Another one for Swedeheart

[scotman]

Hi again SH

Is the expression "a Finnish suicide" common in Sweden? I believe it relates to (Swedish) people who effectively drink themselves to death.

[swedeheart]

Hi again scotman. I'll be honest instead of politically correct, shall I: I had never heard the expression and yet I immediately understood what it meant, during the fraction of a second that passed before I read your explanation. The Finnish do drink, beat their families up and top themselves to a higher degree than the rest of the Nordic peoples.

I googled the expression 'Finnish suicide' in Swedish (finskt självmord) and Firefox only came up with 5 search results, one of which referenced one of the Wallender books. Considering the meager results, I would guess that the expression is a Mankell invention. One that is probably intended to denote a cynical attitude in the person who speaks it...? ...but that - sadly - makes immediate sense.

Here's a treat for you: A Mankell stamp. The bullet holes are "real", i.e. the paper really is riddled with actual holes, neat huh. It isn't just Mankell that's honoured this way, it's five other Swedish crime writers as well. The article says that in addition to the portraits of the writers the stamps also show various symbols for police work (helicopters, cars et cetera) and the engravers have been instructed to hide certain messages in micro-writing somewhere in the images. The criminal, however, is always absent... http://www.dn.se/kult...art-du-vill-1.1134653

I'm about to turn my computer in (no pun intended:) for service so if you should ask some follow-up question I won't see it for a number of days now, but I'll have a look here once it's back home again:)

[scotman]

Hi SH

Thanks for taking time to reply.
I did hear it on an episode of 'Wallander' last night and it was somewhat cynical. This was one of the Swedish television productions which are not of the book plots.
I am reading(slowly) all of the books in sequence and am now on number 6 and have no memory of reading that expression.
My search, in English, came up with about the same number of hits but no Wallander among them.
Thanks for the link to the stamps. I wasn't aware of that many major crime fiction writers in Sweden but then I have only recently begun reading crime again. Is Stieg(sp) Larsson popular in Sweden?
Hope your computer come back healthy.

John

[swedeheart]

Hi John, uh, well, it's back but may have to go back in again:'(
Yes, Stieg Larsson (your spelling perfect) is popular here. To be honest I had to give up my attempts at reading his books. I guess the stories may be well wrought but he was a poor stylist and I'm a real Princess on the Pea when it comes to books - I want style as well as plot - and so I don't read a lot of Swedish crime fiction, cos although we do have an impressive number of crime writers I have yet to find one that I enjoy.

But I do like many of the British crime drama series, like Cracker, Wire in the Blood and Luther, so I'm not entirely devoid of blood thirst ha ha.

Here's some news from just the other day if you're looking for more Swedish crime fiction http://www.thecwa.co....10/international.html

Oh and did you know, Daniel Craig will be starring in the Hollywood Millennium trilogy. Oh well... (I like Michael Nyqvist!) No word on Salander yet, who do you reckon should do it?

[LoftyLottie]

Oooh, ooooh, did I hear that magic name, Daniel Craig................................. my heart is racing.

[swedeheart]

Lottie! I'm gonna get myself a Michael Nyqvist avatar and we'll soon see who outdraws who! (Or should I say 'whom', as we're in P&S!)

[LoftyLottie]

He, he

[scotman]

Hi again SH

Thanks for all the extra info about all these writers. I am not very familiar with any Scandinavian writers other than Ibsen & Strindberg and that was a long time ago.:-)
I have not read anything by S Larsson but I am aware that his books are popular at the moment. Some people have said that they found them needlessly violent and sadistic. I may get round to them after finishing Mankell's books. I don't read all that much in summer anyway.
There are quite a number of female crime writers in UK who are successful at the moment; Denise Mina, Martina Cole and Val McDairmid(sp) to name but three. Are there (m)any female crime writers in Sweden?

Getting back to my original question; is it the case that Swedish people tend to look down on the Finns?

John

[piggynose]

Sweden the land of suspicious deaths, eg 1 prime minister, and the other a popular writer

[swedeheart]

...and the third a laptop - mine. It didn't quite die but it's done another stint in the computer penitentiary, hence my absence from this thread - sorry.

Piggynose apart from our Prime Minister we also had a Minister for Foreign Affairs who was murdered; Anna Lindh was her name. She would most likely have gone on to become Prime Minister. The day before she was murdered she held a speech at a square close to where I live and as I happened to be passing by I stood there listening for a while - so yours truly has no doubt been studied by the police over and over again on the footage of the crowds on that day=:0

Yes John historically I think it's fair to say that the Swedes have looked down on the Finns. When I grew up in the south of Sweden (Ystad, no less - remember?) in the sixties the Finnish immigrants were a drunken lot, they really were, and known for carrying knives. Finland used to be one of our "lands" - perhaps that's got something to do with it too, somehow...? http://en.wikipedia.o...weden%E2%80%93Finland

But time has moved on and here in Stockholm there are thousands of upstanding, hard-working Finnish immigrants and I think the attitudes are changing. (cont.)

[swedeheart]

(cont.) I suspect the language differences have played a great part in the past - Finnish is completely different from Swedish, we don't understand each other at all, and many Finnish immigrants just don't have an ear for our phoneme constellations (as the Finnish language doesn't have those constellations). A Finn who learns Swedish as an adult makes the same kind of linguistic mistakes a Swedish child of three or four makes. How fair is it to hold that against someone who just doesn't HAVE the phoneme constellations in question in their language and hence can't "hear" them...? ...and yet I (secretly) believe this has contributed to the way Swedes have thought of Finns.

It's all very unfair, even more so as we Swedes ourselves are no Henry Higginses...! An amazing lot of Swedes aren't able to hear the difference between, on the one hand, a Finnish immigrant speaking broken Swedish and, on the other hand, a Swedish-speaking Finn http://en.wikipedia.o...wedish-speaking_Finns - and yet the difference is huge. Many a Swedish-speaking immigrant Finn has been sent to school here in Sweden "to learn Swedish" - when in fact Swedish is their mother tongue...! (Although they have their own intonation and many words that are particular to Swedish-Finnish.) As I say, we've hardly been fair to them... How come you're interested? If you don't mind my asking. (cont.)

[swedeheart]

I read Garnethill I think it was and I thought it was quite riveting. Yes Sweden is swamped with female crime writers. Liza Marklund is probably the best known. Another poor stylist, I'm afraid... (I must sound like a snob, I don't think I am, I think it's reasonable to expect a writer to have a fine sense of language and not just be a clever plot machine.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liza_Marklund

Here are some more of our crime writers
http://en.wikipedia.o...crime_fiction_writers

Have to go now, I only got my computer back (again) today and I have hundreds of lolcats waiting for me in my Google Reader ha ha ha...!

[scotman]

Welcome back SH.

Good to hear from you again. I had assumed your computer was out of service.

My interest is really just in passing as I had thought the expression would not have been used in television programme unless it was reasonably common currency hence my question about attitude.
I am aware that Finnish is rather an unusual language, not at all like the other Scandinavian ones so I suppose that doesn't help.
I seem to recall that in the past the Swedes invaded all over the place. Didn't King David the Something invade Russia once?
Most nations I believe are 'guilty' of applying national/racial stereotypes.
We Scots are perceived as mean, the Irish as stupid, English as arrogant, Welsh as ugly dwarves, French as unhygienic & selfish, the Germans as humourless etc. Oh and don't get me started on the Swedes!!!!! :-))))))

John

[swedeheart]

He he! / BTW John my friends on this site call me 'Kit', it's just another alias but if you prefer it to SH, feel free:) (Quizmonster that goes for you too if you happen to be reading this.)

[bednobs]

i was just reAding this question out of interest. Can i say SH that you have a phenomanaly (SP?) good mastery of english, for someone who doesn't speak it as their mother tongue

[jno]

she is good, isn't she?

[swedeheart]

Thanks so much bednobs, it's very kind of you to say that and I enjoy hearing it:) In all honesty, though, if you met me on the street and spoke to me, you wouldn't believe I was me... I really depend SO much on dictionaries and Wikipedia. I use Wikipedia a lot for AnswerBank purposes, looking an entry up in Swedish and then switching to the same article in English, borrowing expressions from there. You gotta be street smart don't you!

[swedeheart]

jno, you can call me Kit too! ;-)

[scotman]

Thank you for that, Kit. Obviously I shall still use Swedeheart in title line if(when) I need more help.
You are a good ambassador for your country and should receive recognition from your government.
I have finally figured out how to work my DVD recorder and am recording the Swedish 'Wallander' series which is being repeated by BBC at the moment so may have more questions later.

John