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 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.
Toward the end of exposing these villains, Larsson established a foundation and magazine, which he also edited, dedicated to the cause. I don't want to be misunderstood, here: I'm not denying that these kinds of people exist. What I am denying is that they're of any importance. Rather, the real conspiracy to my mind is the conspiracy between such plotters and their avowed foes (such as Larsson), to pretend that they're of great historical importance. That way everyone involved get's to bask in delusions of awesome self-importance. I'm quite confident that the next time barbarism descends on the West there'll be no jackboots or swastikas anywhere in sight.
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.
It is the conspiracies and debauchery of these right wing Satanist that are exposed by the exploits of super-girl Lisbeth Salander - with the photographic memory, chess-like strategic mind, mathematical skills to make Fermat weep, and the ability to hack into the computers of banks and police departments more or less at will - alongside her journalist sidekick, Mikael Blomkvist. Indeed, in one of the sequels, it appears that maybe coming back from the dead may be added to her list of super hero qualities.
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.
Perhaps there's a lesson in this (perhaps even one from which Larsson might have benefited): even a paranoid old commie can tickle the zeitgeist and crack open the jackpot. Though it may be wise for the rest of us to not ponder too carefully what the popularity of such paranoia says about 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 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.
Toward the end of exposing these villains, Larsson established a foundation and magazine, which he also edited, dedicated to the cause. I don't want to be misunderstood, here: I'm not denying that these kinds of people exist. What I am denying is that they're of any importance. Rather, the real conspiracy to my mind is the conspiracy between such plotters and their avowed foes (such as Larsson), to pretend that they're of great historical importance. That way everyone involved get's to bask in delusions of awesome self-importance. I'm quite confident that the next time barbarism descends on the West there'll be no jackboots or swastikas anywhere in sight.
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.
It is the conspiracies and debauchery of these right wing Satanist that are exposed by the exploits of super-girl Lisbeth Salander - with the photographic memory, chess-like strategic mind, mathematical skills to make Fermat weep, and the ability to hack into the computers of banks and police departments more or less at will - alongside her journalist sidekick, Mikael Blomkvist. Indeed, in one of the sequels, it appears that maybe coming back from the dead may be added to her list of super hero qualities.
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.
Perhaps there's a lesson in this (perhaps even one from which Larsson might have benefited): even a paranoid old commie can tickle the zeitgeist and crack open the jackpot. Though it may be wise for the rest of us to not ponder too carefully what the popularity of such paranoia says about us.
About the Author:
To keep taps on the latest in the Stieg Larsson posthumous empire, you need to read Mickey Jhonny's writing 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!
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