The Huldumann Enigma
It’s not every day that a novel by the mysterious O. Huldumann shows up. There have for years been tantalising rumours of the great man’s lost work. Now it turns out the rumours are true. There really was more Huldumann out there in the wild.
The arrival of a Blöm novel believed to have been lost will delight Huldumann aficionados around the world
The dog-eared typescript of The Island of Lies is thought to have come to light in the archives of the Remoulade & District Savings Bank and Funeral Society, among a trove of documents relating to a dispute over the will of the Surströmming municipality’s disgraced mayor Jan Henrik Stenburg, the grandfather of Gunvá Stenburg who is believed to have typed Huldumann’s manuscripts.
Huldumann was writing what has subsequently become known as Nordic Noir years (possibly even decades) before anyone else, and a good half-century before the Nordic Noir term was coined to describe the phenomenon of crime fiction set in Scandinavia. A first novel, Citizen Detective, was rescued a few years ago – thanks to translator Chris Ould’s determination to scour the jumble sales and charity shops of southern Bråland for more than just the glimpses we previously had of the man’s œvre. The translation of Citizen Detective from the colloquial upland Brålandish dialect, complete with all the nuances of meaning that could so easily have been lost in less skilled hands, is an undoubted triumph and was the event of the decade for aficionados of pre-S&W Nordic crime fiction.
Chris Ould has been tireless in his efforts to track down and render into English the works of O. Huldumann, one of the more mysterious forerunners of Nordic Noir
The treatment of this second novel, The Island of Lies, has been given no less sensitive handling in its rendering into English.
There has been keen speculation in numerous online forums, and in the letters pages of the South Bråland Gazette and Advertiser, among Huldumann aficionados as to the provenance of this new novel. But it’s clear there’s no reason for them to be disappointed.
The Island of Lies shows us a gentler, more confident but no less tenacious Detective (Grade III) Arne Blöm, as he takes on a mystery set in very unfamiliar territory and with an intriguing backdrop on the remote island of Huish. The sinister Ministry of Homeland and Governance again lurks in the shadowy background as Blöm is given what appears to be a hopelessly career-sinking assignment, instructed to travel to the distant north to arrest a man who appears to already be dead.
When we say the remote island of Huish in winter is unfamiliar territory for urbanite Blöm, that’s an understatement. He’s not exactly out of his depth, but has certainly been thrown in at the deep end as he sets to work with imagination and tenacity to solve what becomes a series of uncanny killings. The key is what links these unlikely victims. But we’ll not drop any spoilers here except to say that those who have waited for years for more Huldumann to finally appear in English will not be disappointed.
The Sildquist connection…
Any mention of the enigmatic O. Huldumann is barely possible without touching on his contemporary and literary titan Jan-Holger Sildquist. Rumours abounded (and still abound) that O. Huldumann is a Sildquist nom de plume, something he scornfully denied during his long lifetime.
Could this be the only photograph in existence of the elusive O. Huldumann, probably taken late in life? Gunvá Stenburg is known to have typed his manuscripts, and she is seen here with a smiling gentleman who remains unidentified. Could this be Huldumann himself? It seems likely, but if only we could be certain…
Did Huldumann seek inspiration from Sildquist’s work? Or conversely. We can’t be sure. Sildquist was undoubtedly aware of Huldumann’s work, and remarked ‘Who is this scoundrel Huldumann? I must confess that the man (or woman?) is not without talent, I suppose’ in one of his more bad-tempered letters.
His eldest granddaughter, Dr Yggdrasil Sildquist-Eggesbø, president of the Sildquist Foundation, points out that the two could unknowingly (and possibly knowingly) have rubbed shoulders, and does not rule out a cross-fertilisation of ideas having taken place in that distant pre-television-era west Bråland.
However, she is adamant that Sildquist was not the writer of the Huldumann novels, pointing out that her grandfather could barely put quill to paper without mentioning herring – something that features nowhere in Huldumann’s work.
Sildquist also admitted in a letter to his lover and subsequent biographer, Ofsala Alvarleg, that ‘This Huldumann doesn’t know a herring from a sprat, but he spins a decent yarn.’ A tongue-in-cheek comment to throw an inquisitive biographer off the scent, or a grudging word of admiration for a fellow Brålandish scribe?
The Island of Lies by O. Huldumann has been published by the Huldumann Project, and the publishers acknowledge the generous support of the O. Hulduman Archive in this venture.
This story is just pure delight. Put aside everything you thought you knew about Nordic Noir and start again here.
