Tillbaka igen

Och finns det något bättre sätt att starta upp bloggen igen efter min lilla sportlovsfrånvaro än med vad Amerikaner vet om Sverige? Eftersom det alltid är lika roligt att se sig själv och sin kultur ur någon annans ögon, om inte annat så för att det är smickrande med uppmärksamheten, så bjuder jag på detta. Det här är alltså en av Nerd Worlds (Time Magazine's nördblogg) skribenter som har just har upptäckt Den Svenska Kriminalromanen. Och därigenom Sverige.

"Sweden is cold and dark and cold and icy and dark. And the food is all boiled fish and potatoes. There's strange bad guys aplenty up Scandinavia way: immigrant-hating Aryans, Russians, Latvians – they've got the whole Eastern block floating over to kill people. And everybody in Sweden has a Nazi past, if you can just find where they hid their Axis gold.

But here is what makes these novels awesome: they're set in an ever-so-slightly alternate universe called “Sweden.” And in Sweden, you don't know what anything means. How much is a Krona worth? If someone earns 250,000 Krona a year, are they rich? If they steal ten million Krona, is that a lot? I have no idea. And I like not knowing. And you have never heard of any of the cities. If the detective is driving from Malmo to Uppsala, is that far? What about from a kidnapping from Lund to Helsingborg? The not knowing is part of the fun. For someone who barely knows a kilogram from a kilometer, giving into this willful bliss of Nordic ignorance is like downing an ice cold shot of aquavit – it nicely freezes the brain."