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Odd couple mystery takes clichés and makes clues
By ALEX WUKMAN
As a rule the words ‘posthumous debut novel’ are rarely if ever used, with the obvious exception of John Kennedy O’Toole’s Confederacy of Dunces, in today’s publishing world. And the words ‘posthumous debut novel’ are absolutely never used in today’s crime fiction publishing world.
Crime fiction publishers want a writer that will build a cult following over the course of decades not some one who can only deliver once, a factor that helps make The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo unique. However, the fact that this novel’s birth came after the author’s death should not overshadow the actual flaws and merits of the book, it should be only one element used when discussing the book.
Another element to consider is who the author was. Swedish journalist Stieg Larsson had spent years reviewing English language detective stories for the national news service TT, but that wasn’t his true calling. Larsson had also received recognition across Europe for his work in documenting the rising tide of international neo-fascist groups throughout the continent during the 1980s and 1990s.
He founded a magazine called EXPO, contributed to the English anti-fascist magazine Searchlight and published books on honor killings and ultra-right wing groups. In 2001, just for fun, he started writing a detective story after work.
He had three books worth of story before he even thought about sending it to a publisher. In between the manuscript getting accepted and published Larsson died of a massive heart attack. He left behind an interesting and complex first novel.
Larsson takes the traditional elements of American and European detective stories and combines them masterfully. The locked room mystery, the wealthy powerful family with a dark secret, the disgraced hero seeking to clear his name, the retired detective with a case he can’t let go, the coded message from beyond the grave; in a lesser writer’s hands these would feel like the well worn genre clichés they are but in Larsson’s they are refreshed and given new life.
Part of that may be the exoticism of the setting. The cities of Northern Europe are not haunted like the cities of America with the ghosts of dozens of famous literary detectives.
Another factor that contributes to Larsson’s success is his lack of skill as a stylist. His prose, as translated by Reg Keeland, is not florid, impressive or beautiful.
In fact, in the almost 500 pages of the book’s American release there are only a handful of memorable phrases. Keeland’s translation of Larsson’s writing is adequate to serve the plot, and the plot in a detective story is the first concern.
In The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo the plot begins with Larsson’s alter-ego Mikael Blomkvist being sentenced to 90 days in jail for aggravated libel. Blomkvist, an enterprising finance reporter for a magazine named Millennium, was found guilty of writing an inaccurate story about financier Hans-Erik Wennerstrom.
Blomkvist is subsequently approached by an elderly lawyer who represents an even more elderly captain of industry, Henrik Vanger. Vanger is the classic aged pater familias, an archetype with a pedigree so long it goes back to ancient Greece.
However Vanger most clearly resembles Alfred Krupp, the nineteenth century Prussian steel potentate profiled in the classic Arms of Krupp. The family business Alfred Krupp built into a world power, Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp, could have provided the model for the Henrik Vanger’s own family business the Vanger Corporation.
As the story moves slowly forward Vanger asks Blomkvist to do two things, write a no-holds barred account of the Vanger family and to try and solve a 40 year old crime. The crime is the disappearance of Vanger’s niece Harriet.
Blomkvist initially refuses the offer, however Larsson uses another tried and true technique to convince his character to take the job. In exchange for Blomkvist’s services Vanger offers the information he needs to clear his name.
For the first third of the book Larsson alternates Blomkvist’s story with that of Lisbeth Salander, the titular character. Salander, a tattooed and pierced twenty-five-year-old, is one of the more interesting characters in the book.
The interest isn’t generated by Salander’s choice of lifestyle or appearance but because of her actions and re-actions within and to one of the most bureaucratic societies in the world. Salander’s life long desire to be left alone and not have to answer to anyone has gotten her declared ‘mentally deficient’ and landed her under the care of a court appointed guardian.
Salander’s attempt to regain control of her life and finances sends the story to some very dark places while offering up a criticism of Europe’s most advanced welfare state.
Larsson, being the good Swede that he is, never puts the blame on the apparatus of social government. Instead he lays it at the feet of men who let power, however large or small it maybe, corrupt them.
This time tested theme is returned to four times throughout the book. Each time it is examined through the lens of interpersonal relationships and sexual abuse and each time the corruption and violence becomes more pronounced.
In fact the original title of the book was Men Who Hate Women; and each chapter begins with a statistic about domestic abuse in Sweden. Strangely Larsson never seems to present any indication about how his hero Blomkvist feels towards women.
In the novel Blomkvist sleeps with his prudish neighbor, a married woman and Salander. Larsson provides only the barest motivation for these encounters. His almost complete lack of characterization, as well as his lack of description, ultimately do a disservice to his plot.
The lack of characterization and description becomes apparent as Blomkvist continues his investigation of the disappearance of Harriet Vanger. With a total of 15 members of the Vanger family considered suspects, plus various employees and neighbors the cast of characters gets fairly convoluted.
Most of them are little more than names and few identifying features, a descriptive habit most likely born from Larsson’s years as a practicing journalist. Another of the journalist’s habits that Larsson the novelist employs is the usage of the character’s last names.
Throughout the novel the only characters who are referred to by their first names are the members of the Vanger family. This authorial decision creates a curious disconnect between reader and character, at times the alienation between the two becomes so pronounced that the reader is left feeling more like an observer than a participant.
The last 100 pages of the novel are perhaps the weakest. After Blomkvist solves the case of the missing heiress he is rewarded with what he needs to restore his credibility.
However the reward doesn’t come from Vanger but from Salander who possesses an unexplained ability to gain access to computers all around the world. Salander uses this ability to access Wennerstrom’s personal computer and get all the information needed to sink him.
As the novel comes to a close Salander perpetuates a case of identity theft that seems more at home in Catch Me If You Can than in the number 17 book on the New York Times Bestseller list. The conclusion of the story has left some feeling unsatisfied and others feeling energized, part of the mixed reaction is due to the abrupt ‘emotional cliff hanger’ that readers are left with.
Hopefully Larsson will have improved upon the framework he laid out here in the rest of the other books in what is being called his “Millennium trilogy,” named after the magazine that Blomkvist works for.
The second book, The Girl who plays with Fire, is due to be translated into English next year. The third, Castles in the Sky, will be translated is expected to be translated and released by 2010, all three books have been out in Sweden since 2005.
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
By Stieg Larsson
$24.95
Alfred A. Knopf
Crime fiction publishers want a writer that will build a cult following over the course of decades not some one who can only deliver once, a factor that helps make The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo unique. However, the fact that this novel’s birth came after the author’s death should not overshadow the actual flaws and merits of the book, it should be only one element used when discussing the book.
Another element to consider is who the author was. Swedish journalist Stieg Larsson had spent years reviewing English language detective stories for the national news service TT, but that wasn’t his true calling. Larsson had also received recognition across Europe for his work in documenting the rising tide of international neo-fascist groups throughout the continent during the 1980s and 1990s.
He founded a magazine called EXPO, contributed to the English anti-fascist magazine Searchlight and published books on honor killings and ultra-right wing groups. In 2001, just for fun, he started writing a detective story after work.
He had three books worth of story before he even thought about sending it to a publisher. In between the manuscript getting accepted and published Larsson died of a massive heart attack. He left behind an interesting and complex first novel.
Larsson takes the traditional elements of American and European detective stories and combines them masterfully. The locked room mystery, the wealthy powerful family with a dark secret, the disgraced hero seeking to clear his name, the retired detective with a case he can’t let go, the coded message from beyond the grave; in a lesser writer’s hands these would feel like the well worn genre clichés they are but in Larsson’s they are refreshed and given new life.
Part of that may be the exoticism of the setting. The cities of Northern Europe are not haunted like the cities of America with the ghosts of dozens of famous literary detectives.
Another factor that contributes to Larsson’s success is his lack of skill as a stylist. His prose, as translated by Reg Keeland, is not florid, impressive or beautiful.
In fact, in the almost 500 pages of the book’s American release there are only a handful of memorable phrases. Keeland’s translation of Larsson’s writing is adequate to serve the plot, and the plot in a detective story is the first concern.
In The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo the plot begins with Larsson’s alter-ego Mikael Blomkvist being sentenced to 90 days in jail for aggravated libel. Blomkvist, an enterprising finance reporter for a magazine named Millennium, was found guilty of writing an inaccurate story about financier Hans-Erik Wennerstrom.
Blomkvist is subsequently approached by an elderly lawyer who represents an even more elderly captain of industry, Henrik Vanger. Vanger is the classic aged pater familias, an archetype with a pedigree so long it goes back to ancient Greece.
However Vanger most clearly resembles Alfred Krupp, the nineteenth century Prussian steel potentate profiled in the classic Arms of Krupp. The family business Alfred Krupp built into a world power, Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp, could have provided the model for the Henrik Vanger’s own family business the Vanger Corporation.
As the story moves slowly forward Vanger asks Blomkvist to do two things, write a no-holds barred account of the Vanger family and to try and solve a 40 year old crime. The crime is the disappearance of Vanger’s niece Harriet.
Blomkvist initially refuses the offer, however Larsson uses another tried and true technique to convince his character to take the job. In exchange for Blomkvist’s services Vanger offers the information he needs to clear his name.
For the first third of the book Larsson alternates Blomkvist’s story with that of Lisbeth Salander, the titular character. Salander, a tattooed and pierced twenty-five-year-old, is one of the more interesting characters in the book.
The interest isn’t generated by Salander’s choice of lifestyle or appearance but because of her actions and re-actions within and to one of the most bureaucratic societies in the world. Salander’s life long desire to be left alone and not have to answer to anyone has gotten her declared ‘mentally deficient’ and landed her under the care of a court appointed guardian.
Salander’s attempt to regain control of her life and finances sends the story to some very dark places while offering up a criticism of Europe’s most advanced welfare state.
Larsson, being the good Swede that he is, never puts the blame on the apparatus of social government. Instead he lays it at the feet of men who let power, however large or small it maybe, corrupt them.
This time tested theme is returned to four times throughout the book. Each time it is examined through the lens of interpersonal relationships and sexual abuse and each time the corruption and violence becomes more pronounced.
In fact the original title of the book was Men Who Hate Women; and each chapter begins with a statistic about domestic abuse in Sweden. Strangely Larsson never seems to present any indication about how his hero Blomkvist feels towards women.
In the novel Blomkvist sleeps with his prudish neighbor, a married woman and Salander. Larsson provides only the barest motivation for these encounters. His almost complete lack of characterization, as well as his lack of description, ultimately do a disservice to his plot.
The lack of characterization and description becomes apparent as Blomkvist continues his investigation of the disappearance of Harriet Vanger. With a total of 15 members of the Vanger family considered suspects, plus various employees and neighbors the cast of characters gets fairly convoluted.
Most of them are little more than names and few identifying features, a descriptive habit most likely born from Larsson’s years as a practicing journalist. Another of the journalist’s habits that Larsson the novelist employs is the usage of the character’s last names.
Throughout the novel the only characters who are referred to by their first names are the members of the Vanger family. This authorial decision creates a curious disconnect between reader and character, at times the alienation between the two becomes so pronounced that the reader is left feeling more like an observer than a participant.
The last 100 pages of the novel are perhaps the weakest. After Blomkvist solves the case of the missing heiress he is rewarded with what he needs to restore his credibility.
However the reward doesn’t come from Vanger but from Salander who possesses an unexplained ability to gain access to computers all around the world. Salander uses this ability to access Wennerstrom’s personal computer and get all the information needed to sink him.
As the novel comes to a close Salander perpetuates a case of identity theft that seems more at home in Catch Me If You Can than in the number 17 book on the New York Times Bestseller list. The conclusion of the story has left some feeling unsatisfied and others feeling energized, part of the mixed reaction is due to the abrupt ‘emotional cliff hanger’ that readers are left with.
Hopefully Larsson will have improved upon the framework he laid out here in the rest of the other books in what is being called his “Millennium trilogy,” named after the magazine that Blomkvist works for.
The second book, The Girl who plays with Fire, is due to be translated into English next year. The third, Castles in the Sky, will be translated is expected to be translated and released by 2010, all three books have been out in Sweden since 2005.
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
By Stieg Larsson
$24.95
Alfred A. Knopf
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