The Millennnium Trilogy

2010_7_04 THE MILLENNIUM TRILOGY
Dear Mike,
Do you know who Elliott Kastner was? No, he was not my Rabbi. He made movies, of some note too. He made “Harper,” “Rancho Deluxe,” “Where Eagles Dare,” “Angel Heart,” and “Missouri Breaks,” Marlon Brando’s first film as the fat man and wildly eccentric actor. Those are all good films that you have probably seen somewhere down the line. He also made some films based on the novels of Raymond Chandler, “Farewell My Lovely,” and “The Big Sleep,” both with Robert Mitchum. The author Jim Thompson, a pulp fiction specialist, whose best novel, THE KILLER INSIDE ME, which has just been made into a movie, staring Casey Affleck, an up and coming actor playing the psychotic sheriff, had a small part in “Farewell My Lovely,” a kind of tribute to Thompson while he was still alive and not as well known and appreciated as he is today. Anyway, Kastner died last week. He may be a second tier director, but I salute him for the quality films he did.

For the past two weeks I have been concentrated on THE MILLENNIUM TRILOGY written by crusading left wing Swedish journalist, Stieg Larsson, who wrote the three novels as a form of self-entertainment, with no thought to publishing the books, which I find a little hard to believe, considering the passion and care he put into his narrative. Be that as it may, they all got published after he died of a heart attack at age 50, probably by his long time girl friend. It’s disturbing to think he didn’t live to enjoy the fruits of his labors. But life—and death—are that way, indiscriminate and indifferent to timing and age. He was an individual who was hell-bent on attacking the Neo-Nazis and other far right groups in his native land. He was so caught up with this campaign, he did not take good care of himself, chain-smoking cigarettes and living on junk food and not seeming to care about his physical health. None of his close friends were too surprised by his sudden death. But the books are luminous, written with a sure hand, and he easily handles complexity of plot and narrative, framing a coherent pattern with scores of characters and complicated action that weaves through the dense core of all three novels. They also show a mastery of several disciplines, especially computer knowledge, journalism, police procedures and government protocols. It should go without saying; all three are real page turners, very much like Henning Mankell, Mike Connelly and Dan Brown. And each novel is between 500 and 600 pages.

The driving forces through all three novels are the two main characters, Mikael Blomkvist and Lizbeth Salander. Blomkvist is Larsson’s stand in, for he is a crusading journalist and part owner of a magazine called MILLENNIUM, which is stamped with his social and political beliefs and his investigative passions, He’s a casual sort of guy, a loyal friend, and something of a ladies’ man. If he has you in his sites he’s liable to bring you down, so sure-footed and relentless is he. Lizbeth is a Mighty Mouse of a kick-ass female, a 25 year old woman who dresses like a black-clad Goth female, with rings in her nose and eyebrows, possibly autistic as she has trouble relating to people, physically adept despite her diminutive stature, 4’11” and 90 lbs, a world class hacker and computer expert, without going to college, and the target of a government conspiracy to put her in a nuthouse forever so she’ll be of no bother to them for the rest of her life. The two of them combine to unravel a cold case in the first novel, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, which includes some outstanding investigative work to uncover the corruptions of a wealthy Swedish family and then on to further sleuthing involving new characters and criminal activity in a government bureau polluted with corruption and lies, which is the tenor of both the second novel in the series, THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE and the first part of the third book, THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST, which deals with her recovery from gunshot wounds and her being brought to trial by those who want her out their hair. I am at page 280 of the third novel and I can’t wait to finish it.

If you like Mystery stories, and I do, these are top drawer novels. HORNET’S NEST is currently the best selling hard back in the country, and the other books are one and two in trade-size paperback best sellers. It is no fluke that worldwide sales are 27 million books sold. Larsson is not what you would call an elegant writer or a witty one, like Raymond Chandler or Robert Parker, but if you like a pile-driving narrative pace, Larsson is your man. His three novels are timely stories with relevant characters. Lizbeth Salander is a fabulous creation and a prototypical OUTSIDER. She has won me over completely. She is my role model in the war against big shots, inauthentic shrinks who do the bidding of the Ruling Class, and governmental activity that is more for the benefit of officials then for the people they were elected to protect and serve. Wow, doesn’t that sound familiar?
Cheers,
JWP