The Man Who Left Too Soon: The Life and Works of Stieg Larsson (33 page)

Åsa Larsson’s gritty novel boasts a pithily realised heroine who is to feature in future works: corporate lawyer Rebecka Martinsson, arm-twisted by her friend Sanna, who is under suspicion regarding the grisly murder of a celebrated writer of religious books, Viktor Strandgård, who has been mutilated – both hands and eyes removed in a church in Northern Sweden. Also caught up in the subsequent investigation is canny police inspector Anna-Maria Mella, dragooned into the case by a colleague, despite being incapacitated by her advanced state of pregnancy. Like Lynda la Plante’s Jane Tennison, these are women who are struggling in a world of unsympathetic men and Larsson – like her male namesake – peoples her cast with some extremely nasty males. But Åsa Larsson’s writing is more ambitious than her British colleague, with a level of plotting that excels in both ambition and achievement. It will be interesting to see what the author cooks up for her beleaguered heroine in future books.

APPENDIX B –

Writers on Stieg Larsson

WRITERS ON STIEG LARSSON: JOAN SMITH

L
arsson’s connection with ordinary readers has been astonishing in its range and passion – but equally remarkable is the response he has engendered in his fellow crime fiction practitioners and critics. Several were happy to talk to me about their Larsson enthusiasms for this book – while others grimaced and said ‘Can I tell you what I
really
think about him?’

Joan Smith is celebrated as a crime novelist (for such impressive books as
A Masculine Ending
), but it is perhaps as a journalist and commentator that her work most coincides with that of Stieg Larsson, with a particular concern for male violence against women and the repression of women in Islamic societies – two issues which much exercised the late Swedish writer.

‘I was an early supporter,’ she says. ‘It is Stieg Larsson who most describes an incredibly detailed vision of modern Sweden. He presented it as a modern European country – there isn’t that small-town, gossipy feel we’d had before, the notion that time is passing, but things don’t really change very much. This wasn’t what Stieg Larsson presented in his creation of a city of the modern era, an incredibly recognisable modern world.

‘The other element that intrigued me about the first book was, of course, something that is summed up in the original Swedish title of the novel,
Men Who Hate Women
. Even if I had not known at the beginning, I would have realised that Larsson was as fascinating and horrified as I am by the whole phenomenon of misogyny and the deep-seated hostility some men have towards women. It’s unusual to find a man who makes that absolutely the central theme of his novels – obviously, a lot of men are aware of it, but to tackle the subject as directly as Larsson does, for a male novelist is unusual.’

In this, of course, he had a parallel with the writer Joan Smith – who as well as being a novelist addressing these themes, was (as a journalist) arguing for the rights of women in repressive religious regimes. ‘Well,’ says Smith, ‘Stieg did have the right credentials! Years ago I worked for the
Sunday Times
Insight team doing investigative journalism in the days when newspapers believed in it – and could afford it. And I wonder if the same thing happened to him as happened to me – you come to realise that you have insights into the extraordinary things that go on around the world, and being a journalist of this kind is something of a privileged occupation. I was flying around the world, investigating things like where the Shah of Iran had stashed his money, and writing a book about the Iranian embassy siege. You begin to say to yourself “I know how all this works, but I don’t want to be constrained by the facts anymore”. You want to write about the underlying truths which can be revealed in fiction, and I can’t help wondering if this was part of his motivation as well.’

Does Smith think that Larsson could have sustained the energy and focus had he written the ten-novel sequence he had apparently planned?

‘I really think he couldn’t have sustained what he achieved in those first three novels; it’s noticeable that the last of the three is elegiac in tone, and there’s the new personal trajectory he creates for Blomkvist – giving him a new girlfriend, and so forth. The ebb and flow of the relationship between him and Salander had been very convincingly detailed, and I really didn’t believe that she would so readily accept the new relationship without any of the animosity of the second novel. It seemed to me a way of tying up loose ends in a not entirely convincing way. Nevertheless, it felt like a trilogy to me.

‘The other problem is about continuing the dynamic of the relationship between Blomkvist and Salander. To some degree, having established that she is dysfunctional, part of the achievement is the way in which she is “reached” by Blomkvist. And that feat is achieved – several times – but it encapsulates another way in which it is difficult to see the series continuing. At the end of the third book – with so much resolved, with so many of her problems solved, many of the injustices righted – Salander is a free woman. So what does she do now? Does she find herself a boyfriend, or a girlfriend, and settle down? Does she start her own computer company?’

Of course, the
Millennium Trilogy
crucially addresses gender issues, which is very much the territory that Joan Smith writes about. But despite his impeccable sympathy for women, has Larsson transcended gender in his writings?

‘Oh, he remains very much a male writer, and there is, possibly, a certain male wish-fulfilment element in Blomkvist; he is a shambling figure, but it seems that every woman he meets wants to go to bed with him – and the ones who can’t have him look wistfully at him. But you can forgive Larsson this, as you can forgive him so much else. Apart from anything else, when you read the first book, you know that the author is already dead – these three books are all you will get. And there is no sense of an author developing – you are denied this particular pleasure, something that can usually be counted upon when you discover a new writer. Perhaps he might have grown out of that element of wish-fulfilment in the Blomkvist character, and he never had the chance of a series of consultations with an editor – the usual refining process.’

But what about Lisbeth Salander? Smith has spoken highly of her in her various reviews of the books, but did she have reservations?

‘Well, I feel she is like a character from a computer game,’ she says. ‘That’s not necessarily a huge weakness, and it’s certainly true that a lot of young women identify with her. What I respond to is how intelligent she is, and how ingenious she is – at least, how ingenious Larsson makes her. But my problems, if I have any, are not really with the characters. I’m not entirely happy with the violence of the third book, which is very gruesome indeed. I think that Larsson is feeling that because she was victimised, we are supposed to stand back when this violence is unleashed and not pass judgement on her – and I don’t think I’m quite prepared to do that.

‘As for women readers sympathising with her – well, personally, I know that I never for a moment identified with her. I read her as someone who was completely outside my experience, and the fact that she is so horribly abused – an abuse that can happen to anyone, whether a boy or a girl – such things can have a devastating effect on the personality. But that’s outside my range of experience.

As a journalist, of course, Smith dealt with a lot of the same issues that Larsson tackled. Surely this rendered her a ready-made reader for the
Millennium Trilogy
?

‘I thought that from the moment I started reading the very first book,’ she replies. ‘The details of falling into a libel trap – and then when Blomkvist goes off to lick his wounds, well because of the kind of journalism I did years ago, I found that very easy to empathise with.

‘I do have this personal response to Stieg, and I wonder if he’d agree that when one is writing journalism, to some degree it is “here today, gone tomorrow”, whereas when you are writing a novel you can address important issues in the guise of entertainment – the issues involved will have more relevance than if they had simply been considered in a journalistic article.’

WRITERS ON STIEG LARSSON: KARIN ALVTEGEN

Karin Alvtegen is comfortably one of the most acclaimed of Nordic crime writers – and is impressed by Stieg’s strong heroine: ‘Perhaps Salander is not an entirely credible character, but together with so many others readers, I find it enjoyable and comforting to read about an underdog who refuses to be a victim and instead takes command. I’m convinced that one of the explanations of the great success is Stieg’s portrayals of strong women. He turns the traditional gender roles upside down. Lisbeth is the “hero” who has to save Mikael Blomkvist. Since the books are equally popular with both men and women, perhaps all of us feel refreshed by Stieg’s obvious crusade against social injustice, xenophobia and preconceived ideas regarding gender roles.

‘The sad thing about this unique success is the dispute about the inheritance it resulted in. Perhaps we all can use it as a reminder that we never know what waits ahead – and that we should be more careful when it comes to writing our last will and testament.’

WRITERS ON STIEG LARSSON: ANN CLEEVES

One of the most enthusiastic proselytisers for Scandinavian crime fiction is the UK’s Ann Cleeves, author of such atmospheric mysteries as
Blue Lightning
– books which have a rather Nordic attitude to landscape and locale. She has an ambiguous attitude to Larsson: ‘I love Scandinavian crime novels,’ she says. ‘It’s something about the bleakness of landscape, the fact that the writers dare to tackle serious social and domestic issues. I read books in translation for the flavour of the place, the petty preoccupations of the people, the smells, the food. Larsson is an unashamedly political writer and his themes are broader and less personal. A caveat: the island featured in the first book isn’t a real island. I have no sense of what it would be like to live there, as I do, for example, when I read of Johan Theorin’s Oland. Larsson’s is a metaphor and a playful gesture towards Golden Age enclosed community mysteries. As a reader I revel in the intimate and the specific and I need to get lost in the story.

WRITERS ON STIEG LARSSON: DAN FESPERMAN

The American writer Dan Fesperman produces very different fiction from Larsson, but is intrigued by the Swedish writer: ‘I was introduced to Larsson’s work by my American editor, Sonny Mehta, who gave me a galley of
Dragon Tattoo
back when Knopf was still trying to decide what cover to put on the US edition. I think he mentioned that it was already something of a sensation in Britain, and he seemed to think I’d like it. That night I cracked it open on the train ride back from New York (a perfect place to start reading that kind of a novel, I might add – the nightscapes of cities and marshes rolling past outside, the sway and clack of the train car, the intimate pool of light from the overhead beam). By the time we reached Baltimore a few hours later I knew I’d be reading all three.

‘It’s not easy to pin down Larsson’s appeal. It’s not his style or the cadence of his language – it seldom is when you’re talking about a work in translation. It’s more a question of the strange mood he creates – both welcoming and forbidding, comfortable and uneasy. Opening one of his books is sort of like inviting an engaging but mildly unsettling guest to dinner. The company and conversation are stimulating, charming even. But there is also a sense of shared menace in the interplay, which of course draws you closer to the table. With every word you realise this is someone who has been places, who knows things, and who may eventually let you in on some secrets, no matter how dark and unsavoury. Halfway through the main course you’ve decided to extend the evening as long as possible, so you break out the espresso, the cigars, the port – whatever it takes to make it last, well past the hour when the streets have gone quiet and the neighbours’ noisy party downstairs has packed it in. These books are a state of mind.’

WRITERS ON STIEG LARSSON: MARCEL BERLINS

Marcel Berlins is as adroit at characterising the virtues, or otherwise, of a crime novel for
The Times
as he is at unpacking the complexities of Britain’s legal system for the
Guardian
. As a crime critic, he has pointed out that he has a limited amount of space, and sometimes reviews novels by omission – and he is careful not to be destructive when it comes to first-time novelists. But when Berlins shows approbation for a crime novel, attention is paid. Stieg Larsson has long been the recipient of the Berlins seal of approval – but with reservations.

‘I’ve been thinking about my reaction to Stieg Larsson,’ he said, ‘and it’s probably a truism to remark that – had he not died – an editor would have said to him, “Come on, let’s get it into manageable shape.” I was using this argument whenever I was asked about him, but apparently it’s not quite the case – the first book was subjected to a correct editing process, but to me it is still in need of tightening up, whatever its virtues – and they are many.

‘But it’s intriguing to speculate on such matters as: who is reading these books? What is it that makes him so successful? I found myself asking around – speaking to people who were not just crime fiction aficionados, but lovers of really popular novels such as the trilogy has become.