The obscene enjoyment of Jussi Adler-Olsen

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    Abstract

    In contemporary Scandinavian crime fiction a post-realistic tendency has been noticed. We see melodramatic turns, neoromantic tendencies, and a rising post-secular awareness. Together, these reactions may be responses to cultural changes in the welfare landscape of Scandinavian countries. Within these diverse approaches to genre changes, there has also been a significant attraction towards shrewd and radical culprits. Contrary to the socially sensitive treatment of criminality in much Nordic noir, these tendencies have as well given rise to portrayals of radical and absolute evil as a particularly popular approach to the genre.

    In this paper, I draw attention to Jussi Adler-Olsen’s widely popular Department Q novels with explicit emphasis on violence, obscenity, and evil. Even though these novels draw in the horns of realism in the narrative depiction of criminality, the radical evil still evoke a strategic social criticism propounded by the author both within the narratives as well as in popular comments on social predicaments. Social problems are not ransacked from a realistic perspective, but the surplus of evil expressed in the novels, never-theless, figuratively continue the genre’s immanent possibilities of social critique.
    OriginalsprogEngelsk
    Publikationsdato3 maj 2013
    Antal sider6
    StatusUdgivet - 3 maj 2013
    BegivenhedSociety for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study - San Francisco, USA
    Varighed: 2 maj 20134 maj 2013

    Konference

    KonferenceSociety for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study
    Land/OmrådeUSA
    BySan Francisco
    Periode02/05/201304/05/2013

    Emneord

    • Jussi Adler-Olsen
    • crime fiction
    • social critique
    • evil
    • melodrama

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