,
(Kalle Blomkvist och Rasmus, 1997)

When Kalle, Anders and Eva-Lotta is not out fighting kidnappers, they play a game they call War of the Roses. The three of them being knights of the White Rose (Anders being their leader) and Sixten (the other leader), Benke and Jonte being knights of the Red Rose. Part of me actually wish the plot was just them playing, because it seems so exciting. They fight over this stone figure they call Stormumriken and steal them from each other. However, they also need to give each other clues as to where they have hidden it. These clues are always pretty clever, like when the White Rose have hidden it inside a globe in Sixten's house and says that the red leader needs to go home and look in the bowells of the earth. Rasmus desperately wants to become a White Rose and the others uses that to get him where they need. Rasmus is to little to understand the seriousness of the kidnapping and tends to say a little too much to the kidnappers.

Eva-Lotta with her parents in the older version of
Mästerdetektiven Blomkvist lever farligt, 1957

I think I need to say a couple of words about Eva-Lotta even though I have talked about her before. Eva-Lotta Lisander is the daughter of a baker and, as she say herself, only feminine on Mondays. The rest of the week she is just as fierce a warrior as the boys. I have talked about the masculinizing of female characters in a lot of posts before and EvaLotta definitely is among the girls who are just as feminine as she is masculine. Simply because she is not reduced to her gender. Neither is she a stereotypical "tomboy" nor a "girliegirl". She is a person!

Den frejdiga Eva-Lotta som var en så tapper krigare hade sina ögonblick av kvinnlig svaghet - det hjälpte inte att ledaren försökte få henne att förstå att sådant inte gick an i rosorna krig. Anders och Kalle blev alltid lika häpna och förbryllade över Eva-Lottas beteende, så fort hon kom i närheten av små barn. (The bold Eva-Lotta who was such a fierce warrior had her moments of female weakness - it did not help that the leader tried to get her see that it did not work in the War of the Roses. Anders and Kalle were always surprised and puzzled by Eva-Lotta's behaviour while in close proximity with small children.)

~ Astrid Lindgren, Kalle Blomkvist och Rasmus

 I like the quote above from when the White Roses first encounters Rasmus. Even though it talks about motherly feelings as a "female weakness", it is rather ironic and Anders and Kalle's reactions (being surprised and puzled) towards Eva-Lotta's behaviour show how equal they see her.

One thing bothers me a little about Eva-Lotta with the newer films from the 1990's is the fact that they do not seem to get the ambiguity of her character in relation to gender roles. The original illustrations in the books and also the films from the 1940's and 50's (The first Kalle Blomkvist book was actually the first of Astrid Lindgren's books to be made into film in 1947.) does this better in giving her a dress even when she is out playing war with the boys. The films of the 1990's however make her into a boy and gives her boyish clothes in scenes where she is out playing. In those films she only wears a dress when she is supposed to emphasize her female side (like she says herself, she does every Monday).

Last and not least, the White Roses have a code language called Rövarspråket (The Robber's Language), which apparentely was made up by Astrid Lindgren's husband and his friends when they were children. It is quite simple. You double the consonants and put an O in between. For example: Kalle becomes Kokalollole. This language really comes in handy when the White Roses need to tell the others secrets, often in front of the bad men that they are up against. The books (and the films) made the language popular and last christmas someone uploaded a video of a man singing O helga natt (O Holy Night) that I would like to finish this entry with:

Pictures from the second film from 1997 was found here and the one from the older film Mästerdetektiven Blomkvist lever farligt from 1957 was found here.  The cover of Kalle Blomkvist and Rasmus did I borrow from here

Kerry Greenwood - Flying too High

'Where do we start, Cec?'
'At the beginning mate,' replied Cec easily. 'At the beginning'.

~Flying too High, Kerry Greenwood

The second of the books about Phryne Fisher was never made into a TV episode and I can somehow see why. Some themes of the book, like Phryne's interest in airplanes and flying (even the chase with the airplane) and the Western interest in Ancient Egypt at the time following the discovery of king Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922.

In the book Phryne investigates a murder of a quite terrible man, Mr McNaughton and also the kidnapping of the little girl Candida. The book is not bad per se, but I have to admit that it left me feeling slightly awkward.

One of the kidnappers (Sidney) is a known child-molester (the term pedophile was probably not in use in 1928) and I think this was glossed over a little too much. Just like the fact that Amelia McNaughton had been molestered by her father. I can see the point in making Mr McNaughton abuse his daughter (Amelia's age at the time is never told, but I got a feeling she was quite young.), but there is really no reason to make Sidney a pedophile.

Sidney is kind of a flat character and has little to redeem himself and while the other kidnapper, Mike, gets more of a back story and actually grows and changing during the course of the book, Sidney (and the female kidnapper and Mike's wife Ann) stays pretty much in the same place. This is not exactly unusual when it comes to depiction of pedophilia in popular culture.

Do not get me wrong! Pedophilia is probably as worse as it gets, but the background is often deeply tragic with the pedophile himself having been sexually abused as a child. This is seldom depicted in popular culture wherefore the pedophile more often is treated as a total monster.

One thing I came to think about is how similar Amelia is to Lydia Andrews from Cocaine Blues. Both of them have been sexually abused by men they live in close proximity to. There is also some implications that Phryne also has been in this position.

'I know,' observed Phryne quietly. 'But it happens to a lot of women. You and I are fortunate in that we have found lovers who could coax us out of our shells.'

~Flying too High, Kerry Greenwood

This is a theme that will certainly be explored more later (It is in the TV series.) but it is interesting that Phryne encounters women who she can relate to even though they are still pretty different from her. These three women have different ways of dealing with the abuse. Lydia pretty much "turn to the dark side" becoming the King of Snow, Amelia gets kind of submissive and Phryne gets pretty much totally wild and reckless. Amelia and Phryne have the fortune of encountering different types of men that show them the good side of love and sex, while Lydia is pretty much stuck in a destructive relationship to her husband. Amelia also takes her grief and anger out in painting him.

One thing interesting with the plot of the kidnapping is the similarities to the kidnapping plot of Astrid Lindgren's Kalle Blomkvist och Rasmus. A subject I have brought up before. While travelling in the car with her kidnappers, Candida thinks about if it is possible to use "The Grimms fairytale method" (a.k.a. throwing out bread crumbs on the way like Hansel and Gretel) and later on, Phryne uses it in her way to get the rescue team to Candida. Eva-Lotta, the daughter in the books about Kalle Blomkvist is the daughter of a baker and uses the buns she always carries in her pockets and a poster she has snatched to help Kalle and Anders find a way to her, Rasmus and the Professor as they are kidnapped.

Then there is the matter of Mike in Flying too High and Nicke in Kalle Blomkvist and Rasmus. They are both rather unwilling kidnappers. In fact, Nicke even gets offended when Eva-Lotta and Rasmus use the term against him. They are both also very lovely towards children (even if Nicke gets fed up with Eva-Lotta from time to time) and helps them flee. The kidnapping plot in Flying too High does not flow as well as the one in Kalle Blomkvist och Rasmus. It seems a little more forced and as said above and I wonder if it was necessary to make Sidney a pedophile. Still I cannot help that I still have a soft spot for the book as well. This might be because Phryne is still Phryne though.



Cover of Kalle Blomkvist and Rasmus did I borrow from here and the one of the covers of Flying too High can be found here and here

My Heroines: Eva

Nej, jag vill inte sy sömmar på symaskin. Och inte spela skådespel på någon scen. Och inte sätta rovor på is, som skridskoprinsessa. Inte sula slitna skor i skomakeri. Och jag vill inte bli nå'n snabb och smidig servitris. Och faktiskt inte heller, nå'n skolpolis. Utan S som i sångerska... (No, I do not want to sew seams on a sewing machine. And not perform on any scene. And not fall on ice like an ice princess. Not become a shoemaker. And i do not want to be some fast and flexible waitress. And not even a school police. But S like in singer.)

~ Eva, S som i sångerska, Fem myror är fler än fyra elefanter

Eva with Magnus (left) and Brasse (right)

Eva (Remaeus) belongs to the group of heroines that I have had the longest. She was the only female host in the famous Swedish child programme Fem myror är fler än fyra elefanter (5 ants are more than 4 elephants). The show was made as a Swedish version of Sesame Street back in 1973, but it manages to actually be better. (For one thing they have a female main host!) It was remade into a "julkalender" in 1977, the only one to ever startstarting before 1 December and therefore had more than 24 episodes. This so it could contain all the 28 letters in the Swedish alphabet (W was not considered a separate letter in Swedish until 2006. It is treated as a variation of V and is mainly used in names and loanwords.). The show is made up of fun sketches, songs and jingles meant to educate children.

Today all three of the hosts have died and when the last one of them (Magnus Härenstam) past away last year, there were lots of discussions about the show. It was generally praised, but considered to portray old-fashioned gender roles with Eva being a "prima donna". This, however, was not something I could remember, so I decided to rewatch the julkalender version on SVT:s Öppet arkiv. I think the show holds up pretty well from a gender perspective actually. Especially in comparison with gender roles in many children's shows of today. Yes, she is a prima donna from time to time. She is motherly, mainly towards Brasse (Brännström) who is supposed to be the child of the show that the young audience will learn together with, but also towards Magnus. And she is certainly the object of both boy's affection. However, she is actually much more than that! She is very active in every sketch she participates in and she is never over-shadowed by the boys. (It is more like Magnus and Brasse are trying to overshadow each other from time to time as part of their characters.) Considering the activities she is allowed to engage in, I will not call it anti-feministic either. She is an astronaut, a doctor (while Brasse is a nurse!!!) and a scientist and she gets to win sports they engage in. In a couple of sketches she also repairs a bike and in one of those Magnus is also scrubbing the floor at the same time. In none of this cases, her gender does not limit her ability. This is something extremely good and should be brought into the light more in the analysis of the show and not just her role as the show's prima donna.

Unfortunately, Eva Remaeus got a brain tumor and died at the age of 42 back in 1993, so she did not get to experience the show becoming a true Swedish children's classic. Maybe her early death also contributes to her not being mentioned in some of the interviews Brasse and Magnus made about the show in later years. (Brasse died in 2014 and Magnus in 2015.)

To finish on a more positive note though, I am going to let Eva teach you how to count to 20 in Swedish. And remember; five ants will always be more than four elephants!

Video from Youtube, The rights are SVT:s thought. Picture from here.

Cocaine Blues - TV vs Book

"Considering your last employers were a drug baroness and a rapist, surely you'd find me a moderst improvement"

~ Phryne Fisher, Cocaine Blues, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries

I just realised that the two latest books I have read have had titles related to songs. Mördar-Anders is a song by Cornelis Vreeswijk. and Cocaine Blues a song by Johnny Cash. However, it is not the songs I want to talk about in this entry, but the differences between the book Cocaine Blues by Kerry Greenwood and the TV adaptation by Every Cloud Production. There are some differences and I found myself enjoying it since the book seemed fresh even for someone who has watched the TV episode a couple of times.
There are certain basic parts of the plot that are similar. Phryne goes back to Australia after having spent some time living in the United Kingdom. Her reasons for returning is somewhat different though. On TV she comes back to prevent the man who was charged with the kidnapping of her sister to get out of jail (a plot line running through the entire first season of the TV series). In the book, she is being sent to Australia by a Colonel and his wife to find out why their daughter Lydia (married Andrews) is sick so often. Lydia Andrews also appear in the TV adaptation, but seems to be an old friend of Phryne. She, her husband John and Phryne's aunt Prudence (who does not appear at all in the book unfortunately) invite Phryne to a luncheon that is cancelled because of the murder of John.

Dr Elizabeth Macmillan (On TV usually called Mac) is another of Phryne's old friends. In the book, she travels on the boat together with Phryne, but on TV she is already in Australia, meeting Phryne when she arrives. After the abortion who nearly kills Alice (Greenham in the book. Hartley on TV) Bert and Cec brings her to Mac and alerts Phryne to her condition.

On TV Alice works as the Andrews maid together with Dorothy "Dot" Williams (who has a slightly different background and the last name Bryant in the book) and John Andrews forces himself upon her and she ends up getting pregnant. In the books the background is somewhat different and even though it feels like "the situation" still seems to have arisen through a somewhat forced sexual encounter, she does not work for John Andrews and he is not the father of her child.

There are indications that John Andrews is a rapist even in the books however. His wife seems to have trouble with sex because of this, thinking Sasha is going to rape her when he and Phryne capture her.

"(---) She finds sex loathsome, that is plain. Dirty. Disgusting. Her husband has mistreated her; no woman is born icy..."

~ Sasha De Lisse, Cocaine Blues

Actually I have to say that I do enjoy Lydia's character better in the book. On TV, she succeeds in killing her husband and that is the main plot of the episode. In the book she just plans to poison her husband and we get a little more background to her being the King of Snow. Actually I found the description of the King of Snow interesting. The character was throughout the book up until it was revealed to be Lydia described as a male. Lydia even admits to taking over the role from a woman in Paris, so it seems like the title has been used of a woman for quite some time.

Because I do so much enjoy the character of Detective Inspector Jack Robinson in the TV series, I was sad to see he was quite passive in this book. While rewatching the episode however, I realised that he is not really so much in that one either. Phryne encounters him more there than in the book, but they still does not interact as much as they do in later episodes. I have heard that his character and relations to Phryne are rather different in the books than on TV, but I do not want to have any prejudice towards his book persona until I have got to know him. As we have seen there are some differences in pretty much all characters between book and TV and the book introduces a couple of other characters as well while others are left out. One character I would have loved to see on TV is the female police working with Jack, WPC Jones.

I have to say that I do enjoy both the book and the TV episode and I think there are things they both do better and worse than each other. I prefer how both the abortion, the murder and the drug dealing plotlines are all entwined in the TV episode. It gave a better structure to the story. However, I love that Phryne's social commitment is so much stronger in the book. You see her going to dinner with the socialites of Melbourne and reacting to them trash talking the poor.

'I hope that you did not give him anything, Mr Sanderson!' 
'Of course I did, ma'am.'
'But he would only spend it on drink! You know what the working class are!'
'Indeed, ma'am, and why should he not spend it on drink? Would you deprive the poor, whose lives are band and miserable and comfortless enough, of the solace of a little relief from grinding poverty? A sordid, sodden relief perhaps, but would you be so heartless as to deny the poor even that pleasure in which all of us indulge at your generous expense?'

~ Cocaine Blues

One of the things I also prefer with the book is the solution of the mystery. On TV, Phryne kind of needs to be "rescued" by Jack and it is very unclear if they are able to catch Lydia and finish the cocaine trade. In the book Phryne saves herself! Together with Sasha, she manages to capture Lydia and it is clear that Lydia's helpers also get caught by the police. I find that ending more satisfying seeing as Phryne is no damsel in distress. (To be fair, it is one of a rather few episodes in which Jack needs to come help her out of trouble though.)

(I also would have loved for the scenes in which Phryne kisses Bert to have been in the TV episode as well, but I guess you cannot have everything you want...)


Pictures from here and here.

Kerry Greenwood - Cocaine Blues

Her heart was beating appreciably faster, and she took more rapid breaths, but she was enjoying herself. Adventuresses are born, not made.

~ Kerry Greenwood, Cocaine Blues

Finally, I started reading the books about The Honourable Phryne Fisher by Kerry Greenwood. The first one is, like the pilot of the TV series called Cocaine Blues (1989). I have talked so much about the TV series and how great it is in previous entries to this blog and I will try not to repeat myself to much.

The first "real" post I wrote was about Phryne. Book Phryne is slightly different than TV Phryne, but just as great. (I still cannot help picturing Essie Davis, as I read and I will probably be doing it while reading the other books as well.)

From reactions on TV Phryne on the internet I realise that she is quite uncommon for a female character in pop culture of today and in a recent fan questioning on his website, the actor Nathan Page (who plays Jack Robinson on TV) said: "It’s about bloody time women characters take the lead roles." It makes me quite sad that popular culture does not entirely trust women to carry plot lines in all sorts of media, because to me it is very obvious that they can. In fact growing up in Sweden I was kind of spoon-fed female characters similar to Phryne from a very early age. Astrid Lindgren has written quite a few of them, for example Pippi Långstrump (Pippi Longstocking), Madicken and Ronja rövardotter (Ronja, the Robber's Daughter). I think they are all similar to Phryne, a topic which I have also touched upon before.

Essie Davis as Phryne Fisher in Cocaine Blues

The book is, obviously, about the Honourable Phryne Fisher who travels back to her native Australia. Unlike in the TV series, she does not have a sister who went missing when they were children, but she has been sent by a retired Indian Colonel (who's name you do not get to know other than "the Colonel"). She is to investigate why his daughter Lydia (married Andrews) has been sick so often.

When Phryne gets to Melbourne, she gets herself involved in much more trouble with drug dealers and illegal abortion. The plot is made up of, mostly, the same ingredients as the TV episode. However, they are arranged somewhat differently and I think that is great because now the story felt fresh. I missed Hugh Collins and Aunt Prudence though and Jack Robinson was a little too passive and most of the time non-present and I could not help wondering why they have changed Dot's name. In the book she is called Dorothy Bryant and on TV Dorothy Williams.

There are more themes to talk about in this book and I promise to get back to them in later posts. However, I feel the need to share some thought I have about abortion rights and how it is problematised throughout both books and TV episode. Obviously it was illegal in Australia in 1928. According to Jack Robinson in the TV episode, it could give the woman 10-15 years in jail. (If I have understoood it correctly it is still not legal everywhere in Australia even today.) In Sweden it has been legal since 1938 (The law has been through some changes. The most recent one in 1974.). What I thought interesting was that Vladimir Lenin made abortion legal in the Sovjet Union in 1920 (A fact that "the red-ragger" Bert is soon to provide to Jack in the TV episode and that I had to look up and can say it is true.).

"This was the factory foreman's idea, not mine"

~ Mary, Unnatural Habits, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries

To me it is pretty obvious that a woman who gets pregnant unwillingly always will try to have an abortion even though it is illegal, which Cocaine Blues also illustrates. There will always be "bad men" like Butcher George that will exploit women "in trouble", sometimes in the most gruesome ways. They are fully aware that the women cannot complain or go to the police because they are commiting a crime just as much as the abortionist. It is really a society that creates tragedies, especially since it was very frowned upon if the women gave birth to a child after having got pregnant against her will (even if she had not willingly participated in the sexual act).

Jonas Jonasson - Mördar-Anders och hans vänner (samt en och annan ovän)

This book was actually not something I would probably have looked into if it was not for the fact that Nathan Page (who plays Jack Robinson in Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries) posted a picture on Instagram saying he was reading it. I have to say it was actually pretty much of a fun read. I have not read anything of Jonas Jonasson before, but of course I have heard about him.

Mördar-Anders och hans vänner (samt en och annan ovän) is about Johan Andersson known to everyone as Mördar-Anders (Killer-Anders), Per Persson (a receptionist) and Johanna Kjellander (a priest). Johanna and Per uses Mördar-Anders to trick money from other people in a couple of different ways and that is really the plot line. It does not seem to be interesting, but I was really surprised by how absurd and funny it was.

There were however two things that I thought about that can be far-fetched, but something I wanted to share with you any way. Both are connected to the title character's name, but in different ways.

The first is about the nickname Mördar-Anders. Many Swedes is probably familiar with the song with the same name by Swedish singer Cornelis Vreeswijk. It tells the story of a man kalled Mördar-Anders who is about to be executed. This leads to my second reference for this book and it also has to do with Mördar-Anders's name, but his real one: Johan Andersson.

Police photo of Johan Alfred Andersson Ander 1910

Johan Alfred Andersson Ander was a man who had some troubles keeping himself on the right side of the law at the beginning of the 20th century. On January 5th 1910 he murdered a girl named Victoria Hellsten with a steelyard balance while trying to rob the bank she worked at. For this he was convicted for murder and sentenced to death. This is actually what he is mostly famous for. He was the last person to be executed in Sweden. The Swedish king, Gustav V, was really against the death penalty but to calm public opinion he realised he needed to kill Ander. So Ander was killed at 8AM on November 23rd 1910 in the prison yard at Långholmen in Stockholm. It was both the first and last time in the history of Sweden a guillotine was used. A fun little anecdote about the execution weapon is that no one in customs knew how to handle it, so it was imported as an agricultural implement.


The picture of Johan Alfred Andersson Ander was borrowed at Stockholmskällan