The adventures of Lisbeth Salander, a brooding 23 year old hacker babe, with a murky and disturbing past, have set pop culture ablaze for close to a decade now. I mean, darn, snagging Daniel Craig for the U.S. film: kind of enuf said, no?
Part of the allure of this pop culture cottage industry - three books, with a fourth on the way, films in both Swedish and English, TV miniseries and graphic novels - generally now known as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series (or, in some circles, the Millennium trilogy) is the strange tale of the originating creator: Stieg Larsson.
In Larsson's story one discovers a narrative rich with irony: where everything is "just before." Just before being crowned a mega-successful novelist, Larsson was a prominent crusader, battling what he saw as insidious tumors of Fascism and plutocracy festering in Swedish society. And, just before his novels' mega-success, and the resulting mega-personal fortune, he inconveniently died.
These facts seem to press upon us at least two pertinent questions. One question is: what if he had not died? Might his great wealth, generated by people freely purchasing his books (and tickets for the movies made from his books), have resulted in a revision of his apparent assumption that great wealth was a reliable marker of dissipation and evil? And, the second question: might the two facts from the previous paragraph be related?
On this latter question, there has been some considerable speculation. Larsson seems earlyish in life to have embraced Communism and that creed has always had something of the conspiratorial about it. So it isn't surprising that much of the 80s and 90s for him were dedicated to uncovering the cabal of right wing plotters and crypto-Aryans.
The institutional legacy of all this was Larsson's establishment of a foundation and magazine, which he eventually edited, named Expo. These were pledged to exposing Swedish society's dark forces, its blackguards and villains. Now, don't mistake my tone here; it's not a matter of doubting the existence of such plotters and fantasists. It's just that fantasists are exactly what I think they are. They, no less than their arch enemies, like Larsson, exaggerate their relevance and influence all out of proportion to reality so as to make themselves and their titanic struggle seem of epic consequence. (I feel confident in saying that when barbarism next descends upon Western civilization, it won't be wearing jackboots and swastikas.)
And, for the record, I certainly do not accept that Larsson's death by "heart attack" (as some insist on putting it) on the "anniversary" (my scare quotes) of Kristallnacht means anything. This is just the conspiratorial mind out of control. Now, I grant you, if they'd waited to whack him in 2008; that would have been 70 years since the original night of broken glass. I mean, 70s years. Now, that would be meaningful, right? I mean, it must mean something? Right? Excuse my sarcasm; perhaps you get my point?
Nonetheless, from the perspective of entertainment, Larsson's fixation on right-wing conspiracies paid off handsomely in becoming the thematic and plot milieu of his now much read and cinematically adapted novels. And if anything, they've apparently resonated even more in America than in his Swedish homeland.
The plots and debauchery of Larsson's crypto-fascists and aspiring plutocrats (though, really, one ought to explain actual Nazi economic policy to the Larsson's of the world) provide the fodder for his super-hero, girl of all trades, Lisbeth Salander. She wields her photographic memory, chess-like strategic mind, mathematical talents that would make Godel weep, and hacker skills that make a mockery of computer security at any bank or police department, to bring down the blackguards and villains, along with her trusty journalist sidekick, Mikael Blomkvist. Indeed, in one of the sequels, it appears that returning from the dead may need to be added to her "remarkable abilities" inventory.
Well, no point mincing words, the whole business is a tad far-fetched. Presumably Larsson thought only a super-hero could bring down the insidious, sinister crypto-villains. But, what the hey, however implausible the suspension of disbelief Larsson may ask of us, his heroic protagonists and their heralded mission provides plenty of entertaining reading (and viewing). And, hey, as the man said, there's no success like market success.
It just goes to prove that even a paranoid commie can brush the zeitgeist and hit the jackpot. Probably best though to not ponder too closely what that says about the rest of us.
Part of the allure of this pop culture cottage industry - three books, with a fourth on the way, films in both Swedish and English, TV miniseries and graphic novels - generally now known as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series (or, in some circles, the Millennium trilogy) is the strange tale of the originating creator: Stieg Larsson.
In Larsson's story one discovers a narrative rich with irony: where everything is "just before." Just before being crowned a mega-successful novelist, Larsson was a prominent crusader, battling what he saw as insidious tumors of Fascism and plutocracy festering in Swedish society. And, just before his novels' mega-success, and the resulting mega-personal fortune, he inconveniently died.
These facts seem to press upon us at least two pertinent questions. One question is: what if he had not died? Might his great wealth, generated by people freely purchasing his books (and tickets for the movies made from his books), have resulted in a revision of his apparent assumption that great wealth was a reliable marker of dissipation and evil? And, the second question: might the two facts from the previous paragraph be related?
On this latter question, there has been some considerable speculation. Larsson seems earlyish in life to have embraced Communism and that creed has always had something of the conspiratorial about it. So it isn't surprising that much of the 80s and 90s for him were dedicated to uncovering the cabal of right wing plotters and crypto-Aryans.
The institutional legacy of all this was Larsson's establishment of a foundation and magazine, which he eventually edited, named Expo. These were pledged to exposing Swedish society's dark forces, its blackguards and villains. Now, don't mistake my tone here; it's not a matter of doubting the existence of such plotters and fantasists. It's just that fantasists are exactly what I think they are. They, no less than their arch enemies, like Larsson, exaggerate their relevance and influence all out of proportion to reality so as to make themselves and their titanic struggle seem of epic consequence. (I feel confident in saying that when barbarism next descends upon Western civilization, it won't be wearing jackboots and swastikas.)
And, for the record, I certainly do not accept that Larsson's death by "heart attack" (as some insist on putting it) on the "anniversary" (my scare quotes) of Kristallnacht means anything. This is just the conspiratorial mind out of control. Now, I grant you, if they'd waited to whack him in 2008; that would have been 70 years since the original night of broken glass. I mean, 70s years. Now, that would be meaningful, right? I mean, it must mean something? Right? Excuse my sarcasm; perhaps you get my point?
Nonetheless, from the perspective of entertainment, Larsson's fixation on right-wing conspiracies paid off handsomely in becoming the thematic and plot milieu of his now much read and cinematically adapted novels. And if anything, they've apparently resonated even more in America than in his Swedish homeland.
The plots and debauchery of Larsson's crypto-fascists and aspiring plutocrats (though, really, one ought to explain actual Nazi economic policy to the Larsson's of the world) provide the fodder for his super-hero, girl of all trades, Lisbeth Salander. She wields her photographic memory, chess-like strategic mind, mathematical talents that would make Godel weep, and hacker skills that make a mockery of computer security at any bank or police department, to bring down the blackguards and villains, along with her trusty journalist sidekick, Mikael Blomkvist. Indeed, in one of the sequels, it appears that returning from the dead may need to be added to her "remarkable abilities" inventory.
Well, no point mincing words, the whole business is a tad far-fetched. Presumably Larsson thought only a super-hero could bring down the insidious, sinister crypto-villains. But, what the hey, however implausible the suspension of disbelief Larsson may ask of us, his heroic protagonists and their heralded mission provides plenty of entertaining reading (and viewing). And, hey, as the man said, there's no success like market success.
It just goes to prove that even a paranoid commie can brush the zeitgeist and hit the jackpot. Probably best though to not ponder too closely what that says about the rest of us.
About the Author:
To keep taps on the latest in the Stieg Larsson posthumous empire, you need to read Mickey Jhonny on the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo site. Mickey's latest writing includes a provocative review of the Michael Apted's amazing 7 Up documentary series for Best Documentaries on Netflix -- you don't want to miss it!
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