Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy: Phenomenon and Enigma

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As we journey farther into the New Year, we’ve been reflecting on all the wonderful books published in 2010, and building our readings lists for 2011. The authors and friends of Oxford University Press are proud to present this series of essays, drawing our attention to books both new and old. Below, Jeanne Munn Bracken (a former librarian and award-winning author) recommends you read Steig Larsson’s trilogy this year.

By Jeanne Munn Bracken

Move over, Stephen King and Mary Higgins Clark. For the year 2010, the hottest buzz in popular literature was Swedish author Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. Released over the past couple of years, the three novels are available in a wide array of formats: hardcover and paperback books, e-books, audiobooks, and now in Swedish films with English subtitles. Millions of books in dozens of countries and languages have brought the late author immense fame and fortune, although he did not live to enjoy it.

The books’ popularity is based on two major factors: the novels are real page-turners, and Larsson’s own life story is intriguing.

First, the books. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is an amateur sleuth mystery, as disgraced investigative reporter Mikael Blomkvist travels from Stockholm to rural Sweden to find out what happened decades ago to Harriet Vanger, a teenager who disappeared from an island under “locked room” circumstances. Woven into the search is Blomkvist’s own story, involving journalistic misdeeds that result in a jail sentence.  Help arrives in the form of Lisbeth Salander, a damaged young woman in her 20s who balances her anti-social personality with consummate computer hacking skills.

After Blomkvist solves the Harriet Vanger conundrum, the subsequent books are more psychological thrillers on the noir side than classic mysteries. In The Girl Who Played with Fire, Salander takes center stage as her back-story is slowly revealed against Blomkvist’s investigation of a sex-trafficking operation that results in the deaths of two of Blomkvist’s friends and colleagues; the murderer appears to be none other than Salender herself. The barely-believable finale pits Salander against her past and sets up The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, which begins immediately after the conclusion of the second novel.   In the third novel, political intrigue and chicanery plays out as Salander is tried for the murders.

Larsson mixes in an interesting array of characters to love or hate: Blomkvist’s long-time married lover, a handful of sociopaths, some latter-day Nazis, government operatives, police, computer hackers, and a host of journalists. While the writing is hardly fine literature, the plot zings and fostered the reputation of books that, once started, must be finished at once. With sex, intrigue, violence, revenge, laugh-out-loud humor, and quite a bit of gore, the trilogy has been popular in all age groups among many nationalities.

Larsson’s writing style, while not great literature, combines compelling plots and characters. Since the pseudonymous translator Reg Keeland rendered the books into English in a very short time and was reportedly not able to approve the final edits, the stylistic blame, if there is any, might be his. Still, “Keeland” (really American Steven T. Murray, who translates from several North European languages) has ridden the crest of popularity and even calls his blog “Stieg Larsson’s English Translator.” Murray also translates Swedish crime writer Henning Mankell, author of the popular Kurt Wallender mysteries, and Larsson’s popularity focused attention on other Swedish authors.

Larsson himself was a journalist/crusader against Neo-Nazism and other political nastiness in Sweden; he was targeted for murder by his opponents. When, shortly after delivering the three manuscripts to his publisher, Larsson died suddenly at the age of 50, there was international buzz about whether his unhealthy lifestyle or his enemies had caught up with him. While his death has been ruled natural, there will always be those who disagree with that finding.

And the intrigue continued after his death. Larsson had a life partner with whom he lived for decades but never married. Surprisingly, Swedish law does not recognize common law marriage, so his entire estate has gone to his father and brother, from whom he was at best distant and at worst estranged. To complicate the real-life plot, there are rumors of a fourth Salander/Blomkvist book perhaps housed on a mysterious laptop in the possession of Larsson’s partner.

Besides translations into many languages and movie or book reviews, the Millennium trilogy (named after Blomkvist’s periodical), the books have garnered plenty of attention on the internet and in print publications. Frequent articles in major periodicals include a witty send-up in The New Yorker written by Nora Ephron. Television and radio talk shows have brought even more attention to the books, resulting in huge sales and lengthy library reserve lists.

The Larsson buzz continues in this new year, with anticipation over the release of the Hollywood versions of the films. That alone will ensure millions more dollars, kronor, euros and pounds sterling in sales. Somewhere, surely, Stieg Larsson is enjoying the phenomenon over a cup of coffee and a cigarette.

Jeanne Munn Bracken, MSLS, an award-winning retired librarian, is author of Children with Cancer: A Reference Guide for Parents. She also blogs at Psychology Today.