The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo And The Dragon Slaying Author
by Mickey Jhonny
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.
This has become a true <a href="http://tinyurl.com/pogm9vl">pop culture cottage industry</a> - with three books (a fourth on the way), films in both Swedish and English, a TV miniseries and graphic novels. The allure of this cottage industry, generally recognized as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series (or, in some circles, the Millennium trilogy), is not only in the quirky protagonist. The perhaps even stranger tale of the originating creator, Stieg Larsson, has something to do with the series' popularity.
Larsson's story is a tale pregnant with the ironies of, just before. Just before he became a successful novelist, he was a notorious crusader against what he identified as the dark sources of Fascism and plutocracy in Swedish society. And, just before his novelist success produced a rather large personal fortune, he died.
These facts seem to press upon us at least two pertinent questions. One question is: what if he had not died? Might his great wealth, generated by people freely purchasing his books (and tickets for the movies made from his books), have resulted in a revision of his apparent assumption that great wealth was a reliable marker of dissipation and evil? And, the second question: might the two facts from the previous paragraph 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.
He eventually created a foundation and magazine, which he would also edit, called Expo, dedicated to ferreting out these blackguards and villains. Don't get me wrong, I don't doubt such people exist, I just think that their influence on the actual world is far less than either they or their avowed foes suppose.
And, for the record, I certainly do not accept that Larsson's death by "heart attack" (as some insist on putting it) on the "anniversary" (my scare quotes) of Kristallnacht means anything. This is just the conspiratorial mind out of control. Now, I grant you, if they'd waited to whack him in 2008; that would have been 70 years since the original night of broken glass. I mean, 70s years. Now, that would be meaningful, right? I mean, it must mean something? Right? Excuse my sarcasm; perhaps you get my point?
Nonetheless, from the perspective of entertainment, Larsson's fixation on right-wing conspiracies paid off handsomely in becoming the thematic and plot milieu of his now much read and cinematically adapted novels. And if anything, they've apparently resonated even more in America than in his Swedish homeland.
The plots and debauchery of Larsson's crypto-fascists and aspiring plutocrats (though, really, one ought to explain actual Nazi economic policy to the Larsson's of the world) provide the fodder for his super-hero, girl of all trades, Lisbeth Salander. She wields her photographic memory, chess-like strategic mind, mathematical talents that would make Godel weep, and hacker skills that make a mockery of computer security at any bank or police department, to bring down the blackguards and villains, along with her trusty journalist sidekick, Mikael Blomkvist. Indeed, in one of the sequels, it appears that returning from the dead may need to be added to her "remarkable abilities" inventory.
Well, no point mincing words, the whole business is a tad far-fetched. Presumably Larsson thought only a super-hero could bring down the insidious, sinister crypto-villains. But, what the hey, however implausible the suspension of disbelief Larsson may ask of us, his heroic protagonists and their heralded mission provides plenty of entertaining reading (and viewing). And, hey, as the man said, 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.
To follow the latest in the Stieg Larsson posthumous franchise, you need to follow Mickey Jhonny's writing on <a href="http://tinyurl.com/nrnqz2t">the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo</a> blog. Mickey's latest writing includes an insightful review of the Michael Apted's amazing 7 Up documentary series for <a href="http://tinyurl.com/parh4je">Best Documentaries on Netflix</a> -- you don't want to miss it!
---------------------------------------------------
You are receiving this because you signed up for it on 2013-08-16 from IP
To fine-tune your selection of which articles to receive, just login here:
http://www.uniquearticlewizard.com/bloggers/
using your username:
To unsubscribe please use the following link:
http://www.uniquearticlewizard.com/unsubscribe.php?mail=abazerty547.familia@blogger.com&code=2faf05ba2f1df2420252b45098ef0da7
---------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------
New Unique Article!
Title: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo And The Dragon Slaying Author
Author: Mickey Jhonny
Email: honestoffers4u@gmail.com
Keywords: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,Stieg Larsson,the Millennium Trilogy,conspiracy theory,fiction,movies,best sellers,entertainment,hobbies,home
Word Count: 729
Category: Movies
---------------------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment