Narratives of Water

This chapter focuses on the use of water and death in Swedish crime novels to represent change, including both ecological and sociological transitions. It looks at Mikael Niemi's Popular Music from Vittula in which water is personified in a manner that intricately connects it with Swedish society, fusing the people and the landscape as one. It explains how water can also be used to signify resistance to change, as in some instances death in Swedish crime fiction occurs in or around stagnant water, suggestive of a reticence in the face of cultural and social progression. Swedish crime novels provide the valuable opportunity to explore narratives of place, ones in which the settings of the texts enrich the work through an atmospheric and evocative portrayal of watery landscapes. The excerpts from Niemi's novel exemplify how water, under the influence of seasonal transformations, can metaphorically be used to represent cyclical changes, uniting the people who come to witness the event.