Chapter 9

The Devious Landscape in Contemporary

Scandinavian Horror
Yvonne Leffler

There are many examples of the boom of hon or stories that has taken place in
Scandinavia in the last decades. John Arvijde Lindqvists vampire novel L&t den
rdtte komma in [Let the Right One In, 2004) is a bestseller both inside and outside
Sweden and has been translated into several languages, including English. It
has also resulted in two films: a 2008 Swedish-language film by the same name,
directed by Tomas Alffedson, and an English-language film. Let Me In, directed by
Matt Reeves and released in 2010. Also, Lai s von Triers film Anti-Christ (2009)
has won several awards and attracted much attention, as it caused controversy
about gender issues. In several interviews, the Danish director has confirmed that
he chose to make a honor film because it could be used for certain images and
subjects he wanted to communicate.
All these works ai e good examples of Scandinavian hon or as such and of a
certain Gothic tradition in Scandinavian literature and film, where characters ai e
depicted as victims of the surrounding landscape, the uncontrollable wilderness.
Also in works dealing with the haunted house, such as Joakim Ersgrd's Swedish
film Beskarna (The Visitors, 1988), it is significant that the house is remotely
situated far out in the countryside and surrounded by wild nature. In Lais von
Triers TV production Riget (The Kingdom, 1994; Paget II, 1997), the modem
hospital in Copenhagen is built on a swamp that now and then calls forth the powers
of nature and an ancient Danish past. In Alfreds on's film Lt den ratte komma in,
the rather urban setting of Arvijde Lindqvists novel is placed in the background.
The hon or scenes, which show the attacks of the vampire and its assistant, often
take place in the snow-covered, untamed nature that remains within the modem
suburb of Blackeberg, outside Stockholm. In the film, the snow and the pine forest
seem to be just as important for the vampires health as the darkness of the night.
In this article, I will argue that contemporary Scandinavian honor is a placefocused, or topofocal, genre in which setting plays a central role and can be equated
with a character taking part in the action.1 I will demonstrate how contemporary
Scandinavian horror, in novels and films, revolves around a certain type of
landscape or Gothic topography, the Nordic wilderness, weaving the landscape
into the story rather than using it as backdrop for the action on stage. First, I will

For a topofocal definition of fantasy, see Ekman 12.

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give an overview of Scandinavian honor by introducing some examples of Gothic

novels and honor films from the early nineteenth century to the present day. On
the basis of some illustrative examples, I will then discuss the Gothic topography
in contemporary hon or and show how Scandinavian protagonists often become
victims of their environment, that is, the Nordic landscape. I will argue that
Scandinavian writers and filmmakers do not, as do many European ones, return to
the Middle Ages to revive a feudal past in their hon or stories. Instead they recall a
prehistoric era further back in time, the pagan pre-medieval era before Christianity
was brought to Scandinavia or a mythic state before man. Finally, I will discuss
why the landscape plays such an aggressive part in contemporary Scandinavian
honor, and why it may represent an antipode of human civilization.
The Gothic Tradition in Scandinavian Horror

Around 1800, the Gothic genre became popular in Scandinavian literature (see
Leffler). Many of the famous English, Geman and French novels were available
to Scandinavian readers and some of them were translated into Swedish, Danish
and Norwegian. Ann Radcliffes The Italian and Matthew Lewiss The Monk
were two of the most widely read novels in the early nineteenth century. Writers
like E.T.A. Hoffmann, Eugne Sue and Edgar Allan Poe became popular later
on. Several Scandinavian writers referred to well-known Gothic works in their
texts. Bernhard Ingem aims Danish tale Varulven (The Werewolf, 1835) and
Victor Rydbergs Swedish story Wampyren (The Vampire, 1848) aie more or
less built on John Polidoris 'The Vampyre (1819). Several women writers wrote
in the tradition of female Gothic. In Hin Ondes hus (The House of the Devil, 1853),
the Swedish writer Aurora Ljungstedt refers explicitly to Radcliffes novels. The
Swedish Nobel Prize winner Selma Lagerlf used a Gothic landscape to illustrate
the evil forces in nature and within man in her novels Gsta Berhngs saga
(Gsta Be dings Saga, 1891) and Herr Arnes penmngar (The Treasure, 1903; see
Wijkmark). In the 1930s Karen Blixen, a Danish writer who is also known by
her pseudonym, Isak Dinesen, calls her collection of short stories Syv fantasiaske
fortaelhnger (Seven Gothic Tales, 1934). Several contemporary Swedish women
writers use Gothic elements in their novels and short stories. For instance, Mare
KandresA/zzfe Alude (1991) and Inger Edelfeldts Juliane och jag (Juliane and I,
1982) also published as Nattens barn (Night Children, 1994) aie both structured as
Gothic romances (Fyhr 157-204). The latter novel inspired Lena Ohlin to make a
Gothic TV series in four parts for Swedish television in 1995.
Several early Scandinavian filmmakers were inspired by Gothic literature
and used hon or elements in their films. The spooky visualization of the ride of
the witches in Benjamin Christensens Swedish-Danish silent film Hxan (The
Witches, 1922) inspired Walt Disney when he illustrated Modest Mussorgsky's
music Erne Nacht aufdem Kahlen Beige (Night on Bald Mountain) in his animated
film Fantasia (1940). In Victor Sjstrms Swedish film Krkarlen (The Phantom

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Carnage, 1921), the technique of double exposure illustrates the realm of death
and stresses the Gothic elements in Lagerlofs novel published in 1912, Krkarlen
(English edition Thy Soul Shall Bear Witness, 1921), on which the film was based.
The first Scandinavian and Danish vampire film, Call Theodor Dreyer\s Vampyr
(1931-1932), is, like many hon or films, structured as a journey back to a savage
place, a village bey ond both time and space at the border between day and night. The
same dissolution of time and chronological order is found in several contemporary
works, in Swedish novels such as Andreas Marklunds Skordedrottmngen (The
Haivest Queen, 2007) and Arvijde Lindqvists Manmskohamn (Habor, 2008)
and in films such as the Finnish director A. J. Annilas Sauna (2008) and Anders
Morgen thaler's Danish film Ekko (Echo, 2007). In many Scandinavian works the
external space appeals to be a real threat to the characters, In Kristoffer Le an doers
story 'De svarta svanama (4Tlie Black Swans, 1994) the protagonist is literally
attacked by some black swans, the representatives of the local wildlife in southern
Sweden. In Michael Hjorths film Det oknda (The Unknown, 2000), which is
inspired by Myrick and Sanchezs The Blair Witch Project, the Swedish forest acts
as an attacking antagonist.
Gothic conventions aie also used in other popular genres. An early and
nowadays legendary example of genre renewal with many references to famous
honor films is von Trier's satirical Danish TV-serial The Kingdom (see Agger
488-517). Several Scandinavian honor parodies have won awards, for instance
Anders Balike's Swedish vampire parody Frostbite and Roar Uthaug's Norwegian
slasher film Fntt Vilt (Cold Prey), both of which were released in 2006. Nicolas
Winding Reins Valhalla Rising (2009) is a Danish film version of Joseph Conrads
novel Head of Darkness, or the films based on it. Some Scandinavian honor films
refer to local folklore, such as Anch 0vredals Trolljegeren (Troll Hunter, 2010),
or the dark history of the region, such as Tommy Wirkolas zombie comedy Dod
sn0 (Dead, Snow, 2009). Various Scandinavian crime writers combine crime and
hon or elements in their novels. For instance. Johan Theorins Gothic crime novels
Nattfak (Echoes from the Dead, 2007), Skumtunmen (The Darkest Room, 2008)
and Blodlge (The Quany, 2010) had in 2011 been sold to 20 countries. In these
novels the Swedish writer combines the plotline of a modem crime investigation
with the depiction of a haunted place, where old conceptions of supernatural
powers and hidden crimes activate repressed memories of a dark past on the
Swedish island of land.
Tims, Scandinavian literature and film from the early nineteenth century to the
present day ai e densely intertextual. The writers and filmmakers place themselves
in the tradition of Gothic fiction and take for granted that their audiences aie
familial' with the honor genre. At the same time they aie eager to remind their
audiences that their stories take place in an authentic Scandinavian environment.
Most honor stories aie, like Lagerlofs novels and Hjorths film, located in a
recognizable and explicitly named place. Regional folklore about supernatural
beings living in the wilderness, such as trolls and fairies and local pagan traditions
about sacrificial ceremonies and fertility rituals aie used to enhance the Gothic

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144

atmosphere. In many works, the protagonists dark side is bound to and triggered
by the surrounding landscape and the pre-historic pagan past of the Nordic region.
Hence, the early Scandinavian writers and filmmakers soon developed a
specific Scandinavian Gothic topography, that is, a complex relationship between
landscape and character, space and focalizad on, external environment and internal
mental state, the present time and the hidden past. Although contemporary
Scandinavian authors and directors, such as Arvijde Lindqvist, Uthaug and von
Trier, aie veiy much part of the worldwide and international production and
distribution of hon or, their works thrive on a Scandinavian tradition of the genre.
Just as in earlier works by Scandinavian writers the mazy architecture of the Gothic
castle, the labyrinthine city and the haunted house is replaced by the boundless,
uncontrollable Nordic wilderness, often the immense dark forests in northern
Sweden and Finland, the snow covered mountains in Noiway or the stormy sea
in Denmark. The scenery is not, as in most Gothic fiction and hon or film, mainly
an emotionally coloured landscape, that expresses the emotional state of the main
characters or the narrator. Instead, the landscape is the generating locus of action.
The Gothic Topography in Scandinavian Horror

Numerous modem Scandinavian honor stories illustrate what Northrop Five

calls The theme of descent, the protagonists movement from a higher to a lower
world, from the natural world to the undeiworld in his or her search of lost identity
(97-126). They also express a concept of wilderness as a state prior to civilization;
or, as Max Oelschlaeger and others claim, the idea that civilization created the
concept of wilderness and a distinction between domesticated landscape and
wild nature (31-67; Nash xi-22). In Scandinavian honor the underworld is the
Nordic landscape where the protagonists undergo a series of transformations
or ritual sufferings that lead to the painful discovery or recovery of their lost or
hidden identities, as well as their connection to a pagan past. The encounter with
untamed nature is thus a return to a barbaric - or mythic - state before time and
chronological order existed as a central part of mans culture and civilized life, hi
old Scandinavian folklore since early medieval Christianity, the wilderness has
kept its significance as the earthly realms of the powers of evil. The confrontation
with the wilderness in contemporary honor activates these ideas as well as a
pre-industrial way of life w hen the population in the Scandinavian countries mainly
consisted of fanners, fishermen and forestry woikers. People were then living in
what could be called a magic landscape of production, a landscape producing the
necessities of life but at the same time considered to be inhabited by powers and
forces that people had to control or adapt to. According to popular belief, every
type of landscape and region was populated by its specific nature-beings, often
ambivalent creatures who, if well treated, could be of seivice, but if offended
would fight back and punish those persons that had violated their mies.2
For a discussion of man, landscape and time, see Fiykman and Lofgren 21-73.

|) M e h I o n e n . P.M.. and Savolainen. Matti. eds Gothic

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In todays honor stories, the protagonists aie often modem city-dwellers who
by accident, because of work or for retreat, end up in an environment they ai e
not familial' with and aie not able to adapt to. The landscape thus plays an even
more prominent part than in earlier fiction. The depiction of untouched nature as
the unknown, the significant other, is stressed as it is focalized from the visitors
perspective. The landscape becomes a devious place, not just a backdrop to what
happens but an antagonist. It becomes the ultimate monster in films, such as
HjortlTs Det o tanda. Winding RefiTs Valhalla Rising and von Triers Anti-Chnst,
and in novels, such as Mark lund's Skrdedvottningen and Arvijde Lindqvists
Mdnmskohamn. In certain stories the snow-covered mountains operate through
their external tools or adopted henchmen, as in Wirkolas film D0d sn.0, where
some winter tourists aie attacked by bloodthirsty Nazi zombies, the remains of
greedy soldiers that lay in ambush up in the high Norwegian mountains during the
Second World War.
In other stories, the wilderness is represented by an undefined ever-present
force connected to the local landscape as in Det okcinda. This force of nature often
acts as an external antagonist fighting the protagonists and preventing them from
reaching their goal. In Winding RefiTs film Valhalla Rising the story takes place in
1000 AD when a mute warrior and his boy slave board a Viking vessel on Iceland
and begin a journey into a land of obscurity. The vessel is engulfed by endless
fog before the crew sights a hostile unknown land where mysterious arrows kill
them. In HjortlTs Det okanda, the forest in northern Sweden is transformed into
a claustrophobic place for a group of young scientists sent off to investigate a
remote fire-ravaged area in the northern forest, and in Annilas film Sauna, a group
of soldiers and land surveyors ai e sent to the inhabited marshland in the north
eastern part of Finland by the Swedish king and the Russian tsar to mark the new
border between the countries in 1595. In both films, Det okanda and Sauna, the
work of the scientists and soldiers, their investigation and their documentation of
the area, is gradually threatened by an unknown alien force as the landscape, the
forest or the marsh, starts to act as a living organism. Unlike in most hon or, it is
not another character, or the monster, but the landscape itself that prevents the
protagonists from reaching their goal or holds them back by placing impediments
in their way. The hardships they have to endure gradually affect their perception
and mental states. The boundless landscape triggers frightening visions in a way
that dissolves the distinction between landscape and character. In that way, the
scientists' rational ideas as well as the soldiers pragmatic worldview ai e little by
little challenged by an ancient primitive force in nature.
In some modem narratives, the landscape even forces the protagonists to
act as its servants or slaves. In Marklunds Skrdedvottningen, a young scholar,
Olof, and his girlfriend visit the northern region of Vasterbotten in Sweden to
search for a missing friend who might be the victim of a crime. On their way
north, the snowstorm brings them to their friends old farm house where the harsh
arctic climate keeps them imprisoned during the winter. As the snowbound winter
landscape prevents them from returning to Stockholm, it brings Olof gradually

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closer to the dark history of his own ancestors, preparing him to become a new
servant to the old death goddess, the Harvest Queen'.
In other stories the supernatural creatures of nature act as unpredictable or
ambivalent helpers who often bring out the protagonists' dreams and desires. In
Theorin's novel Blodlge, Ven del persuades her husband to leave town and move
to a fashionable summer house close to the faim on the island of Olaud where
she was bom. Ever since she was a child, she has believed in the local Swedish
folk-ta les about fairies and their beautiful fairy queen. When she and her husband
arrive at the island, she soon establishes contact with what she believes to be the
fairies, and she begins sacrificing to them, hoping they will make her wishes come
true. Since she has for many years been kept down by her famous husband, she
finally leaves her wedding ring as a gift to the fairies at the old sacrificial stone,
asking them to make him die of a he ait attack. Although the supernatural creatures
of nature appeal to have fulfilled her wishes before, it does not work this time.
Now it is Ven de la herself who seems to be the sacrificial victim of the fairies and
their queen as she almost dies duiing the ritual.
Many contemporary Scandinavian hon or stories ai e structured as a movement
away from the ordinary everyday world in the city into a remote hostile place in the
wilderness where the rules aie unfamiliar. Li Det o tanda and Skorded / ottningen,
the protagonists leave their quotidian routines in the city to explore something
unknown in northern Sweden, either as part of their work as scientists or as
detectives investigating a case of a missing person. The encounter with untamed
nature soon changes their assignment and the exploration of the local environment
becomes then main occupation. The landscape becomes the significant other,
a mystery to solve and an aggressive opponent to fight. The protagonists
confrontations with the wilderness place them in a state of mental dissolution on
the verge of collapse as individuals. After a time, no boundaries exist between the
self and the environment, between man and landscape, local history and present
experiences. The border between the protagonists and the surrounding wildlife is
gradually dissolved as the protagonists more and more aie acting on behalf of the
landscape, either by free will or as their downcast slave. Often the landscape starts
to act as an inner monster, a Mr Hyde, that is, a repressed or hostile force within
them, as illustrated by The or ins Blodlge and Lean doer's The Black Swans. In
both stories, a married couple moves to the countryside to start a new life, and in
both stories the woman establishes a bond with an alien representative of nature.
In De svaita svanana' a young family moves to an old farm house in the southern
part of Sweden where a couple of black swans of a rai e species, thought to be
extinct, ai e nesting at the pond in the garden. The narrator-protagonist, Jonas, feels
gradually threatened by them while his wife step by step establishes an intimate
relationship with the birds. When Jonas arrives home, or wakes up in the middle
of the night, he often finds her walking around in the garden petting the swans.
One night he even witnesses how the male swan is making love to her, entering
her body through her mouth and making her almost immediately give birth to a
snakelike creature, which dives down into the pond. Jonas finds an explanation

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to what is happening when he is told an old legend dating from pagan times,
explaining the presence of the two black swans at the farm and their uncanny
connection to the local landscape, as well as to forbidden love, uncontrollable
hatred and murder.
In Lean doer's De svarta svanama', however, it is not one of the protagonists as in Theorins Blodlge - who establishes a bond with nature. Instead, the tale
is told by someone who witnesses the trail sfonn at ion of his wife. It is not, as is
usual in Gothic fiction, the male protagonist who turns into a monster. Instead, it
is the female character who becomes pait of the wildlife at the farm and who at
the end transforms into an alien being, a black sw an. The way she becomes one
with the environment is characteristic of Scandinavian hon or. As in Blodlge, the
representatives of the old wildlife of the region, the fairies on the island of land
and the black swans at the old farm in southern Sweden, activate repressed forces
and forbidden desires within the women. Vendela in Blodlge is however cured
from her belief in the fairies after she is almost killed at the stone of sacrifice, and
in the novel her delusions aie given a more or less natural explanation. Still, the
readers of the novel ai e likely to think that her experience will have a profound
impact on her future life. Contrary to what is the case in Blodlge, there is no
natural explanation to what happens in De svarta svanama1. The relationship with
the wild creatures, the black swans, finally makes the young woman transform into
The Other. She suffers from what Nol Carroll calls temporal fission (46); during
the day she is Jonass w ife, at night she transforms into a black swan joining the
other swans at the pond.
Accordingly, in both Slcordedrottmngen by Marklund and Leandoer's De
svarta svanama, the setting, the powers of nature, and the local ancient legends
and myths play a major pait In Slcordedrottmngen, Olof is from the start a victim
of his ancestors pagan past. His search for his friend is pait of the dark forces
plotting to make him uncover especially his grandfathers hideous secret as W'ell as
an alien and powerful reality beyond modem life, a world ruled by the merciless
Harvest Queen. In De svarta svanama, the birds aie the driving force of the plot
as they activate the repressed power within man, or woman rather, as a product
of a savage, untamed nature. The meeting with the swans, the link to the past of
the old farm, gradually makes chronological order collapse and the characters to
end up in another reality or mythic world. Both stories ai e examples of topofocal
honor where the setting, the snow covered landscape in northern Sweden and
the black swans in the old garden in southern Sweden, can be seen as powerful
characters. First the landscape or its representative acts as an external threat, a
hostile antagonist fighting the protagonists by using forces of nature. Then wild
nature starts to act as an internal enemy, actively invading the protagonists, using
them as instruments to fulfill its goal and by that dissolving the distinction between
outer and inner space, man and nature.
Also Arvijde Lindqvists novel MnmsJcohamn, Moig en thalers film Ekko and
von Triers Anti-Christ (2009) illustrate how the encounter with the wilderness
leads to a breakdown of chronological time in a way that is typical of contemporary

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Scandinavian honor. In all three cases the process starts with a violent death,
in Manmskohamn and Anti-Christ, a childs death and a parent's traumatic
experience, and in Ekko a fathers death and the sons repressed memories. In
all cases, the bereavement initiates a fusion of landscape and character, of the
present time and the forgotten past. In Manmskohamn, the male protagonist is
haunted by the mysterious disappearance of his little daughter on a cold winter
day out on the frozen Baltic Sea. In Ekko the psychological chain a evolves from
the male protagonists painful past and his fathers death by drowning close to his
family home in Denmark. In Anti-Christ, the woman has a breakdown, because
her little boy falls to his death from an open window while she and her husband
ai e making love in their bedroom. In all three stories, the local landscape directs
the characters1 attention and actions. It communicates by giving rise to visions; it
evokes repressed memories and makes them act as its instruments in bringing forth
hidden crimes of the past. Although the hon or centers on the recent past and the
memories of a traumatic event, the ultimate cause of what happens is connected to
what once took place in remote history. In Manmskohamn, the fathers search for
his daughter calls forth repressed memories from his own childhood and youth; at
the same time it unveils the secret of the island and an ancient pagan pact between
the inhabitants of the archipelago and the sea. In Ekko, the male protagonist, a
divorced policeman, is confronted with his own childhood during his and his young
sons visit to a summer house by the sea, where the boy is haunted by strange
dreams and visions. The boys dreamlike hallucinations bring him and his father to
the old landing-stage where the man is brought back to his own childhood trauma
and the night his father drowned in the same place. In Anti-Christ, the parents
of the dead boy retreat to a cottage in the woods, called Eden, to recover from
their loss. During their stay, the man experiences strange hallucinations triggered
by mythical animals in the landscape as his wife manifests increasingly violent
behaviour. In his visions, the man is confronted with uncomfortable revelations
from the past, images of the woman visiting the cottage alone - or together with
their child - at the time when she was working on her thesis on the old witch
trials. Hence an uncanny connection is established between past and present in
Manmskohamn, Ekko an Anti-Christ.
At first, the island, the seaside and the forest seem peaceful and romantic places
but in all three cases they soon change into a locus of pain and suffering, killing
and death. Past, present and future gradually lose their chronological and historical
order and tend towards an eternal present. In Manmskohamn, the father finally
feels united with his daughter when he visits a subterranean cave and believes he
is an integral part of the island, its past, present and future. In Ekko, the fathers
childhood, his sons visions and wiiat happens to them during their stay at the
summer house appeal to be integrated in a vibrating mental present where there
is no distinct division between actual environment and mental fantasy, father and
son, past and present crimes. In Anti-Christ, it all comes to an end when the man
strangles his wife in a fight and bums her body on a funeral pyre outside the
cottage. He then leaves Eden and rushes through the forest. In the final scene, he

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is more or less swallowed up by the forest transforming into a horde of slowly

moving women with blurred faces. They all look like those witches his wife once
wrote about, the image of both timeless and ageless womanhood, representing
both pure nature and past times, both erotic pleasure and fatal hon or.
The Lurking Past

Like most Gothic characters, the protagonists in Scandinavian honor give in to

their repressed desires and aie taken over by their dark sides. However, their
secret desires aie remarkably bound to and triggered by the landscape. When
the protagonists in Scandinavian honor lose control over their senses and
imagination or over their ability to distinguish between actual reality and fantasy,
there is a fusion between inner and outer reality within the character, that is,
between ego and landscape. The protagonistsunreliable status as focalizers does
not solely illustrate their emotional state but the state of the world itself In most
western honor, the stability of the external world breaks down, and the mysteries
relate more to the personality and mental state of the protagonist than to the
environment. In Scandinavian honor the case is quite the opposite, the ego is the
environment. The protagonist is attacked, invaded and taken over by the Nordic
landscape. The human mind cannot be separated from the surrounding landscape;
it is disordered wilderness.
Hence, the landscape should not be read as a metaphor for the situation of
the subject, an external symbol for a mood. It is not solely there to enhance the
atmosphere by causing mists and storms, orto delay the protagonists from reaching
their goals. Instead, it is the main structural component and of central importance
to the plot. In Scandinavian honor, it has a life of its own, interacting with the
characters as an alien force or organism and directing their actions and perception.
Thus, its function is literally to transform the protagonist into a savage uncivilized
creature, and, at the end, the protagonist often becomes one with the surrounding
landscape of fear and ten or.
Besides the complex bond between landscape and character, or external
circumstances and inner mental state, there is also a complex relationship between
time and Localization, between what is happening to the protagonist in the
present time of narration and what happened in a certain place in the past, and
between the local landscape and the characters awareness of it. The landscape
makes the characters see and experience certain things connected to the Nordic
topography. The wilderness is always part of a barbaric state that subverts the
physical world of science and the laws of time and space. When the protagonists
give in to the powers of nature residing within them, they also give in to the
power of the prehistoric pagan past of the region, as, for instance, in Marklunds
Skordedrottningen and von Triers Anti-Chnst. The past represents a threat to the
protagonist, and Scandinavian writers and filmmakers often recall a prehistoric
era, a pagan pre-111 edieval period before Christianity was brought to Scandinavia.

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Although the protagonists stay in the wilderness sometimes reactivates hideous

events which took place just some decades ago, as in Wirkola's Dod sn0 and
Bankes Frostbite, it all goes back to a prehistoric era long before civilization. In
many works, this encounter with the pagan forces of nature results in a dissolution
of modem categories, such as past and present, man and nature; it subverts the
notion of a reality consisting of a meaningful chain of cause and effect, or progress.
The Nordic wilderness represents a cyclic, a timeless and an infinite state, ameutai
chaos where chronology and spatial distinctions ai e dissolved. Gradually, ego and
milieu aie integrated into an everlasting moment. They aie united in the eternal
time of myth.
The encounter with the landscape sometimes activates the protagonists
personal past, which often contains painful traumatic reminiscences. A visit to
a certain spot in the landscape may activate dramatic or painful episodes that
have oc cuire d in the very same place at a specific moment in the protagonists
own past. In Anti-Christ, the male protagonist experiences visions of what once
happened when his wife and little son visited the cottage in the forest on their
own; in Etico the visit to the old landing-stage by the summer house activates the
fathers repressed memories of how he himself caused his fathers death. Apart
from these personal memories, the landscape may also trigger reminiscences of
very old events, events connected to the external environment and untamed nature,
as in Mdnmskohamn and Sauna. In that way, there is a fusion between present time
and hidden past: all those things that once took place aie happening once more
and will be repeated in the future. These events neither occur in a chronological
sequence nor aie they ordered side by side in different spatial positions. Instead,
they ai e constantly repeated and mixed together in the unresolved spatial chaos of
an everlasting moment.
Although most modem honor mainly deals with the protagonists individual
trauma, Scandinavian honor is more frequently concerned with evoking a
collective memory of those nature-beings wiio were once believed to inhabit the
local landscape and the wilds of the North, but wdio now only occur in old myths,
legends and childrens fairy tales. In Blodlage, the protagonists aie connected to
the myths involving two kinds of Swedish creatures, the seductive fairies dancing
in the meadows and the hideous trolls living inside the mountains; and in Ovredals
film Trolljegeren the troll hunter grows increasingly attached to his game. In
Skordedrottnmgen, the male protagonist and his ancestors ai e destined to serve the
local death goddess, and in Det okanda the young scientists ai e confronted with
an alien and shapeless force residing in the forest. In some Scandinavian wrorks,
the protagonists arrival at a certain place activates a more recent collective trauma
connected to a common or regional Scandinavian past. Some works refer to painful
episodes in historical time, such as the Geman occupation of Norway during the
Second World War in Dod sm or the witch trials in medieval times in Anti-Christ.
However, well-known and recent historical events ai e always depicted as part of
evil happenings further back in time. They have become an integral part of the

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The Devious Landscape in Contemporary Scandinavian Horror

151

place and nature, and sen e in the narrative as a recognized expression of what
might be hiding in, or brought forth by, the wilderness.
Hence, Scandinavian honor expresses a fear of losing control over external
conditions, over the landscape and the climate, as well as a manifest of lack of
control over the remains of a mythical, pagan and agonizing past that exists. Old
conceptions of supernatural creatures and evil powers might trigger a repressed
memory of a lost past and perhaps also revive the now-almost-forgotten knowledge
of how to master, or co-exist with, the forces of the surrounding landscape.
Scandinavians are known to be nature lovers, to have a close relationship to
their regional landscape and the wilderness. Today, many Scandinavians live in
cities, but most of them still spend their holidays at summer houses outside town,
often in sparsely populated areas. To them, a stunning scenery and untouched
nature represents a sanctuary from the stress of city life. The former landscape
of production has become a landscape of tourism and nostalgic summer dreams.
To visit the countryside is to be on vacation, to be on beneficial retreat, or to
go for controlled adventure, safely exploring something exotic. Still, most urban
Scandinavians feel rather lost when confronted with untamed nature. They do not
know howto read the landscape, howto predict changes in the weather, deal with
bugs and wild animals or find protection if lost. That is, wild nature, however
exquisite, has lately become an unfamiliar and foreign environment, representing
ambivalent ideas to many modem Scandinavians. Hence, it is hardly a coincidence
that so many contemporary Scandinavian honor stories depict city people's
fearsome encounters with untamed nature.
Since Scandinavia became a modem industrialized society much later than
most of Europe, the collective memory of another way of life still prevails. It was
not until after the Second World War that most Scandinavians lived an urban life;
today, most young people ai e rather unfamiliar with the realities of country life.
To these Scandinavian city-dwellers, the rural heritage and untouched nature may
embody conflicting ideas. A stay far away from modem city life represents both
something positive connected to summer and recreation and something foreign
and threatening that they do not know how to deal with. In most nineteenthcentury literature, untamed nature represents a place inhabited by supernatural
powers condemned by the Christian church and disowned by the new bourgeois
class; in today's honor the wilderness stands even more for alien and aggressive
powers outside the scientific-technical society of the twenty-first century. Beyond
the postmodern urban world there is another world lurking, a reality that calls
forth the haunting memory of a hidden past. Precisely because this pre-industrial
past is now partly repressed and no longer clearly acknowledged, it is not easily
exorcized. As it existed prior to the modem concepts of time and place, it is a
threat to both social order and the common concept of the postmodern, civilized
and rational world. Therefore, the Nordic wilderness is a very central generating
locus of honor in contemporary Scandinavian narrative fiction, literature and film.

f i M e h t o n e n . P . M . . a n d S a v o l a i n e n . M a t t i . e d s . G o t h i c T o p o g r a p h i e s : L a n g u a g e . N a t i o n B u i l d i n g a n d R a c e . F a r n h a m . S u r r e y . G B R : A s h g a t e P u b l i s h i ni g L t d . 2 0 1
Copyright s 2013. Ashgate Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved.

152

Goth ic Top ograph i es / L effler

Works Cited

Agger, Gunhild. Dansk tv-drama. Aives0lv og underholdning [Danish

Television Drama: Family Silver and Entertainment]. Fredriksberg: Forlaget
S ainfunds litteratur, 2005.
Almila, A.J., dir. Sauna. Bronson Club, 2008. Film.
Carroll, Nol. The Philosophy of Horror, or Paradoxes of the Heart. New York:
Routledge, 1990.
Ekman, Stefan. Writing Worlds, Reading Landscapes: An Exploration of Settings
in Fantasy. Lund University: Centre for Languages and Literature, 2010.
Fiye, Northrop. The Secular Scripture: A Study of the Stmcture of Romance.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976.
Fiykman, Jonas and Orvar Lfgren. Den cultiverade mdnmskan [The Cultivated
Man]. Lund: Gleerup, 1979.
Fyhr, Mattias. De morka labylinterna: Gotiken i litteratnr, film, musikoch rollspel
[The Dark Labyrinths: The Gothic in Literature, Film, Music and, Role-Playing
Games]. Stockholm: Ellerstrom, 2003.
Hjoith, Michael, dir. Detoknda [The Unknown]. Action Film AB, 2000. Film.
Leandoer, Kristoffer. De svarta svanaraa' [The Black Swans]. Svarta speglar.
Stockholm: Norstedts, 1994.
L effler, Yvonne. I skrdekens lustgrd. Skidckiomantik i den svenska 1800talsromanen [In the Dehghtfid Garden of Horror: The Gothic Tradition in the
Swedish Nineteenth-Centuiy Novel']. Gteborg: Gteborgs universitet, 1991.
Lindqvist, Arvijde. Manmskohamn [Human Guise]. Stockholm: Ordfront, 2008.
Marklund, Andreas. Skordedrottningen [The Haivest Queen]. Ume: Jiiiringen,
2007.
Morgen thaler, Anders, dir. Ekko [Echo]. New Danish Screen, 2007. Film.
Nash, Roderick Frazier. Wilderness ami the American Mind. 1967. New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1982.
Oelschlaeger, Max. The Idea of Wilderness. New Haven: Yale University Press,
1991.
Qvredal, Tommy, dir. Trolljegeren [Troll Huntei]. Filmkamrateme AB/Film Fund
FUZZ, 2010. Film.
Refii, Nicolas Winding, dir. Valhalla Rising. IFC Films, 2009. Film.
Theorin, Johan. Blodlge [The Quarry]. Stockholm: Wahlstrom et Widstrand,
2010 .
----------. Nattf&k [The Darkest Room]. Stockholm: Wahlstrom et Widstrand, 2008.
----------. Skumtimmen [Echoes from the Dead]. Stockholm: Wahlstrom et

Widstrand, 2007.
Uthaug, Roar, dir. Fnttvilt [Cold Prey]. Fantefilm, 2006. Film.
von Trier, Lais, dir. Anti-Christ. Zentropa Entertainments, 2009. Film.
Wijkmark, Sofia. Hemskelser: Gotiken i sex berattelser av Selma Lagerlf
[Hauntings: The Gothic in Six Short Stories by Selma Lagerlf]. Karlstad:
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, Surrey, GBR:

Chapter 10

The Aesthetics of Surface:

The Danish Gothic 1820-2000
Kirstine Kastbj erg

The Danish Gothic: In gem aim, Andersen, Blixen and Hoeg

Despite the relentless critical and popular interest in all things Gothic in recent
years and the resulting awareness of the Gothic traditions outside the established
Anglo-American literary canon, the Danish Gothic remains unexplored and
undefined.1 That is perhaps of little surprise, given the Scandinavian predilection
for realism, and Denmark has arguably not had a very strong tradition of what aie
usually seen as fantasy modes, the Gothic often being identified somewhere in
this non-realist spectrum. A clearer sense of how this infamously malleable genre
works reveals, however, the deft employment of Gothic conventions by canonical
writers such as B.S. Ingemann, H.C. Andersen, Karen Blixen and Peter Hoeg,
often to comment on the crucial interface between the real' and the artificially
constructed.2 From its inception, the Gothic has been envisioned as the ultimate
transgression of boundaries - between reality and illusion, depth and surface,
originality and imitation, setting off adjoining conflicts between life and death,
sanity and pathology, monstrosity and humanness, mind and body, self and other.
Such transgressions serve, often in the most shockingly graphic ways, to frame a
vehement testing of concepts of identity and self-formation - an exploration that
is not at all removed from reality', as these four authorships, representative of a
distinct Danish Gothic tradition, make clear.
OflngemamTs tales from 1820-1850, only his Gothic rewriting of Hofifmaim's
fantasy Dev goldne Topf {The Golden Pot, 1814) Sphinxen' (The Sphinx,
1820), is anthologized today, and none have been translated. The lesser known
Vanilven1 (The Werewolf, 1835), Niels Dragon (1847), Glasskabet (The
Glass Cabinet', 1847), Det Tilmurede Vrelse' (The Bricked-Up Room'. 1847)
lb Johansen, most notably in Sfinksens Foivandlinger (The Transformations of
the Sphinx, Johansen, 1986), has explored the Gothic in multiple publications, focusing,
however, on the fantastic when it conies to Danish writers - a very reasonable strategy that
Blixen also famously adhered to. In addition, the first issue of the journal M* Poetik (1993)
was dedicated to the Gothic as a distinctive literary form, but without exploring Danish
undertakings in the genie.
At the time of wilting, Leonora Christina Skovs Gotliic thriller, Silhuet af en synder
(Silhouette of a Sinner, Copenhagen: Rosinante, 2010) was just published, promising an
interesting contribution to the geni es exploration of non-heteronoimative sexualities.

, P.M., and Savolainen, Mat

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