The Man Who Left Too Soon

by Barry Forshaw

  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 ho
urs 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.

  ‘The plots are convoluted, but one sticks with them, and Blomkvist is of course a sympathetic character; Lisbeth doesn’t really come fully into her own until the second and third books. But what really struck me about The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was the fact that the book is rather English in aspect! The unravelling of a mystery which took place 40 years ago is a kind of tip of the hat to the classic English mystery, with a central character a journalist/detective. He’s out of work, under a cloud – actually, rather an English figure in terms of the genre. This was all of a part with my speculating as to why the English have responded so much to the books (I didn’t get round to the Americans and Europeans in my considerations). I think it’s true that – as Henning Mankell and others have proved – Sweden as a country is close in atmosphere and feeling to England (and, indeed, Scotland). It struck me forcibly when reading the early Henning Mankells – and it’s a feeling that persisted with Stieg Larsson – that one is really reading about a version of Norfolk; the slate-grey skies, and the attitude of the people. Scandinavian crime fiction is both similar and dissimilar to English crime fiction. This might explain why the hot-blooded Mediterranean writers – Andrea Camilleri, for instance – are less popular; the English are not temperamentally suited to those books in the way that they are to writers from the Nordic countries. I’ve enthused endlessly to people about how good the Italians are, but the response is often less than enthusiastic – and publishers such as Bitter Lemon who specialise in (among other things) Italian crime in translation have to make something of an effort to sell their books to English readers.

  ‘Blomkvist one can see appealing to the English reader,’ continues Berlins, ‘But Salander is a very different kettle of fish, and my search within myself as to the reason for her popularity produced some interesting results. For a start, she is very different from anything that English readers are accustomed to. As a rule of thumb, it might be said that English crime readers – at least the readers of such novelists as P D James and Ruth Rendell – are conservative in their tastes (that is, of course, conservative with a small ‘c’). ‘With writers such as James and Rendell, the books are essentially about the status quo – or, at least, about re-establishing the status quo. Bitter endings are not particularly popular with English readers. So it is possible to say that it is the old-fashioned style which still sells best – so why have English readers taken to Lisbeth with such enthusiasm? She’s not what we’re used to…

  ‘But as to listing the demerits of Stieg Larsson – well, what about the villains? They are, largely speaking, one-dimensional – look at the Russian heavies. In fact, this leads to what I consider to be the real reason for the success: the books have a certain comic strip element – Lisbeth, for instance, is not a real figure if you look at her objectively – but it is this energy which is obviously immensely appealing to readers. It’s a clever move by Larsson to make Blomkvist a believable figure by contrast, which he certainly does – that has the effect of anchoring the narrative in a kind of reality, so that readers are prepared to take on board the more outlandish elements. So my feeling was that English readers, rather than wanting to be convinced of the reality of the character – or, for that matter, pacified by her or the narrative, as much crime fiction does – were happy to embrace Lisbeth on this non-naturalistic, larger-than-life stage.

  ‘Having said that, most of the women I have spoken to about Salander don’t actually like her, but perhaps, to some degree she acts out female readers’ fantasies on some level.

  ‘In the final analysis, whatever flaws critics like myself might identify in a writer, it’s really an academic exercise, when readers decide to vote with their wallets and embrace books the way they have done with Larsson. English readers were not, for instance, put off by the socialist hero at the heart of the Millennium Trilogy.

  ‘Larsson is, of course, critic-proof – rather like Dan Brown. I’m not saying that Brown is the same kind of writer as Larsson – the latter is, of course, infinitely better. But the general disapproval of Dan Brown in critical circles hasn’t dented his sales one iota. Larsson, for a complicated series of almost unexplainable reasons, has touched a nerve with crime fiction readers. That is why he has broken (and is continuing to break) sales records in the genre.’

  WRITERS ON STIEG LARSSON: MARTIN EDWARDS

  The English Lake District is the stamping ground for Martin Edwards, who wrote such Ullswater-set mysteries as The Serpent Pool, and he told me that he regarded the first Larsson book as ‘an extraordinary achievement by any standards – all the more impressive because it was Larsson’s first published novel’. ‘As with any debut, there are flaws,’ he went on, ‘but there is an abundance of riches to compensate. And one of the pleasures of the books that await detective story fans is Larsson’s occasional appreciative nods to the genre. He draws on its variety in composing his story line, and setting the tone of the narrative.

  ‘The first book boasts a family tree of the Vangers, and I agree with Larsson’s translator, Reg Keeland, that it’s a pity that maps of Hedeby Island which make it easier to follow details of the plot were not included. Family trees and maps were a staple of Golden Age detective fiction between the wars, and it’s fascinating to see a thoroughly modern writer such as Larsson using traditional devices to add texture to his story. More than that, the central mystery of the disappearance of Harriet Vanger is presented as an example of a classic form of detective puzzle:

  “I assume that something happened to Harriet here on the island,” Blomkvist said, “and that the list of suspects consists of the finite number of people trapped here. A sort of locked-room mystery in island format?” Vanger smiled ironically.”


  ‘In fact, the setup of the story is really that of a “closed circle” mystery, rather than a type of “locked-room” or “impossible crime”; John Dickson Carr was a notable exponent of the latter form. But this is a quibble; what is so intriguing is that a ground-breaking book so consciously draws upon past fictions, whilst portraying the failings of modern society with unflinching realism.

  ‘The ironic exchange between Blomkvist and Vanger is playful, but subtler than, say, the passage in Carr’s classic mystery The Hollow Man, in which Dr Gideon Fell remarks in The Locked-Room Lecture: “We’re in a detective story, and we don’t fool the reader by pretending we’re not. Let’s not invent elaborate excuses to drag in a discussion of detective stories. Let’s candidly glory in the noblest pursuits possible to characters in a book.”

  ‘As the story of Harriet Vanger’s fate darkens, so do the fictional references. At risk of going “stir-crazy” in Hedeby, Blomkvist borrows two whodunits by Elizabeth George from the library. Looking around in Gottfried’s cabin, he finds more murder mysteries, some by Mickey Spillane. Later, on Midsummer Eve, he tries to unwind by embarking on Val McDermid’s The Mermaids Singing. When, a few days later, he reaches the denouement, we are told: “It was grisly.”

  ‘So, economically, the mood is set. Larsson’s reference to McDermid’s story of serial murder is not pointless padding. The shocking crimes that he is about to uncover are very grisly indeed.’

  WRITERS ON STIEG LARSSON: RUSSELL JAMES

  After ten crime novels, Russell James wrote Great British Fictional Detectives and its companion Great British Fictional Villains. He takes a characteristically dispassionate view of Larsson: ‘After an author shoots to fame it can be that people talk more about who the author is and why they are famous than about the books they wrote. So far it hasn’t been that way with Larsson – perhaps because he wrote just three books, and we can get a handle on three books; there isn’t a lifetime of writing for us to plough through.