Professional Documents
Culture Documents
PDF Contemporary Nordic Literature and Spatiality Kristina Malmio Ebook Full Chapter
PDF Contemporary Nordic Literature and Spatiality Kristina Malmio Ebook Full Chapter
https://textbookfull.com/product/progressive-intertextual-
practice-in-modern-and-contemporary-literature-routledge-studies-
in-contemporary-literature-1st-edition-katherine-ebury/
https://textbookfull.com/product/the-end-of-literature-hegel-and-
the-contemporary-novel-francesco-campana/
https://textbookfull.com/product/jameson-and-literature-the-
novel-history-and-contemporary-reading-practices-jarrad-cogle/
https://textbookfull.com/product/contemporary-american-
literature-and-excremental-culture-american-sh-t-mary-c-foltz/
Memory Frictions in Contemporary Literature 1st Edition
María Jesús Martínez-Alfaro
https://textbookfull.com/product/memory-frictions-in-
contemporary-literature-1st-edition-maria-jesus-martinez-alfaro/
https://textbookfull.com/product/access-to-online-resources-
kristina-botyriute/
https://textbookfull.com/product/gut-health-for-dummies-kristina-
campbell/
https://textbookfull.com/product/organization-and-administration-
in-higher-education-kristina-m-cragg/
https://textbookfull.com/product/architectural-space-and-the-
imagination-houses-in-literature-and-art-from-classical-to-
contemporary-jane-griffiths/
GEOCRITICISM AND SPATIAL
LITERARY STUDIES
Contemporary Nordic
Literature and Spatiality
Edited by
Kristina Malmio
Kaisa Kurikka
Geocriticism and Spatial Literary Studies
Series Editor
Robert T. Tally Jr.
Texas State University
San Marcos, TX, USA
Geocriticism and Spatial Literary Studies is a new book series focusing on
the dynamic relations among space, place, and literature. The spatial turn
in the humanities and social sciences has occasioned an explosion of inno-
vative, multidisciplinary scholarship in recent years, and geocriticism,
broadly conceived, has been among the more promising developments in
spatially oriented literary studies. Whether focused on literary geography,
cartography, geopoetics, or the spatial humanities more generally, geo-
critical approaches enable readers to reflect upon the representation of
space and place, both in imaginary universes and in those zones where
fiction meets reality. Titles in the series include both monographs and col-
lections of essays devoted to literary criticism, theory, and history, often in
association with other arts and sciences. Drawing on diverse critical and
theoretical traditions, books in the Geocriticism and Spatial Literary
Studies series disclose, analyze, and explore the significance of space, place,
and mapping in literature and in the world.
Contemporary
Nordic Literature
and Spatiality
Editors
Kristina Malmio Kaisa Kurikka
University of Helsinki University of Turku
Helsinki, Finland Turku, Finland
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020. This book is an open access publication.
Open Access This book is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits
use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as
you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the
Creative Commons licence and indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this book are included in the book’s Creative
Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not
included in the book’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by
statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly
from the copyright holder.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to
the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The
publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and
institutional affiliations.
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Series Editor’s Preface
The spatial turn in the humanities and social sciences has occasioned an
explosion of innovative, multidisciplinary scholarship. Spatially oriented
literary studies, whether operating under the banner of literary geography,
literary cartography, geophilosophy, geopoetics, geocriticism, or the spa-
tial humanities more generally, have helped to reframe or transform con-
temporary criticism by focusing attention, in various ways, on the dynamic
relations among space, place, and literature. Reflecting upon the represen-
tation of space and place, whether in the real world, in imaginary universes
or in those hybrid zones where fiction meets reality, scholars and critics
working in spatial literary studies are helping to reorient literary criticism,
history, and theory. Geocriticism and Spatial Literary Studies is a book
series presenting new research in this burgeoning field of inquiry.
In exploring such matters as the representation of place in literary
works, the relations between literature and geography, the historical trans-
formation of literary and cartographic practices, and the role of space in
critical theory, among many others, geocriticism and spatial literary studies
have also developed interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary methods and
practices, frequently making productive connections to architecture, art
history, geography, history, philosophy, politics, social theory, and urban
studies, to name but a few. Spatial criticism is not limited to the spaces of
the so-called real world, and it sometimes calls into question any too facile
a distinction between real and imaginary places, as it frequently investi-
gates what Edward Soja has referred to as the “real-and-imagined” places
we experience in literature as in life. Indeed, although a great deal of
important research has been devoted to the literary representation of
v
vi SERIES EDITOR’S PREFACE
vii
viii PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ix
x CONTENTS
Index301
Notes on Contributors
xiii
xiv NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
xvii
CHAPTER 1
K. Malmio (*)
University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
K. Kurikka
University of Turku, Turku, Finland
notion, namely storied spaces. Fiction does not merely narrate spatial sto-
ries nor offer poetic spatial dimensions, it also sets spatiality into motion
by stratifying spaces and places in multiple layers of meanings: spaces
become literally storied—and stored—in fiction. This volume argues that
the storied spaces of contemporary Nordic literature are filled with com-
plexities which also point to the interconnectedness of space.
To explain this argument we proceed by making a story of a space out-
side fiction. The travel story highlighting many aspects of spatiality begins
on the highway leading toward the Finnish southwestern archipelago. The
road marks the beginning of the Archipelago trail, a 250-kilometer circu-
lar route starting from the city of Turku, and leading to Baltic Sea scener-
ies. The route is a tourist attraction targeted to lure nature enthusiasts,
cyclists, and motorists. Traveling along this road one cannot miss a road-
side sign announcing in Swedish “Livet är lokalt,” that is “Life is local.”
Whether traveling by car, cycling, or walking, one can stop at the billboard
to ponder on its surprising presence in the middle of a sparsely populated
rural area with houses and farms scattered here and there besides the flat
cornfields or some groups of spruce. This spatial element made of wood
and steel astonishes passers-by and causes a series of affects to arise in
them, varying from anger to amusement. This is an example of the ways
spaces become storied and how they carry many layers of meanings that
point to the affective forces of spatiality, the ways in which spaces are per-
ceived, as well as the means by which spaces enter into a dialogue with
historical, cultural, economic, and ecological perspectives. The chapters of
this volume deal with all these issues.
The billboard provokes the traveler to think about the ways a cultural
artifact has entered natural surroundings as if it was an example of nature-
culture, a term coined by Donna Haraway (e.g., 2008) to denote how
things and creatures categorized either as “natural” or as “cultural” are
indeed intertwined and mingled. The eyes of the traveler sharpen on the
white letters announcing the “locality of life”; the text resembles hand-
written text which is resting on the red background. Then the eyes move
to the other side of the sign and focus on the yellow background with the
letters ÅU, which make the traveler realize that the billboard is actually an
advertisement for Åbo Underrättelser (Åbo News), the oldest Finnish
newspaper still in print since its first issue dating back to January 3, 1824.
This realization combines a historical layer to capitalist undertones; the
logics and strategies of late modern capitalist consumer culture have
entered the Finnish countryside through the backdoor with this billboard
1 INTRODUCTION: STORIED SPACES OF CONTEMPORARY NORDIC… 3
Nordic literature, which asks “How local is living in the Nordic coun-
tries?” or “How does one lead a local life in a contemporary situation
which is penetrated by global worries, such as climate change and eco-
nomic and sexual inequality?” Whether the claim of the advertisement still
holds true or not, it is an example of affective usage of spatial forms; the
slogan appears as a (nostalgic) plea in favor of local communities, thus rais-
ing up affects of authenticity actualized by the harmony of the local.
However, literature, especially popular fiction, also utilizes this nostalgic
need for harmonious localities. Scandinavian crime fiction written in the
twenty-first century, often referred to as Nordic Noir, has even been said
to carry “neo-romantic tendencies.” Certainly, at least some recent Swedish
crime fiction focuses on nature and cultural heritage and places murders
and crimes in rural local communities depicted as idyllic regions (Bergman
2011, 41). According to Kerstin Bergman (2014, 103), almost all traces of
globalization are absent from these depictions. Andrew Nestingen (2008,
17) has also noticed the “melodramatic” drive in Nordic Noir. However,
Nestingen connects this melodrama to political and national discourse by
taking up Henning Mankell’s famous character Kurt Wallander and his
repeated question “What is happening in Sweden?” Writing about the
locations of Nordic Noir, K.T. Hansen and A. M. Waade (2017b, 110–11)
argue that the romanticization of the local setting in Scandinavian crime
fiction may be an idyllic response to the confidence that such a place may
once have existed, but at the same time the rhetorics of such production of
place may also refer to local self-references and identity.
Hansen and Waade, moreover, acknowledge that present-day Nordic
Noir constantly negotiates with real places, and shows a “straightforward
and somewhat unproblematic relationship between fictional and actual
places as locations,” meaning the places where the Nordic Noir
TV-productions take place (Hansen and Waade 2017a, 10). They have
noticed that despite postmodern concerns about the blurring of the
boundary between fictional and alleged real worlds, which postmodernist
literature tackles, real places do not pose any real epistemological ques-
tions concerning the ontological status of place and location in Nordic Noir.
The discussions over literature’s relation to postmodernism and reality
do not take place only within Nordic Noir but have also been addressed in
the wider context of contemporary Nordic literature. In the introduction
to Millennium: Nye retninger i nordisk litteratur (2013; “Millennium:
New Directions in Nordic Literature”) Mads Bunch suggests that one
common feature in contemporary literature of the Nordic countries is that
1 INTRODUCTION: STORIED SPACES OF CONTEMPORARY NORDIC… 7
Despite some similarities, our book differs from Spatial Nodes on specific
points. First, our focus is on recent literature, and on the effects of late
modernity on contemporary literature, while Spatial Nodes puts more
emphasis on a historical perspective. Second, Spatial Nodes combines the
concept of “place” with the term “node,” defined as “important clusters
in the practice of spatial representation, imaginative figural tropes of
heightened significance, or resonant temporal turning points” (Sondrup
and Sandberg 2017, 5). For Massey, space and place are inseparable, and
created in mutual interaction (Massey 2005, 184, 194). Thus, we do not
find the term “node” necessary for analysis of the spatial dimension of
(contemporary) Nordic literature. Also, we maintain that the current the-
ories of space and spatiality used in this volume are as such both complex
and useful.
The aim of Contemporary Nordic Literature and Spatiality is to per-
ceive the North as a special thickening of space and to regard “the region
as something that not only grows from its own past, but also constantly
recycles the surrounding world” (Ringgaard and DuBois 2017, 26).
We expand the aspects offered in Spatial Nodes in many ways. Our vol-
ume includes authors, works, and spaces that are not analyzed in that
volume, and we develop and enrich many of the approaches on spatiality
10 K. MALMIO AND K. KURIKKA
humans are no longer in the center, and they exist on the same level as all
other living and non-living things they are interconnected to, as part of a
shared ecology, and with an ethical responsibility for the planet and all its
elements. Various strivings to map spatialities in their wider connections,
for example, with ecological issues, are increasingly actualized in recent
literature. This also means that contemporary literature is problematizing
the place of human beings in the world.
In the chapters of this book the contributors discuss literature using
several notions of space. These notions and theoreticians can be linked to
the spatial turn, but many of them also have connections to the material
and affective turns. Most theories and notions of spatiality are proposed by
non-literary scholars, but the chapters adapt them to adjust to the ways of
literary world-making and literary geographies. Despite the recent rapid
development of spatial studies, certain central theoretical approaches and
scholars have maintained their position of importance in the field. That is
also obvious when one approaches the chapters in our collection.
Akim pysähtyi.
— Kotiin.
— Tahdotko, kyyditsen?
— Vai niin, vai ajoi hän sinut pois? — virkkoi katkerasti Akim.
— Ei, isäseni, tapa minut, isäseni, tapa minut kirottu: lyö, älä välitä
hänen sanoistaan, — huusi Audotja, kierien Akimin jaloissa.
Isä! isä!
Efrem vilkastui.
<tb>
Ellei Kirilovna aivan oikein kertonut Lisaveta Prohorovnalle
keskusteluaan Akimin keralla… niin samaa voidaan sanoa
Audotjasta: Naum ei häntä ajanut pois, vaikka hän niin Akimille
sanoi; hänellähän ei ollut siihen oikeutta… Hän oli velvollinen
antamaan vanhoille eläjille aikaa poismuuttoon. Hänen Ja Audotjan
välinen pesänselvitys eli kokonaan toisenlainen.
Kun Akim Eframin kanssa ajoi hänen luotaan pois, jättäen hänet
yksinään pellolle, niin hän alussa ainoastaan itki, liikahtamatta
paikaltaan. Itkettyään kyllikseen lähti hän herraskartanoon, vielä
katkerampaa oli näyttäytyä palvelijain huoneessa. Kaikki tytöt
hyökkäsivät häntä vastaan osaaottavina ja sääliväisinä. Heidät
nähtyään, ei Audotja voinut pidättää kyyneltään; ne nyt virtoina
valuivat hänen turvonneista ja punaisista silmistään. Kokonaan
voimattomana vaipui hän eteensattuvalle tuolille. Juoksivat
hakemaan Kirilovnaa. Hän tuli, meni hänen luokseen kerrassaan
lempeänä. Mutta herrattaren luokse ei laskenut häntä enemmän kuin
Akimiakaan. Eikä Audotja itsekään kovin tiukasti vaatinut herrattaren
puheille, hän tuli kartanoon yksinomaan siltä syystä, ettei ensinkään
tietänyt, mihin olisi päänsä kallistanut.
<tb>
— Niin; vielä.
Vasta hämärsi, kun hän ajoi pihaan, mutta siltä huolimatta portilla
jo seisoi valjaissa hevonen ja yksi Naumin palvelija istui kuskilla
pidellen ohjia.
— Mitä varten?