The Man Who Left Too Soon: The Life and Works of Stieg Larsson (11 page)

Another biography, due to be published in 2011 by Larsson’s UK publisher MacLehose Press, makes available Jan-Erik Pettersson’s study
Stieg
(translated by Tom Geddes), which describes Stieg Larsson’s political activism and research from his youth to his work on the magazine
Expo
(the model for
Millennium
). A focal point of the book is Larsson’s tireless campaign against the racism and neo-Nazi tendencies of the far Right in Sweden. Pettersson’s picture of extremist politics in Sweden is both wide-ranging and detailed, covering the various fringe parties, street demonstrations and acts of violence; he outlines Stieg’s persistent efforts to expose those historical and current European connections that are often hidden by extremists in their attempt to present themselves as acceptable and electable. Pettersson’s viewpoint is that of a fellow journalist fully conversant with Larsson’s work and with contemporary socio-political developments in Sweden.

It was perhaps inevitable that the
Millennium Trilogy
would be adapted into media other than the cinema (the films are discussed here later). The first theatrical appearance of Lisbeth Salander had Larsson’s heroine muttering her few carefully chosen words in Danish rather than Swedish – or English. The world premiere of the stage adaptation of
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
took place in Copenhagen’s Nørrebro Theatre in November 2010. The play was developed in collaboration with Eva Gabrielsson, who may have lost control of the film rights of her late partner’s work but was able to secure this first version for the stage. Anna Beck Laulund, speaking at the theatre, stated how keen everyone involved was to be faithful to the spirit of the books, but acknowledged that the films could, inevitably, be more successful at depicting the action elements of the plots. The aim of the theatrical adaptation, she explained, was to concentrate on the themes of misogyny and violence in society. Salander was played by Signe Egholm Olsen, a young actress whose career has been in the ascendant, principally through her appearances in the Danish television series
Borgen
(she also appeared in the 2007 Sean Penn film
Into the Wild
). In the UK, the news quickly prompted speculation about the possibilities of a theatrical adaptation in London.

Not all the examples of Larssoniana have taken the books and their creator quite so seriously. Nora Ephron produced a brief and witty parody in
The New Yorker
(‘The Girl Who Fixed the Umlaut’), riffing on Lisbeth’s computer skills and her inability to smile. And another Larsson
jeu d’esprit
appeared in 2010 – Adam Roberts’ fantasy
The Dragon with the Girl Tattoo
, with the heroine Lizbreath Salamander sporting scales, wings, and a tattoo on her back of a mythical creature: a girl. There are gloomy Nordic dragons, conspiracies and IKEA-style home furnishing (in this novel, fireproofed!).

CHAPTER 7

THE BOOKS:

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

W
hat is the secret of Larsson’s astonishing posthumous success in Sweden? Is it a corollary of his heroic status? Whatever the reason, that success was to be repeated in the United Kingdom – and throughout the world. The following discussion of the novels assumes that the reader is already familiar with the trilogy.

At the start of this weighty, first novel of the trilogy, Larsson appears to be testing his readers. He has up his sleeve two extremely engaging protagonists – and once these characters have appeared, our surrender to the novel is guaranteed. Before that, however, we are subjected to lengthy, and at times impenetrable, details of financial scams in which the reader, like the characters, seems to be being told – sharply – to pay attention. But just as our patience is being tested, Larsson finally allows us to luxuriate in some impeccable plotting involving disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist and computer hacker Lisbeth Salander. The former is cut from a familiar cloth – the tenacious reporter who has taken on a dangerous enemy (like Larsson himself) – but Salander is that
rara avis
, something new in crime fiction (though she does have antecedents).

Salander, much esteemed by her financial investigator boss, who is fighting his own inappropriately lustful impulses towards her, belies her professional expertise as investigator by an off-putting punk appearance: facial jewellery, outlandish clothes and the eponymous dragon tattoo. One of her subjects is Mikael Blomkvist, sacked after a disastrous legal defeat over a contentious article. Unaware of Salander’s report on him, Blomkvist is hired by an ailing magnate to investigate the disappearance (and possible murder) of his niece on an island several years ago. The island was cut off from the mainland by an unlikely accident involving a blocked bridge, isolating a group of suspects – and before the reader can cry ‘Ah ha! Locked room scenario!’, Larsson beats us to the punch, with his characters noting that this is classic English mystery territory. But not for the first time in the novel we’re being wrong-footed: what follows is much darker and bloodier than we seem to be being prepared for – more Thomas Harris than Dorothy Sayers.

Reading the
Millennium Trilogy
is in fact a bittersweet experience, as we are constantly reminded that an accomplished writing voice has been stilled even before his work reached these shores. For instance, just as we are worrying that such an extreme-looking anti-heroine as Salander might alienate the very people she is plugging for information, Larsson has her remove her face metal and don conventional clothes – she has, in fact, a secret identity. She is also – despite her insolent manner – vulnerable, tying in to a feminist undercurrent here, one that would have pleased the fierce Andrea Dworkin (one of the novel’s superscriptions is ‘18% of the women in Sweden have at one time been threatened by a man’). But if this suggests a vitiating political correctness quality, the unsparing horror and torture the novel deals out banishes any such notions.

The prologue for
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
begins with a ritual, involving the delivery of a flower to a man – whose identity is not immediately revealed to us – who has reached his 82nd birthday. He takes off the wrapping for a flower he has received through the post then picks up the phone to contact a police friend, retired Detective Superintendent Morrell. The flower has arrived without a note, postmarked Stockholm. Neither man speaks much about the mystery on this occasion, for it is a topic that they have both discussed endlessly over the years. This time, the flower is identified as coming from a plant native to the Australian bush, according to a botanist who was consulted. It is a very rare flower, but the source of this particular specimen is proving impossible to trace. The bloom itself is just the latest in a long line: these mystifying flowers have arrived each year in winter, pressed on watercolour paper in a frame. Neither man has ever reported the matter to the newspapers, and ‘The Case of the Pressed Flowers’ has nagged at the attention of Morrell, the policeman, for years. It has every appearance of being his last case, forever to be unsolved. This intriguing prologue ends with the old man weeping over the flower, before setting it on the wall above his desk with the 43 other flowers that he has received over the years.

Right from the start of the novel it is clear that Stieg Larsson is determined to come up with original, innovative situations that owe little to his predecessors – even though these very predecessors are name-checked in the book. The latter action, which might have been a hostage to fortune on the part of lesser writers, is confronted with confidence by Larsson – and firmly dealt with. We will, he conveys to us, be reading something new.

The journalist Mikael Blomkvist has lost almost everything. He has been thoroughly trounced by his opponent, the industrialist Wennerström, and is surrounded by fellow journalists, some who have come to gloat (even using a derisory nickname, ‘Kalle’, based on a character from Astrid Lindgren – the first example of a reference to another writer found in the
Millennium Trilogy
). A 26-page judgement finds Blomkvist guilty of a variety of counts of aggravated libel against Wennerström. And Blomkvist will be going to jail as well as paying a hefty fine, not to mention the court costs and his lawyer’s fee. It is, of course, clear to see where this plot device is coming from in terms of Stieg Larsson’s own life – it was always an occupational hazard that he would be arraigned by one of the opponents against whom he was making an accusation, and what better way to characterise his hero than utilise something that Larsson was apprehensive about? He realises that he may have to sell his beloved apartment and that
Millennium
, the magazine he works for, may now be in trouble. He asks himself how things have gone so catastrophically wrong.

What follows is a lengthy discussion of the Wennerström case, and the detail with which the various pieces of financial chicanery are set out is discussed forensically. This is, to some degree, a test of the reader’s stamina. It is perhaps the ‘Proust point’ for many new readers of Stieg Larsson, the section in which the less hardy of heart fall down (rather as many readers do not get beyond
Swann’s Way
). But such is Larsson’s skill at detailing this complicated scam that those who persist will be rewarded – and, to some degree, it is important to pay attention to clarify things that develop later in the book. There are those who have regretted that
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
begins with this section, rather than introducing the charismatic (and disturbed) Lisbeth Salander earlier, but Larsson might be said to have a strategy: the delayed introduction of his ace-in-the-hole is a clever device, and making us wait for her will pay dividends.

Chapter 2 begins with the life history of Dragan Armansky, an Armenian Jew from Belarus who in appearance resembles the popular image of the mob boss in an American crime movie, but is actually a talented financial director who began his career in the firm of Milton Security in the 1970s. His nickname is ‘The Arab’, although he is not of Arabic extraction. One part of the business (which grows under Armansky’s stewardship) was described in internal memos as ‘pinders’, standing for personal investigations. This is not Armansky’s favourite part of the business, but he finds it extremely useful when checking on adulterers, unsuitable fiancées and blackmailers. He always keeps a close personal watch on this particular area of his activities.

It is during this section of the book that we are introduced to one of Armansky’s employees, who has been conducting a personal investigation for him: it is our first meeting with Lisbeth Salander, 32 years younger than him. While Armansky regards her as the most adroit and efficient of his employees (with her astonishingly detailed and informative reports), he is well aware that many of those who are the targets of her investigations are in for a very bad time. She has managed to identify a paedophile who had used child prostitutes in Tallinn, and the single-mindedness with which she pursues this particular individual is above and beyond the call of duty – as her employer sees it. We are, of course, in our initial encounter with Salander, being introduced to a key theme of the novel: the sexual abuse of women and children.

But what particularly nonplusses Armansky is Salander’s appearance. She is a white-faced young woman of anorexic appearance with facial piercings and a wasp tattoo on her neck. The bicep of her left arm is similarly festooned, and Armansky has noticed, when she is wearing a short-sleeved top, that she has on her left shoulder blade a dragon tattoo. He knows that she is a redhead but her hair is dyed a deep black, and he describes her as looking like she has emerged from a lengthy orgy. Interestingly, despite her anorexic appearance, she seems able to vacuum up massive quantities of junk food. She is 24, but with her small breasts she sometimes appears to be about 14.

While initially being hired for whatever jobs are available, Armansky realises that this is a woman of amazing abilities, and he is quickly using her to work full-time on the most ambitious jobs – despite the fact that her findings are often extremely uncomfortable for him, and he is acutely aware that they may lead to libel suits. Every so often she reads the riot act to him, rather than the other way round, and points out that her talents are not being utilised to the full. She notes, for instance, that the security routines in the office are not up to scratch – and she can improve such things. She also notes that the girlfriend of one of her targets has been obliged to go to a women’s crisis centre after she has been savagely beaten by him (a key Larsson motif). Armansky’s response is to tell her to prove it in three days, and if the allegations are unsubstantiated by Friday afternoon, she will be fired. Needless to say, she delivers the proof, and Armansky is forced to realise that he has someone very special indeed on his staff, despite her unpromising appearance. The fact that he had regarded her as possibly retarded was a misjudgement he is not likely to make again; he begins to give her more challenging assignments and continues to put up with more strong-willed disagreement than he would accept from anyone else.

All of this is handled by Stieg Larsson with total assurance, and the rather uninvolving opening of the book (which has alienated many readers, who have not felt able to persist) seems a distant memory as we realise that we are in the presence of one of the key protagonists – and a highly memorable one at that. Another theme that is to be recurrent for the author occurs when Armansky finds himself having inappropriate daydreams about Salander, even though, as he sees it, she hardly conforms to the image of women that he finds attractive. This aspect of Salander – the fact that her off-putting appearance does not alienate men, as might be supposed – is something that seems designed to confuse the reader’s response: is this some kind of insight into Stieg Larsson’s own psyche? Or is it the author challenging the reader’s expectations in this very fraught area?