My blog's a little late this week. Sorry about that, but I've been in Sweden.
Okay...maybe not literally. More...literaturally. What happened was, I became addicted to Stieg Larsson. I'm in withdrawal now, as I've run out of Stieg Larsson books. I'm on to the movies made from the books, which is like taking methadone instead of heroin. It's taking me a great deal of effort and discipline to sit here and write without twitching.
You've probably already read The Girl with the Dragoon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. I hadn't, and for good reason: I know how I am. I knew I'd need a stretch of time, which I hadn't previously found but have granted myself in the last couple of weeks, as once I start reading compelling literature I'm a goner.
I read all 2,132 pages pretty much without stopping. I read in ferry lines, while drinking morning tea, while eating and when I meant to be asleep. I read in Ocean Shores, on Vashon Island, in Idaho, at highway rest stops and in a motel room in Cle Elum, Washington. I read in my nightgown, in shorts and a tank top, in jeans and flannel shirt, and wrapped in blankets against chilly winds. I read instead of studying Italian, instead of making appointments with people I need to see, instead of talking to friends sitting right across the table from me. Addiction, pure and simple.
Addicts want more. But there will likely be no more of these, as Larsson died at age 50 in 2004, before he had a chance to see the impact his manuscripts would have on his many readers. He left a partial manuscript for a fourth book, and outlines for at least two others. He had planned to write ten. His estate is wrapped in conflict between his father and brother on one side, his woman companion of 32 years on the other. It is likely that none of his unfinished writings are complete enough to publish and, in any event, the rights to his work are in dispute and far from settled. So we have to be satisfied with the three complete books we have.
What good books they are. Smart and complicated, dense with interesting characters. Unequivocal in condemning a wide variety of abuses of civil rights. Not surprising, in that Larsson -- a journalist like his books' hero, Mikael Blomkvist -- was a political activist all his adult life, exposing and battling Sweden's white supremacy movement, among others. He was a feminist, anti-fascist, anti-racist, editor of an outspoken magazine, and the subject of the same kind of death threats received by several of his characters.
His friends and colleagues say he was a gentle, good-natured man who lived on coffee and junk food and smoked too much, like his heroine, Lisbeth Salander. He had a heart attack, the medical examiners said, after climbing seven flights of stairs to his office, as the elevator was broken.
He started writing sci-fi at age 12. By all accounts, he wrote no fiction from the age of 20 until, in 2002, he began the Millenium series (as the press calls the Salander/Blomkvist trilogy). Instead, he filled his life with written and spoken words against the groups and behaviors he detested. His own title for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was Men Who Hate Women.
As I write this, I realize that, as compelling and suspenseful as are the stories of Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist, the passion with which I read them was at least partly attributable to Larsson's overarching philosophy. I came across this quote from The Guardian referring to The Expo Files, a book of Larsson's essays, but equally relevant to his novels:
"An unanswered question hangs over Larsson's writings here: what does a democratic society do with those who espouse the destruction of democracy?"
An apt question. Stieg Larsson chose to write a series of books to point out what he saw happening in his own country. He will never know how popular his books became, how many people would read his words about oppression and discrimination, both obvious and subtle. But I'm sure he knew how germane were his warnings, and not only to Sweden.
Thanks, Stieg.
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