Lisbeth Salander's story, about a 23 year old hacker chic, haunted by a nasty past, in its various renditions, has had electric success for about a decade now. Hey, if you can land Daniel Craig for the U.S. film, you know you're on the money train.
This has become a true pop culture cottage industry - with three books (a fourth on the way), films in both Swedish and English, a TV miniseries and graphic novels. The allure of this cottage industry, generally recognized as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series (or, in some circles, the Millennium trilogy), is not only in the quirky protagonist. The perhaps even stranger tale of the originating creator, Stieg Larsson, has something to do with the series' popularity.
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.
This poses two questions to the inquiring mind. First, if he had lived, would he have remained quite as suspicious of wealth as a marker of evil? And, second, might the prior two facts 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.
He eventually created a foundation and magazine, which he would also edit, called Expo, dedicated to ferreting out these blackguards and villains. Don't get me wrong, I don't doubt such people exist, I just think that their influence on the actual world is far less than either they or their avowed foes suppose.
So, to be clear, no, Larsson's "heart attack" on the "anniversary" of Kristallnacht is not the least bit suspicious or peculiar to me. And it's certainly not evidence of anything. Don't you see, if the vile plotters had held off this insidious assassination until 2008, well then, that would have been something else entirely? I mean, 70 years exactly to the day! Because, 70 years has some great relevance, right? Look, this is just the kind of silly way that conspiracy theorists think. I don't take any of it seriously; you'll have to judge for yourself.
Despite my disregard for conspiracy theory, though, strictly from the vantage point of entertainment marketing, Larsson's obsession with extreme right plotters enabled his literary legacy to cash-in big time, providing the sinister milieu for his bestselling and cinematically adapted books. Weirdly, this political paranoia seems to have at least as much currency in America.
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.
Okay, it is all a bit far-fetched. But whatever stretches of suspended disbelief (or plausible deniability) Larsson may ask of us, the protagonists and their virtuous mission makes for fun reading and viewing. And, hey, 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.
This has become a true pop culture cottage industry - with three books (a fourth on the way), films in both Swedish and English, a TV miniseries and graphic novels. The allure of this cottage industry, generally recognized as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series (or, in some circles, the Millennium trilogy), is not only in the quirky protagonist. The perhaps even stranger tale of the originating creator, Stieg Larsson, has something to do with the series' popularity.
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.
This poses two questions to the inquiring mind. First, if he had lived, would he have remained quite as suspicious of wealth as a marker of evil? And, second, might the prior two facts 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.
He eventually created a foundation and magazine, which he would also edit, called Expo, dedicated to ferreting out these blackguards and villains. Don't get me wrong, I don't doubt such people exist, I just think that their influence on the actual world is far less than either they or their avowed foes suppose.
So, to be clear, no, Larsson's "heart attack" on the "anniversary" of Kristallnacht is not the least bit suspicious or peculiar to me. And it's certainly not evidence of anything. Don't you see, if the vile plotters had held off this insidious assassination until 2008, well then, that would have been something else entirely? I mean, 70 years exactly to the day! Because, 70 years has some great relevance, right? Look, this is just the kind of silly way that conspiracy theorists think. I don't take any of it seriously; you'll have to judge for yourself.
Despite my disregard for conspiracy theory, though, strictly from the vantage point of entertainment marketing, Larsson's obsession with extreme right plotters enabled his literary legacy to cash-in big time, providing the sinister milieu for his bestselling and cinematically adapted books. Weirdly, this political paranoia seems to have at least as much currency in America.
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.
Okay, it is all a bit far-fetched. But whatever stretches of suspended disbelief (or plausible deniability) Larsson may ask of us, the protagonists and their virtuous mission makes for fun reading and viewing. And, hey, 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 developments in the Stieg Larsson posthumous franchise, 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!
