June Casagrande begins “to do the detailed, extensive line-editing [Stieg] Larsson’s work requires.”
December 24, 2010, 10:40am Comments
larsson continued
“When it comes down to it, this story is not primarily about spies and secret government agencies; it’s about violence against women, and the men who enable it.”
Blomkvist says this, to his sister the lawyer, at the start of the denouement. The problem is not so much Larsson’s inability to leave any implication unexplained or any subtext covert. It’s the fact that, no matter how much I think the author believes what his character is saying, he’s not proved it through the writing.
Larsson, as more than enough critics have pointed out, decries violence against women with lingering graphic voyeuristic descriptions of violence against women. Just as troubling, though, are his actual characterizations: violent, withdrawn Salander, difficult to identify with; heroic male characters like the womanizing Blomkvist (the womanizing is OK, you see, because he actually loves women, even if he causes them emotional distress); and a cast composed mainly of weak men or villains who universally combine their ordinary villainy with misogyny and perversion.
Scratch any man, Larsson seems to imply, and you will find just under the skin a rapist. There are cases — over and over with policemen — where the misogyny is casual and unnecessary, a thoughtless add-on; there are cases too, like with the psychologist Teleborian, where his bad actions are enough, and the (random, tacked-on) discovery of child pornography during his testimony at a trial is both superfluous evil and a distraction, a loud noise that draws attention away from the discussion of his culpability. No routine infraction need be proved, and no professional or financial or social crime need be argued or given due process, when each and every sinner, venial or mortal, is naturally also guilty of rape. It ultimately becomes ridiculous, a version of Godwin’s Law.
May 30, 2010, 10:53am Comments
larsson continued
We also learn that Blomkvist uses a MacBook and an Ericsson T10. We’re often told explicitly what characters are wearing, and for a long stretch in the book all the women wear a variation of black and white and dark red. It may be true that detail is the best route to a fleshed-out story, but the incidental detail of brand names and physical description, done this blandly, only aid the word count. And show once again the screaming need for an editor.
May 29, 2010, 7:41am Comments
larsson continued
“‘It all sounds a bit … I don’t know. Improbable?’
‘I know. It’s the stuff of a spy novel.’”
Multiple characters have exchanges very similar to this throughout the book. As with the ritual recitation of the plot, I expect this is a sign of trouble.
May 28, 2010, 11:10am Comments
larsson continued
“We can ask why the source might want this information to get out. Let me explain why I gave orders that everything to do with Salander has to cross my desk. I have special knowledge of the subject that no one else at SMP has. The legal department has been informed that I possess this knowledge but cannot discuss it with them. Millennium is going to publish a story that I am contractually bound not to reveal to SMP, despite the fact that I work here. I obtained the information in my capacity as editor in chief of Millennium, and right now I’m caught between two loyalties. Do you see what I mean?”
It’s not so much the questionable professional ethics, although I have a much lower opinion of the Swedish journalistic establishment than I began with. And it’s not even so much the fact that this bolus of exposition is spat out so baldly — the situation explained by one character to another, each move telegraphed, making sure at the end that the interlocutor and reader follow. It’s the fact that we’ve already seen each of these plot beats take place, have been informed in the narration of their significance and of the character registering their significance, and now we get them all summed up for a walk-on character. Whether it’s inattentive writing, or the fact of posthumous publication, or an over-reverent lack of editing is immaterial, really — the effect is the same, and the effect of this kind of constant placemarking and repetition is to encourage a reader to not bother paying close attention. Somebody will stop to catch you up.
May 27, 2010, 11:55am Comments
stieg larsson, the girl who kicked the hornet’s nest
‘And somehow get back to the farm and swung an axe into Zalachenko’s skull,’ Blomkvist finished for him. ‘She can be a moody bitch.’”
Charitably? It’s just a clumsy translation. But given the level of hype for this book, I’m not sure that charitable is the right way to go, especially not for the page-19 last-week-on-Buffy summation of the previous book in the series. And also, for a book that many people are happy to strain to read as feminist (always mentioning that the first volume was originally titled ‘Men who Hate Women’) despite the undercurrent of glee in its violence — ‘moody bitch’ is laugh-out-loud klutzy.
May 25, 2010, 10:02am Comments
