Nordic Noir: Branding Nordicness as British Boreal Nostalgia

the most remarkable civilisations. And the art of Scandinavia shares many of the characteristics of the Scandinavian landscape – hardness, sharpness, clarity. I think the north has also given it some of its most distinctive moral and psychological characteristics. Pride – tempered by a sense of living at the margins – anxiety, loneliness, melancholy. And blowing through it all, like a cold, piercing wind, an absolute determination to endure, come what may. ⁵⁹ The British relationship with Scandinavia is not complex. We are in awe. They are better-governed, better-dressed, better-looking and write better crime novels. Of course, we can always claim a bit of shared ancestry. Many of the quiet Danish villages I had passed through on the train to Hirtshals had names that would fit seamlessly into the Lincolnshire or Yorkshire Wolds. In fact this rolling rural landscape dotted with woodland is not dissim-ilar, though cleaner and neater. As I ’ d gazed out that train window, I ’ d wondered: what if the Vikings had persisted a little longer with their civilising ventures into Britain, would London have the unhurried cool of Copenhagen, could Essex be tidy, and might there be no need for Luton at all? ”⁶⁴

In the first decades of the twenty-first century, Nordic crime fiction has become a local and aglobal obsession, constituting asub-genre of crime fiction in its own right.¹ With astock of glum detectives, cold, desolate landscapes and apenchant for social critique, crime novels and television series from the Nordic countries form arecognisable international brand, which is used in the marketingand export of not onlyt he crime stories themselves, but also consumer goods, tourist destinations, Nordic lifestyles,a nd social values.
This chapter explores how the readingand consumption of Nordic crime fiction in the 2010s, particularlyinthe UK, became enmeshed in amuchwider and pervasive rhetoric of Nordicness made recognisable under the brand name of Nordic noir.Iam going to arguet hatw hen Nordic crime fiction travels abroad, it is consumed as ag lobalised cultural good, desirable for its blend of transnational generic forms and its exotic local anchoring.Autopian Nordicness or borealism -aterm to be discussed laterinthis chapter -maybest describe the allure of what is associated with Nordic noir in its British reception. Here, all things Nordic have come to represent an imagined, desirable topography² bestowed with stereotypical Nordic traits, sampling everything from social values to well-designed consumer products, which can be accessed en bloc through the consumption of crime fiction.
One suggestive example of how Nordic crime fiction has been usedi nt he branding of non-Nordic consumer products is aB ritish television commercial used in am arketingcampaign for the petrolc ompanyE sso. The company'sc reative agency produced acommercial in the style of aScandinavian crime drama, completewith aminimalist,gloomyset and actors speaking in Danish with English subtitles.³ In the commercial, aw itness,who turns out to be an Esso engi- See Kerstin Bergman, SwedishCrime Fiction: TheMaking of Nordic Noir (Milan: Mimesis,2014), 173; Barry Forshaw, Death in aColdClimate: AGuide to Scandinavian Crime Fiction (Houndmills: PalgraveM acmillan, 2012); and JakobS tougaard-Nielsen, Scandinavian Crime Fiction (London: Bloomsbury,2 017).  Ia mu sing the term "topography" (literally, "placew riting")t od esignate the confluence of real, physical places and their complex and changingdiscursive,a ffective,orr hetorical figurations.S ee J. Hillis Miller, Topographies (Stanford:S tanfordU niversity Press, 1995), 3 -4.  Esso, "Esso -Fuel Engineer," 1S eptember,2 017, YouTube video, 1:00,h ttps://youtu.be/ g9caGx-RkTc. In the UK, subtitled foreign television programmes wereararity,until the screen-neer with ar emarkable eyef or detail, helps the Danishd etectivess olve ac ase with Scandinavian-style meticulousness. It is impliedt hat "Esso is renowned for having meticulous attentiontodetail in everythingitdoes -includingdeveloping fuel formulationst hat are designed on am olecular level to help improve engine performance."⁴ The connection between Nordic noir and an ew fuel system is far-fetched, to saythe least.Why did Esso choose to use Danishtelevision drama as av ehicle for its branding,e speciallys ince there is no shortageo f homegrown television drama or British detectivesobsessed with forensic detail? The commercial suggests not onlyh ow iconic subtitled Nordic crime drama has become in the UK over the past decade; more importantly,itpoints to an implicit set of images that have become popularlya ssociated with ac ontemporary rhetoric of Nordicness.⁵ The Esso commercial wasm eant to reach as egmento fB ritish middle-class consumers,r eaders, and television viewers,which, Ia rgue, is no longer looking for confirmation of their own identitiesand social aspirations exclusively within the Anglophone sphere. To these viewers the affective engagement with Nordicness has become synonymous with wider aspirational cosmopolitan desires. However,t he cosmopolitan consumption of Nordic noir and ac oncomitant desire for Nordicness is acomplex phenomenon to locate, as it is stimulatedpartly by Nordic self-presentations and ar eceiving culture'sa nalogous use of the Nordic to express its own local desires and concerns. While Esso could have drawn from alocallysourced list of perfectionist detectives, the Nordicness of subtitled quality television drama allows the advertisert ot argeta na udience who wants to participate in current,legitimate consumer behaviour.The Nordic noir branding of Nordic television dramas on BBC FOURf rom2 009 onwards. The experienceo fr eading subtitles on the screenb ecame am arkerf or the fascinationw ith -and exotic foreignness of -Nordic noir drama series (see Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen, "NordicN oir in the UK: The Allure of Accessible Difference," Journal of Aesthetics &C ulture 8, no. 1( January 2016): 32704, doi:10.3402/jac.v8.32704.  John Wood, "New Synergy Supreme +U nleaded launched," Forecourt Trader Online,1September,2 017, https://forecourttrader.co.uk/news/new-synergy-supreme-unleaded-launched/ 640519.article.  In aUKcontext,itissignificant that even though the original languagespoken by the actors in the commercial is Danish, the associated cultural background, as understood by viewers, is of ag eneral Nordicc haracter.F urthermore, the choiceo ft he term "images" in this paragraph is informed, as my analysesand argument in this chaptergenerally, by the theory of imagestudies or imagology,associated with the work of Joep Leerssen. See, for instance, Joep Leerssen, "Here follows As ummary of imagological theory," Imagologica:D edicated to the critical study of national stoeretypes,n .d., para 6, accessed 1May,2021, https://imagologica.eu/theoreticalsummary.
ing alsoa llows the companyt od rawonaset of positive values associatedwith the Nordic region (e. g. that it is egalitarian, sociallyjust,functionalist,rational, healthy, and harmonious), which have become re-actualised and re-articulated through the popularisation of Nordic crime fiction, the "mystery" of Nordic happiness, NOMA'sl ocallyf oraged Nordic food and the Danish hygge-craze.⁶ In the following,Ishalld iscuss how the publishing,m arketing,a nd reception of Nordic crime fiction in the UK, along with television documentariesand a recent deluge of articles and popularbooks on life, hygge, and happiness in the Nordic countries,present the regionneatlypackagedtothe extent that all recognisable elements -history,art,culture, food, and consumer trends -appear mutuallyd ependent,c ausal and, importantly, essentiallyl ocal or regional. Viewed through contemporary popular culturaldiscourses in the UK, Nordic social realities are portrayeda sa ttractive and authentic destinations that provide what might have been lost at home, but also as destinations that have alreadyb een prepared for a "tourist gaze."⁷ As such, this chapter willa rgue that the rhetoric of Nordicness,a round the international success of Nordic crime fiction at home and abroad, poses both achallengeand an opportunityfor re-assessingwhat the rhetoric of Nordicness mays ignify in the twenty-first century.

From Nordic Crime Fiction to Nordic Noir
The story about the international successo fN ordic crime fiction is by now well known.⁸ The details of the genre'ss uccessi nt he Anglophone world, leadingt o the widespread adoption of the term Nordic noir,a re worthwhile summarising nevertheless as they demonstrate the genre'sunique impact and formationwithin ac omplex contemporary media situation, in ac hangingc ommercial and transnationalf ield.
 See LilyK elting'sc hapteri nt his volume.  John Urry, TheT ourist Gaze: Leisureand Travel in Contemporary Societies (London: SagePublications,1990 It started with the global publishing phenomenon of Stieg Larsson'sMillennium trilogy.⁹ In Sweden, the trilogywas well receivedand praised for its blending of social indignation with at hrilling plot.Originallyp ublished by Sweden's oldest independent publishing house,N orstedts, the Trilogy'si nternational rise to fame was initiatedw hen published in French by the independent publisher ActesS ud. When subsequentlyp ublished in English in 2008 by yeta nother independent publisher,Quercus,itwas, against all odds, set on its waytobecoming "the biggest publishing phenomenon of the 21st century," accordingt oB ritish journalist and author Mark Lawson.¹⁰ Indeed, as David Geherin remindsu s, Larsson's TheG irlWho Played with Fire became "the first translated novel in 25 years to top the coveted New York Times best seller list."¹¹ While the Anglophone publishing markets have been notoriouslyi mpenetrable to foreign languagef iction,¹² several Nordic crime series have subsequentlyb een translated into English and dozens more languages, and authorssuch as the Swedes Arne Dahl, Camilla Läckberga nd LizaM arklund, the Norwegian Jo Nesbø and the Dane Jussi Adler-Olsen have sold millions of copies of their crime novels outside of the Nordic region.¹³ The success of Scandinavian crime fiction, particularlyint he UK, has given birth to expressions such as "Scandimania,"" the Nordic invasion," and "the Swedish crime fiction miracle,"¹⁴ ar hetoric suggesting how rare it is for literatures from smaller languagea reas to make an impact on the UK and US markets.¹⁵ Curiously, while the Nordic countries have generallyb een perceiveda s small, peripheral, or semi-peripheralnations on the northern fringeofthe European culturaland linguistic centres,the Nordic countries punch well abovetheir weight when it comes to international publishing. Monitoring the language spread of bestsellerso ns everal European markets between 2008 and 2014, Miha Kovač and Rüdiger Wischenbart have found that the impact of Nordic authors on translations and sales is striking, establishing ac ohort very similar to authorsw riting in English: The readers' rush for Nordic crime is the tip of agiant iceberg that has grown over several decades … AfterS tieg Larsson'ss uccess,anew dynamics led to an explosion of translations,with new incominga uthors to include Liza Marklund, Camilla Läckberg, Jens Lapidus, Lars Kepler,J oN esbø, Arnaldur Inðridason, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir and manyo thers. Their reachw as further broadened by international acclaim for Scandinavian TV series of the same genre, such as The Killing, The Bridge,The Protectors, UnitOne and Mamon.¹⁶ Significantly, Kovač and Wischenbart suggest thatt he international publishing success of Nordic crime fiction is closelyt ied to regional (Nordic) synergies and cross-mediality: the success of Larsson'snovels (adapted for both aSwedish and an English-languagefilm); the success of authors from across the Nordic region and the coincident successes of Swedish television adaptations;a nd original Danisht elevision drama followed by serials from the rest of the region. In fact,in2008, the same year that Larsson'sfirst instalment of the Millenniumtrilogyw as published in English translation, the UK public broadcasterB BC witnessed the first signs of adramatic shift in the popularity of subtitled foreign televisiond rama, beginning with the Swedish series based on HenningM ankell's Wallander novels. This subtitled series aired on the niche channel BBC FOUR alongside BBC'so wn English languagea daptation of the Wallander novels, filmed in and around Ystadw ith Britisha ctors includingK ennethB ranagh. The British adaptation aired on the main channel BBC ONE to great acclaim and with am uch largera udience -5 -6m illion viewers -than the 150,000 who regularlyviewed the original Swedish adaptation -areach that still constituted ar elative successf or BBC FOUR.¹⁷ Subtitled foreign drama had been ararity in the UK, and literary translations have consistentlyrepresented an insignificant share of the total publishing mar-   ; TheK illing 2011-12)b ecame ag ame changer,a nd it was followed by several successful Nordic productions and co-productions such as Borgen (2010 -13;U K2 012-13) and Broen/Bron (2011-2018; TheB ridge 2012 -18).¹⁹ While outperforming previous attempts to screen subtitled television series, these Nordic series still reached ar elativelys mall share of around one million viewers.H owever, Forbrydelsen made Nordic series a "cult hit" in the British press,i tf uelledt he burgeoning consumption of "boxs ets"-Forbrydelsen sold 300,000 units in the UK -and helpedconsolidatethe brand BBC FOUR as aplatform "offering an ambitious rangeo fi nnovative,h ighq ualityo utput that is intellectuallya nd culturallye nriching."²⁰ Judging by sales and viewer numbers, Larsson'sM illennium trilogya nd BBC's Wallander had much wider public appeal. However,t he relative niche phenomenon of original Nordic television drama imbuedt he genre with as tatus onlya fforded high-end consumer products, prestigious culturalexperiences, and the rise of what has been called "complex TV."²¹ The international success of Scandinavian crime fiction and television drama around 2008 -9was to some extent accidental. The trajectory of Larsson's Millennium Trilogyf rom an ational and regional bestseller to ag lobal phenomenon three years after its original publication was made possible by smaller independent publishers abroad.The simultaneous English languageadaptation of Mankell'sW allander series by the BBC,a nd the attempt by BBC to reinvigorate their niche channelthrough the Swedish Wallander series, led to the acquisition of the Danish drama series Forbrydelsen, which was inexpensivea tt he time. While popular and well receivedi nD enmark, the success of Forbrydelsen as a culturalt rendsetteri nacentral, international television market such as the UK'swas unpredictable and unprecedented.²² However,together these Scandina- See Chitnis, Translating.  See Linda Badley,AndrewNestingen, and JaakkoSeppälä, eds., Nordic Noir,Adaptation, Appropriation (Cham: Palgrave,2 020), and Esser, "Form."  Esser, "Form," 418. See Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen, "Revisitingt he Crime Scene: Intermedial Translation, Adaptation, and Novelization of The Killing," in Nordic Noir,A daptation, Appropriation,e d. Linda Badley,A ndrew Nestingen, and JaakkoS eppälä (Cham: Palgrave,2 020).  Jason Mittell, Complex TV:T he Poetics of ContemporaryT elevision Storytelling (New York: New York University Press,2 015).  According to Pia Majbritt Jensen, after Forbrydelsen, Danish audio-visual drama series experienced an "unprecedentedglobalboom in exports." Pia Majbritt Jensen, "Global Impact of Danish Drama Series:APeripheral, Non-commercial Creative Counter-flow," Kosmorama 263(2016), https://www.kosmorama.org/en/kosmorama/artikler/global-impact-danish-drama-series-pe-vian "accidents" drew attention from publishers, broadcasters, media, and critics who began to lookf or common denominators -as ecret Nordic formula behind the success of their crime dramas -and the next Stieg Larsson.
The earliest instances of the use of the term "Nordic noir," which became the referencefor this formula, mayhavebeen in a Wall Street Journal article in early 2010 and by the Nordic Noir Crime Fiction Book Club established by the Department of Scandinavian Studies at University CollegeLondon, which started its activities in the Spring of the samey ear.²³ Subsequent "agents" thatp ropelled the consolidation of the termi nthep ublic imagination and contributed to the growth of its symbolic capital, at least in the UK, include: the BBC documentary Nordic Noir: TheS toryo fS candinavian Crime Fiction (December 2010); reviews and blogsh osted by TheG uardian;t he distributor of television drama and films Arrow Films,who adopted the brand name Nordic Noir for theirScandinavian TV dramas and established the Nordicana festival in London in 2013;a nd Barry Forshaw'ssurveyofthe genre in his book Death in aCold Climate (2012).²⁴ Moreover,actors such as publishersand media corporations within the Nordic region soon capitalised on and helpedp romotet he brand of national and Nordic crime fiction. Karl Berglund has convincingly demonstrated, for instance, that particularlyt he rise of literary agents in Sweden, who rely heavily on the sale of translation rights, coincided with and helped propel the international ripheral-non-commercial-creative-counter.Ont he transnational disseminationa nd remaking of Nordic television drama, see Badley, Nordic Noir;Pei-Sze Chow,Anne Marit Waade, and Robert A. Saunders, "Geopolitical Television Drama Within and Beyond the Nordic Region," Nordicom Review 41,no. s1 (1 September 2020): 11-27,doi:10.2478/nor-2 020 -0013;and Stougaard-Nielsen, Revisiting.  OveS olum, "What is it about Nordic Noir?," in Perspectives on the Nordic,e d. JakobL othe and BenteL arsen (Oslo:N ovus Press, 2016), 115 -18;G unhildA gger, "NordicN oir -Location, Identity and Emotion," in Emotions in Contemporary TV Series,e d. AlbertoN .G arcía (Houndmills:P algrave, 2016), 138.  Fort he sake of full disclosure, it should be mentioned that Iwas the founder of the Nordic Noir Book Club. See "The History of the 'original' NordicNoir Book Club in London," Nordic Noir Book Club,a ccessed 8S eptember 2021,h ttps://scancrime.wordpress.com/events.Iwas also interviewedf or the BBC documentarya nd Forshaw's Death in aC oldC limate,a nd wrote as hort history of Scandinavian crime fiction for Arrow Films, which they used as an inlayf or box sets.M yc olleagues and I, in the UCL Department of Scandinavian Studies,h avef requently been interviewed for articles in TheGuardian and have collaborated with the newspaper on creatinga dditional content for their coverageo fN ordic television drama and cultures.This exemplifies the extent to which investeda gents have been centrallyi nvolvedi nt he promotion and, not least,c ontextualisation of Nordic noir in the UK.
Nordic Noir: Branding Nordicness as BritishB oreal Nostalgia success of Swedish crime writers in the 2000s.²⁵ Therefore, the rise of what has become known as the transnational Nordic noir brand came to exemplifyw hat Claire Squiresh as called a "culturals hift" in publishing,t owards am arketingled publishing culturew ith its "growingp rofessionalization and businessbased practice of publishing."²⁶ Following this cultural shift,t he circulation of literaturea nd other media started to take place in more fluid, mutuallyf ertilising,a nd open networks drivenb yc ommercial interests and audience expectations and desires.
The somewhat coincidental cross-media successo fN ordic crime fictiont ogether with its wider matrix of related brands, demonstrates,a sa rgued elsewhere, that "literature does not travel solo and nor does it travel light; it is carried and accompanied by films, television series, translators,p ublishers, state subsidies, and all manner of lifestyle goods."²⁷ This prompts us to consider Nordic noir ac omplex, ever evolving transnational brand. As suggested in ah andbook entry on "Nordic Noir," the concept is "associatedwith aregion (Scandinavia), with am ood( gloomy and bleak), with al ook (dark and grim), and with strongc haracters and ac ompellingn arrative."²⁸ However, "confusingly" it is also "associated with disparate,bleak dramasset in particular locationsoutside the Nordic region … such as Wales, Italy, France, Mexico, and the United States."²⁹ As abrand,Nordic noir has become thoroughly mobile,loosening its ties to "actual" Nordic topographies,writers,l anguages, and cultures. The Britisht elevision drama Fortitude (written by Simon Donald, 2015) is an example of how late Nordic noir has transformed the "Nordic" from its "authentic" locations into as et of loose references to previous series (the leading role is playedb y Sofie Gråbøl known from Forbrydelsen), Nordic namesa nd words in an otherwise Anglophone and multicultural location ("Politi" on the crest of police uniforms) and geographical references to the Arctic and the Northern lights.T his continuingi nternationalisation of Nordic crime fiction pointst ot he fact thati t onlyb ecame ar ecognisable genre or brand as novels and television series became widelytranslated, subtitled, and adapted into foreign languages and markets.³⁰ Nordic crime fiction is onlyr eally "Nordic" when viewed or read from abroad -when published, marketed, and sold in bookshops, book fairs or at broadcastingtrade fairs,wherethe brandingofnational or regional peculiarities is essential for attracting the attention of potential funders, publishers, agents, and book buyers in ac rowded, globalised field.³¹ As apopularand bestselling genre, crime fiction has always operated in the more commercialised end of the publishing spectrum. In theiri ntroduction to the anthology, Perspectives on the Nordic,J akob Lothe and Bente Larsen write that ap roductive "reciprocity" between various perspectiveso nt he Nordic across genres and media is "often marginalized and suspended by the noise of the culturei ndustry thati nt he name of commercialism turns 'the Nordic' into ac liché, thus making it into ak ind of commercial brand."³² Accordingt o the authors, Nordic noir is "one of the most important elements of the commercial branding of the Nordic region."³³ It is alsoacliché "prompted by an umber of Nordic television series that became hugely populari nm anyc ountries."³⁴ We need to consider whether it is possiblet oi dentify perspectiveso nt he Nordic across genres and media without accounting for the "noise of the culture industry" and its attendant commercialism.Asacommercial brand, Nordic noir tends to smoothoverthe local and national particularities of the region -differences that seem particularlyi mportant to the peoples living within the Nordic region. Kim Toft Hansen and Anne Marit Waade are aware of this tension between the somewhat empty brand value of the term and the potentiallyp roductive, "reciprocal," access it offers to the "use value" of Nordic locations: "Basically, 'Nordic Noir' soundss lightlym ore sexy and appealing than 'Scandinavian crime fiction,' or the abbreviated 'Scandi-crime'.I ti si nfused with brand value."³⁵ However,s ince "Nordic Noir refers to the place of origin  Though the novelty of Nordicc rime fiction on international markets has worn off, Nordic crime novels continue to be translatedi nd isproportionaten umbers consideringt he size of the home markets. Writerso utside of the Nordicr egion continue to write "Nordic Noir" crime novels set in the Nordic region, and Nordict elevision series continue to find viewers abroad and area dapteda nd appropriatedf or early-2020sf oreign markets.  JakobS tougaard-Nielsen, "Nordic noir in the UK." Nordic Noir: Branding Nordicness as BritishB oreal Nostalgia or the narrative diegetic space" it is alsocongruentwith "crime fiction as aworld brand," which makes it "hardlysurprising that narratives taking place locallyare used locallyt ob rand places.A ltogether,p laces,t hemes, and characters are closelyt ied in crime fiction -and this clearlya pplies to Nordic Noir as well."³⁶ Their approach in Locating Nordic Noir is not to ask what Nordic noir is, as one would have done in atraditional genre study, but instead to inquire "Where is Nordic Noir?" They thereby emphasise, on the one hand, the centrality of authentic topographies and "local colour" in the narrativest hemselves,³⁷ and on the other,how real and imagined locations are shaped in the reciprocal branding and consumption across invested interest groups,agents, and nations. Examples of place brandinga re particularlye vident in television drama wherel ocal and regional interest groups,such as municipalities and local film funds, find an opportunity to put theirlocation "on the map" by promotingand enablingaccess to relevant locations. Subsequently, such "fictionalised" actual locations can be used by tourism agenciesa sd esirable destinations. The well-known case of Ystad'spromotion of "Wallanderland" is one notable earlyexample of Nordic noir place branding.³⁸ While the specific Nordic locations together with their national languages mayappear to erode with the profuselyt ransnational brand of Nordic noir,s everal studies have argued for the centrality of the genre'sperceivedNordicness.In his detailed genealogyoft he term in the international press,Ove Solum argues that "crime fiction has become the most important area for cultural export and the unprecedented international appeal of Nordic Noir,i nt andem with ag rowing international interest in what in short can be described as Scandinavianness, has been utilized to promote the 'Nordic' and Nordic culture."³⁹ With reference to the London-based Nordicana fair mentioned earlier,which co-promoted Nordic-noir television drama by inviting Nordic actors, and showcasingN ordic travel destinations and food items,S olum points out that popularg enres have become instrumental in the branding of the Nordic region by foregrounding both actual and imagined "Nordic" places and locations. Such place-branding used by an external actor to sell television boxs ets has in turn prompted the tourism industry in the Nordic countries to embrace the phenomenon for its own purposes. "Nordic Noir," Solum concludes, "is not onlye xpanding as a genre beyond the Nordic countries;i th as also become ap henomenon that far exceeds the group of texts that constitutes the genre."⁴⁰ It is, in other words, impossibletounderstand the rise of Nordic noir without consideringt he wider commercial interests and agents involved in and gaining from the making and branding of the phenomenon: from writers,publishers, literary agents, translators,a nd production companies to television distributors, media outlets, educational, cultural, and tourism institutions both in and outside the Nordic region. What is, perhaps,m ost salient about the Nordic noir brand from aU Kp erspective is the fact that the vast rangeo fl iterary and audio-visual texts it subsumes, located variouslyw ithin and beyond the Nordic region, are made to participate in ar hetoric of Nordicness that attaches certain persistent values to images and discursive constructions of the "North."

Branding Borealism
Louise Nilsson has noted the importance of accountingf or the marketing and media discourses in reception countries to understanding the success and impact of Nordic noir.She suggests that "[i]n the case of Nordic Noir, … the marketing and media discourse visuallym ergedal ocal literature with crime fiction's global discursive field and its mediascape by successfullyc onnectingt oacosmopolitan imaginary of the north."⁴¹ Reviewers in Anglophone newspapers, according to Nilsson, construct adiscursive imageofthe Nordic region through repeated use of figures such as coldness,ice, and morose detectives. Thisr hetoric of Nordicness has been usedprofuselyinthe marketing of Nordic noir abroad (as demonstratedb yA gnes Broomé'ss tudyo f" Nordic" book-cover designs), and Nilsson suggests that the foreign appeal of Nordic noir mayp artlyr est "on a longstanding culturallyf orgedi dea of the north."⁴² Asuggestive term for such adeeplyrooted rhetoric of Nordicness at the heart of the recent "Scandimania" in the UK is "borealism."⁴³ Sylvain Briens'si nvalu- Solum, "What is it," 123. Nordic Noir: Branding Nordicness as BritishB oreal Nostalgia able discussion of the term corresponds to a "reciprocal perspective" on the Nordic or the North and bringsout the significance of topographyand the reciprocal rhetoric of Nordicness,which Isee as central to the phenomenon of Nordic noir. Briens argues that borealism involves an external view that perceivest he North as ah omogeneous whole and foregrounds topographical and climatic aspects that are also central to the Nordic noir brand. The etymological root of the word, "Boreas," refers to the Ancient Greek God of the North wind, and has cultural roots in a "North-South schematization of temperamental oppositions"⁴⁴the North as cool, frugal, cerebral, morallyinclined and the South as warm, sensual, opulent and immoral. AccordingtoJoep Leerssen, this has been "one of the more long-standing matrices imposed on the imaginary of Europe'sc ultural landscape": "In the European imagination, the imageo fS candinavia and the Nordic countries has been deeplyi nfluenced by this master-polarity. Climate is associativelyc orrelated with landscape, with human habitation patterns,w ith social and political organization, and in turnrationalized by reference to the inhabitants' purported 'character.'"⁴⁵ As abrand,Nordic noir is deeplyenmeshed in aborealist discourse, at erm around which we find ac ongregation of multi-directional desires and affective responses. Nordic crime fiction became an "accidental" triggerfor anew borealism in the UK fuelledb yv arious sources: the coincidental international success of Stieg Larsson and Nordic television drama produced by an increasingly internationalised, commercialised,and intermedial market for culturalproducts; and the global infatuation with the Nordic welfare state as an (utopian) model for creatingjust,egalitarian, and, not least,happy societies in the wake of the global financial crisis . Nordic noir came into being as ap roducto ft hese converging generic, affective,t opographical, medial,a nd boreal perspectives or rhetorics. In the following section of this chapter,e xamples from the media, television documentaries, nation branding, populare thnography, and lifestyle journalism will be discussed as exemplifying the borealist and multidirectional perspectiveso nt he Nordic that have followed the "Scandimania" initiated by the successo fN ordic noir in the UK.

Inspector Norse
One of the first examples of journalistic treatments of the Nordic crime phenomenon in the Anglophone world, the 2010 article "Inspector Norse" published in TheEconomist,captures in its title akey fascination with the Nordic as both recognisable and somewhat exotic, and,i mportantly,c onforming to deeplyr ooted figurations of the Nordic. The title refers to the Britishcrime television series Inspector Morse.⁴⁶ By replacing Morse with Norse,itreferences an external homogeneous understandingofthe inherent Nordicness of the new crime wave,while recallingadeep-seated culturalm emory and British stereotype of invading (Norse)V ikings.
The article presents amore current imageofthe Nordic countries as orderly, crime free, and with enviable well-functioning welfarestates that seem to contradict the imagepresented in crime novels: "The neatstreetsofOslo are not anatural setting for crime fiction." This paradoxleads to the question: whyhaveNordic detective novels become so successful?S ome shared characteristics are emphasised. Apart from the always gloomy, melancholic detectives, the article points to ap articularN ordic style of crime writing characterised by simple and plain writing devoid of metaphor.T his attractive style of crime writing is complementedw ith the lureo ft he Nordic setting,w hich links imagined landscapes of the "cold, desolate north" with adystopian view of the fate of the Nordic welfares ocieties: "The countries thatt he Nordic detectivesc all homea re prosperous and organised … But the protectionoffered by acradle-to-gravewelfare system hides ad ark underside."⁴⁷ This figure of aN ordic "dark side" would become central to the imageo f Nordic noir,a nd it was repeatedi na nother earlya rticle on the phenomenon, Ian MacDougall'sr eview of Stieg Larsson'st rilogy "The Man Who Blew Up the Welfare State." While Swedish crime fiction, accordingt oM acDougall, "owes its greatest debt to its British forebear,whose plots it cheerfullyr ips off … the Swedish model distinguishes itself by infusing these plots with asocial and political consciousness."⁴⁸ He summarises Larsson'smain themesas"the failureof the welfares tate to do right by its people and the failureo fm en to do right by women"-atheme thatwas more obviouslyforegrounded in the Swedish title of NordicN oir: Branding Nordicness as British BorealN ostalgia the first novel in the Trilogy, Män som hatar kvinnor,w hich translates as Men WhoH ate Women. The novels' critical depiction of the welfares tate's "well-polished façade" and "welfare-state comforts",hiding widespread moral and political corruption, exemplifyanow widelyaccepted view of Nordic crime fictionas depicting "the comprehensive failureofthe world'smost comprehensive welfare system",a si ti sp oignantlyf ormulated by MacDougall.
Larsson'sd eceptivelyr ealist and socio-critical style (devoid of metaphor), MacDougall suggests, allows us to imagine (from abroad) that all is not right in Sweden, an orderly, rather boringp lace hiding ad ark underbelly. Of course, the setting of violent crime stories involving misogynist Nazi serialk illers and a corrupt police state in locations commonlyperceivedtobepeaceful, democratic, egalitarian and justisanenticing premise -one that perhaps counter-intuitively highlights aN ordic exceptionalism instead of succeeding in "blowing it up". However,t os ome readers like MacDougall the realism effectso fN ordic crime writing present as tark critique of the utopian socialist paradise in the North, much in the same wayt he Britishj ournalist Roland Huntford'sn otorious The New Totalitarians (1971)critiquedthe moral and psychological demise of the social-democratic welfares tate.⁴⁹ Perhaps in adual effort to exploit the global popularity of Larsson'sSwedish crime novels for nation-branding purposes and to counteract the possible misconception thatLarssonwas necessarilydrawing an accurate picture of Sweden, the Swedish Institute (SI) producedthe report Sweden beyond the Millennium and Stieg Larsson.⁵⁰ TheInstitute, which has since the 1940s worked to produce and promoteaSwedish nationali magea broad⁵¹ -explains that they had noticed, when reviewers abroad wrote about Larsson'sM illenniumt rilogy, they often went into greater details about Sweden as well: "The Millennium trilogyi si n some ways adramatization of 21st century Swedish society."⁵² The report,therefore, tries to understand this "new" perspective on Sweden offered by the books and attempts to respond to and participate in the branding of Sweden, including the significanceo ft he welfares tate.
That nation branding and tourism are central aspects of the report is evident from its abundant illustrations of Swedish locations, landscape images, and even the northern lights,some of which have little relevance for the booksthemselves. Through its report,t he SI participates self-consciouslyi najostling for control over the imageo fS weden "beyond the Millennium," since "it is a known fact thatculturale xpressions such as film and literature can have an effect on people'si mpression of ap lace, for example ac ountry."⁵³ The SI walks af ine line between accepting the brand value of Larsson's bleak view of the modern Swedish welfarestate -arguing that Larsson'sportrait of Sweden makest he country appear less utopian and less dull ("the notion of Sweden as ac onflict-free model nation is shattered"), which has been great for tourism -and attemptingtocontrol the brand by explaining thatthe Sweden of the books is not what youwould find if youvisited from abroad.⁵⁴ SI remindsus that the booksalso portray amodern, industrious nation with proud democratic traditions, where, for instance, ajournalist has the right to speak out against the state. Through suggestive illustrations, Sweden is promoted as ac ountry rich in majestic, markedlyN ordic landscapes and aw ell-functioning state.
Apart from demonstratingt he to-and-frob randing of Nordicness taking place between internal and external agents,t he branding of Sweden through crime fiction -in consort with ah ost of other cases wherel ocal tourism boards use famous crime stories to brand theircities, towns,and regions across Scandinavia -risks participating in the maintenanceofanun-reflexiveboreal branding and the construction of essentialist national or regional identities, what David Pitcher has called, "ac orporate model of Nordic ethnicity." Accordingt oh is studyo fc onsumer practices and ethnicity in the contemporary UK: The repeated connection between landscape and aesthetics produces ah ighlyc onsistent portrait of aN ordic temperament.P sychological dispositionsa nd ethical, social and spiritual values areshown to be the simultaneous product of aplaceand the ideas and practices it generates.This corporatem odel of Nordic ethnicity is, Iw ant to suggest,p reciselyw hat has givenN ordics tyles uch as trong purchase in ac ontemporary British context.⁵⁵ Importantly, this "corporate model" is not exclusively produced by internal agents such as tourism boards or by the crime stories themselvesb ut become "incorporated" in the transnationale xchangeo fb oreal imagery and Nordic imaginings with markets,c onsumers,r eviewers, readers, and viewers outside of the Nordic region.⁵⁶

Cracking the Norse Code: From Boreal Utopianismt oS candimania
As impliedinthe reviews and report discussed abovethere is aparticularlystriking,s ome might sayt roubling, element to the contemporary Britishf ascination with Nordic culture -an infatuation, Pitcher identifies as, "aromanticized reading of the politics of Nordic social liberalism and social democracy as produced out of the same 'natural' combination of climate, geographyand culture."⁵⁷ Nowhereisthis eighteenth-century climate theory and borealist perspective on the Nordic more explicitlya nd self-consciouslys tated than in Andrew Graham-Dixon'st hree-part BBC documentary Art of Scandinavia.⁵⁸ In his introduction to the series, it becomes clear thatarunning theme throughout the series will be an exploration of what the national and regional art of Scandinavia mayt ell us about the "Scandinavian mind" and how it has been shaped by its "northern" locations and landscapes.While it is clear that the presenter is well aware that a "climate theory" of nationalorregional belonging has been discredited and proven dangerous fodder for ethno-essentialist ideologies,i ti ss imilarlyc lear that his encounter with the Nordic landscape per excellence -the sublime Norwegian fjords -leavesh im unable to understand Nordic art,culture, and societies as anything but the products of their topographies.H ef inds himself perpetuallyi na n" exotic" North wheret he "forbidding beauty" of the landscapes and their "remoteness" from an unspecified culturalcentre -the South, likelyLondon -impress themselvesasself-evidently "so far north" thatthe landscapes themselvesmustpresent the key to unlocking the Scandinavian mind: Scandinavia. The Nordicl ands. So far north, they've often been simplyl eft off the map of world civilisations.Art,literature, philosophy -these belongedtothe lands of the south. Of sunshine,warmth, the light of reason. To the north laythe shadow lands,the lands of perpetual midnighta nd darkness.B ut that'sn ot the whole story.… The art of Scandinavia reflects their stormyhistory,playedout in landscapes of forbiddingbeauty.Nature'sbeen the great enemy, but it'salso been the great inspiration. Not just for paintingand poetry,but for architecturea nd design. Inspired by the frozen forms of ice, or dark forests of pine. You could saythe Scandinavian mind itself has been shaped by nature,likealandscape formed by aglacier.Despitetheir remoteness,the Nordic peoples have managedtofashion one of  Pitcher, Consuming.  Art of Scandinavia,p resented by Andrew Graham-Dixon, BBC 4, 2016,4 ,https:// www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0745j6 m. the most remarkablecivilisations. And the art of Scandinavia shares manyofthe characteristics of the Scandinavian landscape -hardness, sharpness,c larity.Ithink the north has also giveni ts ome of its most distinctive moral and psychological characteristics. Pridetemperedb yasense of livingatthe margins -anxiety,loneliness,m elancholy.A nd blowing through it all, likeac old,p iercing wind, an absoluted etermination to endure, come what may.⁵⁹ This "rhetoric of Nordicness" makes generous use of borealist imagery (coldness, ice, dark, frozen, glaciers,r emoteness). Graham-Dixon links the features of an imagined, homogeneous, and perpetual climate with unchangingand distinctive "moral and psychological characteristics" of the Scandinavian nations and the region (Norden). Nordicness, therefore, begins with landscapes and ac limate that have inevitablybeen impressed on the Nordic peoples. Their art reveals national and regional, moral and psychological characteristics,and leads us to understand whyitisthe Nordic countries have become "remarkable civilizations"the much admired, successful welfaresocieties of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Guided by representativeso ft he Nordic noir craze such as the Danishactor Søren Malling, famous in Britain as JanMeyer from the first season of Forbrydelsen,a nd the Swedish crime-writing team behindt he pseudonym Lars Kepler, Graham-Dixon goes in search for Danish "happiness" and the "underbellyo f the Modern Swedish welfares tate."⁶⁰ Although persuaded that "Nordic noir dredgesu pu glyt ruth"⁶¹ about the Swedish welfares tate, and beingt old to take the train out of Stockholm to the suburbsi fh ew ants to experience the shadows of the welfares tate in situ, he: can'tf ind the Badlands described by the social critics of modern Sweden. Nothing truly Noir,for sure. In fact,ifIhad to name acity that exemplifies failingsocial services, acrumblingtransport infrastructureand yawningchasms of wealth,I'dpick London anyday over Stockholm. And on even the most remote station, the Swedish underground still does really beautiful benches.⁶² Art of Scandinavia begins with the nations' topographies,theirn ational-romantic, anxious landscape paintingsa nd ends with ap erception of the art of Scandinavia as always,i no ne wayo rt he other,e ngaged in national self-presenta- Art of Scandinavia,episode 1, "Dark Night of the Soul," directedbyIan Leese, presentedby Andrew Graham-Dixon, aired 14 March, 2016,o nB BC 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/ b073mp87.  Art of Scandinavia,e pisode 1, "Dark Nighto ft he Soul."  Art of Scandinavia,e pisode 1, "Dark Nighto ft he Soul."  Art of Scandinavia,e pisode 1, "Dark Nighto ft he Soul." tions, as borne out of a "Scandinavian mind" and how this mind eventually shaped the Nordic model of welfare. Thisp erception illustratest he curse of small nationhood: culturale xpressions are reduced to homogeneous national characteristics in comparison with the culturalc entre -while local diversity, temporald iscontinuities,c ontradictions or cosmopolitan traits are unacknowledged.
It is, of course, easy to dismiss such causal simplifications regarding topography, art,a nd identity.While the documentary does suggest an otable cosmopolitan British interest in the Nordic countries,i ti sa ni nterest less preoccupied with understandingt he foreign not merelya sd ifferent but also diverse and potentiallycosmopolitan. However,the rhetoric of Nordicness mayultimatelyhave not much to do with the Nordic regioni tself. One could view Graham-Dixon's borealism as less interested in Scandinavian art and its local uses and more preoccupied with how these Nordic national arts can be used to criticallyassess current social conditions and national discourses in Britain. It is not asimple British nostalgic longing for autopian welfaresociety,the Nordic region is imagined as agroupingof"authentic" and "rooted" societies that have been able to respond critically and creatively to the social transformations brought on by neoliberalism and globalisation. This rhetoric of Nordicness in the UK, Iwould argue, represents an internal British attempt to come to terms with the nation'sown inability to present aunified, "corporate ethnic," national narrative.S uch an arrative would stretch from the landscapes of Turner and Wordsworth to ah armonious, homogeneous, and thoroughlycontent twenty-first century nation, without having to consider contemporary British dislocations, the disharmonies of historical imperialism, social inequalities, and the ravagesofathoroughly neoliberal welfare state.
British borealism is ac omplex multi-focal "ethnographyo fl ooking at the North" wherei mages and narrativesp roduced in and of the Nordic allow for the sharing of certain "affective topographies"-" the kind of affect that binds people to places or that imbuesaplace with desire."⁶³ In the contemporary use of the "Nordic" in the UK, these are commonlyl inked to perceptions of what makesagood society.The Nordic does not represent adistant,exotic, topographic other employed to bolster asense of Britishsuperiority.Onthe contrary, Nordicness represents autopian ideal of amore "tidy,""cleanerand neater" Britain. An example of this was expressed in apiece of tongue-in-cheek travel journalism recountingatour of Scandinaviai n2 018: The British relationship with Scandinavia is not complex. We arei na we. They areb ettergoverned, better-dressed, better-lookinga nd writeb etterc rime novels.O fc ourse, we can always claim ab it of shared ancestry.M anyo ft he quiet Danish villages Ih ad passed through on the traintoHirtshals had names that would fit seamlesslyintothe Lincolnshire or YorkshireW olds.Infact this rolling rural landscape dottedwith woodland is not dissimilar,though cleaner and neater.A sI ' dgazedo ut that trainwindow,I ' dw ondered: what if the Vikingsh ad persisted al ittle longer with their civilising ventures into Britain, would London have the unhurried cool of Copenhagen, could Essex be tidy, and might thereb e no need for Luton at all?"⁶⁴ This alternative boreal British past realised in atidy, ordered contemporary Scandinavia suggests awidespread, but also paradoxical type of nostalgia:aborealist nostalgia expressed in alongingfor the north as ahomethatwas never realised; at ransnational nostalgia for the simplicity of at ime now long gone both in the Nordic region and in the UK. Such a "welfaren ostalgia" for ac ulturallya ppropriated Nordic past was perhaps best exhibited in the set design for the BBC Wallanders eries. The home of Wallander and the police stationi nY stad were consciouslys tyled in the fashiono f1 950s Scandinavian design, using functionalist welfarea esthetics to give them the air of ac oollyr ational, socially engineered society -which Mankell described as disintegrating in Wallander'sS weden of the early1 990s.
Accordingtothe production designer,she "wanted to symbolize the Swedish utopia of the 1950s and 1960s by choosing Scandinavian interior design and architecturefrom this period."⁶⁵ Some Nordic scholars have noted the exotification of Sweden or the "banal nationalism" presented in the BritishW allander adaptation. Ingrid Stigsdotter remarks that "the ubiquity of classic wooden desks, lampshades and decorative furnishing … stand out as being at once al ittle too stylish and al ittle too old-fashioned to be quite real."⁶⁶ In her view,t his translation or adaptation sees Sweden predominantlyt hrough at ouristic lens. However,t he nostalgic Swedishu topia encoded in the location and the set of the Wallander series maya lso point to the wayi nw hich nostalgic borealism functionsa sasignificant affectivet opographyi nc ontemporary Britain.
Therefore, this particularexample of converging national and transnational nostalgia demonstratesa ni mportant point raised by Toft Hansen and Waade concerning what they call "Norientalism": "Norientalism mayt hus be both an imageh eld by the reader of Nordic fiction, but there is also ag ood chance that the international spatial image, whether brightlyromantic or melancholically ambivalent,ismotivated by the self-imageportrayedinwritten fiction."⁶⁷ Just as Nordic crime fiction can be seen to exhibit nostalgia for the utopianideals of a bygone golden ageofthe welfarestate (as in Mankell'sWallander novels), so the infatuation with the Nordic in the UK maybeunderstood as atransnational nostalgia for aplace and atime thatnever belonged to the British -an affective topographye xhibiting ab orealist nostalgic longingf or the north as ah omet hat never was.⁶⁸ This would also partlye xplain whyt he Nordic noir craze has petered out into an obsession with Nordic lifestyles,wellness,and popularNordic buzzwords such as Swedish lagom,Danish hygge,and Norwegian friluftsliv. Adeluge of lifestyle television programmes and books have appeared in the UK portraying the Nordic countries individuallya nd togethera sm ostlyu topian societies, as ad esirable yetu nattainable nostalgic "elsewhere." Ap ertinent example is Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall'sfood, travel, and lifestyle series Scandimania.⁶⁹ (Channel 4, 2014). His tour of Scandinavia presents av eritable "nation-crush",a" scandimania" for Nordic wellness, institutionalised egalitarianism, adedication to sustainability,astrong sense of community and quality of life. Fearnley-Whittingstall'sn arrated introduction is af urther example of the converging interests in "all thingsN ordic" wherel andscape, food, society and crime fiction make up as eemingly un-breakable or untranslatable "Norse code",which he will, nevertheless, attempt to "crack" to reveal whyt hese nations, and not Britain, are among the happiest in the world: There'salot of talk about Scandinavia at the moment.Their food is settingthe gastronomic world on fire. Nordic noir dramas have us glued to our screens. And Sweden, Norwayand Denmark areofficiallythreeofthe happiest countries in the world. Iwant to find out why. ls it their connection to naturea nd their breath-takingl andscapes?T heir spirit of coopera- Toft Hansen and Waade, Locating,111.  See Stougaard-Nielsen, Scandinavian,115 -21.  Scandimania,p resentedb yH ughF earnley-Whittingstall, aired2 014, on Channel 4, https:// distribution.channel4.com/programme/scandimania. tion?A nd does the famed dark side of Scandinavia reallye xist?T oc rack the Norse code, l'ma bout to immerse myself in Scandimania.⁷⁰ The potential for branding consumer goods, arising from this popularised boreal view of the Nordic region as seen from the UK, was not lost on Carlsberg, which in 2017 started am arketing campaign, which included at elevision commercial that aired on Channel 4inthe UK with the slogan "brewed in the UK the Danish way."⁷¹ The commercial is renderedinnostalgic autumnalcolours and light and features the internationallyr enowned Danisha ctor Mads Mikkelsen riding an old-fashioned bicycle through Copenhagen'scobbled streets,past nationallandmarks and a "hyggelig" forest picnic, finallyt oa rrive at the Carlsbergb rewery. Throughout the commercial, Mikkelsen philosophises about the secret to Danish happiness: "Could it be that we find joy in nature?C ould it be that we keep life and work in perfect balance? Is it that we make time for hygge,feeling all fuzzy and snuggly together?"⁷² The commercial suggests thatB ritish consumers now have the opportunity to follow "the Danish way" by drinking the rebranded CarlsbergE xport,a brand of beer brewed in the UK and commonlya ssociated with low-brow consumption and poor quality. The commercial taps into the Britishi mport of "hygge"-acraze which erupted in 2016 with more thanahandful of books published in the UK on the phenomenon, most notablyMeikWiking's TheLittle Book of Hygge.⁷³ Wiking'shygge book, which sold more copies than most Nordic crime novels in the UK, is clearlywritten for ageneral British audience, as he attempts to explain how "hygge" makes the Danes happy through references to statistics, his owne xperiences, and "shared" Danish values and traditions. In his presentation of Danishlifestyles and customs, "hygge" conforms to aborealist matrix of values such as simplicity,m odesty,c asualness, and familiarity.A nti-consumerism, being in nature, playing board games instead of watchingt elevision and surroundingo neself with hand-crafted rustic furnishingsi s" hyggeligt" and,