Scandinavian crime fiction is popular these days, for example, Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Laura Miller writes about it for the Wall Street Journal.
“Counterintuitive as it may seem, the Scandinavian brand of moroseness can be soothing in hard times. Its roots lie deep in the ancient, pagan literature of the region, preserved in sagas that were first written down in medieval Iceland. The sagas, created by and for people who led supremely difficult lives, are about love, death and war, like all great stories, but above all, they’re about fate.”
I’ve been reading some Japanese murder mysteries lately,(six years), as well as Chinese.
So far, like Japanese murder movies and TV there is a little action, (key word being, LITTLE), and LOTS of talk, and talk…and talk. There is not much info on getting to know the folk in the novel. Everyone seems pretty distant. (Each character seems from the out-set to know his or her role and won’t or can’t get out of it or expand it.) But, then, that is Japan.
Not so with Chinese murder mysteries. Here you get lots of cultural info, historical info and very good character info. Characters are much more “real” here than in Japanese books. They have fears, various lusts, indecision, internal debates, various strengths and weaknesses, etc…
The revolution is usually a very strong constant in each novel I’ve read. It plays a large part as far as how people live, behave, grow…LIVE in that society.
Just about all the characters grow and sometimes even surprise you.
Very often, Japanese enjoy a good story with a tragic ending. Kinda like: “Alls well that ends badly.” The hero can be a super nice guy, he should be rewarded somehow… but he gets run over by the express train at the last minute.
If you want action in your reading/viewing entertainment in Japan, (…he paints with a very wide brush, someone said…), go with the traditional samurai stuff.
The sagas are not a cause. They’re an earlier symptom. The cause is the long winters.