The Glumness of the Swede.

I just watched a Swedish psychological drama on the TV and now I’m in a bad mood. Swedish dramas have a habit of doing that, don’t they? Think of Ingmar Bergman and you’ll know what I mean. And what about Greta Garbo? She wasn’t exactly the life and soul of the party, was she?

Maybe that’s what it’s all about. Maybe she was searching for her soul, because Swedish dramas always seem to be about soul-searching people spreading glumness and grinding self-reflection in their wake. Or it could be that living in a country which extends north of the Arctic Circle gives you the right to go about depressing everybody who doesn’t. Then again, it could be that the Swedes are a really happy bunch of people who just don’t want anybody else to know it or we might all go there and make pathetic jokes:

‘Are you a Swede?’

Ja.

‘Oh, good. Got room for a few turnips?’

You can’t really blame them, can you?

I only ever knew one Swede personally. His name was Stefan and I never saw the slightest sign that he was searching for his soul. What I most remember about Stefan was that he was friendly, intelligent, polite, personable, a little on the serious side, spoke English so perfectly that you would never have guessed he was a Swede, and that he didn’t have blond hair.

Actually, that’s not entirely true. What I most remember about Stefan was that he screwed up my blossoming relationship with an attractive young theatre designer and I didn’t speak to him for several weeks. I relented eventually because he’d never intended to trip me up, poor chap, and I’d made an error of judgement anyway. And it’s an odd coincidence that the attractive young theatre designer did have blonde hair.

But there you go, you see? Meet a Swede and you end up depressed. Where on earth do I go from here?