Stiegless in Seattle, Stockholm, Philadelphia and Everywhere

At the end of last week, I finished reading "The Girl that Kicked the Hornet's Nest," the third book in Stieg Larsson's startling trilogy. I'd first heard about Larsson in 2008 on NPR in one of Martha Corrigan's erudite but effortlessly seductive book reviews. Corrigan, a writer, lecturer at Georgetown, is one of NPR's jewels, the type you sit in the car with the engine off, just to hear the end of her latest installment. Don't know if it’s the timbre of the voice or the whip smart things it says, but I remember exactly where I was, when I first learned about Stieg, Blomkvist and Salander, (heading north on 11th, turning on Arch Street. I remember exactly what I thought, (that though I'm not much of one for mystery novels, this sounds just off-kilter enough for my tastes).

Perhaps, I was more receptive because I'd just finished reading Eliot Patttison's brilliant Skull Mantra, itself an offbeat murder mystery set in post-occupation Tibet. So okay, okay, I've found my "MM niche." Give me a tale of culture totally alien to mine own, kill off some characters in a grizzly fashion and let me follow the trail of a whip-smart investigator and I will read and read …

Gobble Gobble

Larsson? Gosh, I ate him up like a piece of candy. A sweet, sour chunky piece of Swedish candy, chock full of over-caffeinated, sex-positive Swedes, hardbitten lefty journalists, Powerbooks, Nazis, cold warriors, Ikea furniture and rugged locations with more umlauts than your average English speaker encounters in a decade. It took me not even 45 days, interspersed with arthroscopic surgery, rehab, work and the miscellaneous distractions of life to blow through about 1500 pages of:

• "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,"
• "The Girl Who Played with Fire" and
• "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest." 
  

That's not to say I enjoyed the trilogy so much because I am enamoured of Larsson's bloated, self-conscious prose style, (wickedly skewered in the New Yorker by Nora Ephron) and for that reason alone invites a skimming pace rather than word by word savoring. The late Mr. Larsson is also a bit too consumer-friendly. Enough of his descriptives sounded like ad copy that you almost expected to see a glossy photos of selected high end laptops, coffee-makers, furniture and phones.

Sure Chuck Palahniuk in his subversive novel Fight Club did the long, loving descriptives on Ikea and other capitalist spoils, but it was all ironic. IMHO, Stieg's "product placement" passages are easily the most annoying aspect of his books. But just because the author got burdened by them, it doesn't mean that the reader has to. As I said, I merely notched up the read-meter from drill to skim and nothing is lost in translation.

Speaking of which, translation can be a factor here and this excellent NY Times coverage of Stiegmania explains this and other controversies surrounding the man and his fiction magnum opus. Though I can't admire Larsson as a prose stylist, Stieg was what I am not; a trained reporter and his revelations in that area are unmatched. Forgetting the journalistic investigation that uncovered the 40 year old murder that is the center of book one, here's one less obvious example. He is the first person I've ever read to give me a simple, clear understanding of hacking. I mean what a hacker actually does when he or she hacks into another computer. This is the mark of an excellent journalist. Excellent and dangerous journalist—especially if one's the sort to point that sharp pen at the powerful forces of rightwing fascism, racism and sexism in his own culture. Not the sort of thing to make a guy particularly popular. But I'm not going to fuel any speculation about him or his midlife demise. The man was an archetype A, junk food gobbling, non-exercising, smoking, drinking, unreconstructed journalist of the classic school.

Lisbeth Salander is a wonderful dark heroine, out for kicking the butts of misogynists. I guess Stieg is using her to illuminate his pet peeves, the unpleasant fact that misogyny, fascism, coverups and racism as human flaws are deeply institutionalized in many cultures, not just liberal socialist Sweden. Salander is his Id, Ericka his ego and Blomkvist the superego. Larsson, the man, the author, the journalist took himself apart for our diversion and never quite got himself back together again, a particular tragedy, considering he's six years dead in his grave, though a fourth unfinished "Dragon" novel sits on his lady's laptop. What will come is anybody's guess.

Wanting More Stieg Ja?

According to this article, the national library of Sweden has recently acquired several unpublished manuscripts by Stieg Larsson that he wrote at around age 17. Those of us who've gotten through the books now have "The Girl Who Played With Fire," the second Swedish produced movie to view, starring Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander, a role she was born to play. It opened last week here in Philadelphia. God, I hope that Hollywood doesn't try to remake this film like they have made and botched other European hits. The first film was brilliant as it is. No remake required.

And Larsson—he contains mysteries within mysteries—Swedish style Isn't that just so much fun? Almost as if he planned it that way.