The tales of Lisbeth Salander, the 23 year old hacker girl, with the dark past and temperament, has been on a role for nearly a decade now. And heck, if you can snag Daniel Craig for the U.S. film, you're rolling in the big time, sweetie.
Brainy, Goth chic though only explains part of the appeal of this pop culture cottage industry - three books, with a fourth on the way, films in both Swedish and English, TV miniseries and graphic novels. The franchise, widely identified as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series (or, in some circles, the Millennium trilogy), has an additional cultural cache in the strange back story of Lisbeth's creator: Stieg Larsson.
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 the second question, popular speculation has rather run rampant. Young in life Larsson signed on as a true follower of the Communist cause. And Communism has a long history of the conspiratorial temperament: both in its machinations and worldview. It hardly ought to be surprising then that much of the 80s and 90s saw Larsson embroiled in unveiling the alleged skullduggery of neo-fascists, plutocrats and assorted 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.
And, no, the fact that Larsson died of "a heart attack" on the "anniversary" of Kristallnacht doesn't strike me as especially compelling evidence of anything. Now, if they'd waited until 2008 to execute this KGB-style hit, celebrating the...what...70 year anniversary? I mean, 70 years would be symbolic, right? Of something? I'm sure. You get my point?
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 degeneracy of these blackguard extremists provide the fodder for super-girl sleuth Lisbeth Salander - she of the photographic memory, chess-like strategic mind, mathematical skills to make Fermat weep, and all buttressed by hacker skills that leave any bank or police department computer system naked before her will. Chummed up with her journalist sidekick, Mikael Blomkvist, evil has no chance. Indeed, in one of the sequels, it appears that maybe returning from the dead has been added to Lisbeth's impressive catalogue of super hero skills.
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.
The final irony, in it all, I suppose, is that even a paranoid commie like Larsson could brush lips with the zeitgeist and hit the jackpot. Though, I'm inclined to think that one probably ought not to reflect too deeply upon just what it is that that says about the rest of us.
Brainy, Goth chic though only explains part of the appeal of this pop culture cottage industry - three books, with a fourth on the way, films in both Swedish and English, TV miniseries and graphic novels. The franchise, widely identified as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series (or, in some circles, the Millennium trilogy), has an additional cultural cache in the strange back story of Lisbeth's creator: Stieg Larsson.
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 the second question, popular speculation has rather run rampant. Young in life Larsson signed on as a true follower of the Communist cause. And Communism has a long history of the conspiratorial temperament: both in its machinations and worldview. It hardly ought to be surprising then that much of the 80s and 90s saw Larsson embroiled in unveiling the alleged skullduggery of neo-fascists, plutocrats and assorted 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.
And, no, the fact that Larsson died of "a heart attack" on the "anniversary" of Kristallnacht doesn't strike me as especially compelling evidence of anything. Now, if they'd waited until 2008 to execute this KGB-style hit, celebrating the...what...70 year anniversary? I mean, 70 years would be symbolic, right? Of something? I'm sure. You get my point?
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 degeneracy of these blackguard extremists provide the fodder for super-girl sleuth Lisbeth Salander - she of the photographic memory, chess-like strategic mind, mathematical skills to make Fermat weep, and all buttressed by hacker skills that leave any bank or police department computer system naked before her will. Chummed up with her journalist sidekick, Mikael Blomkvist, evil has no chance. Indeed, in one of the sequels, it appears that maybe returning from the dead has been added to Lisbeth's impressive catalogue of super hero skills.
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.
The final irony, in it all, I suppose, is that even a paranoid commie like Larsson could brush lips with the zeitgeist and hit the jackpot. Though, I'm inclined to think that one probably ought not to reflect too deeply upon just what it is that that says about the rest of us.
About the Author:
To follow the latest in the Stieg Larsson posthumous empire, you need to follow Mickey Jhonny on the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo blog. 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!
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