I'm not sure how I ended up in the book publishing business. I clearly have no understanding of the market or what the public wants and I am always amazed by the books which end up as best sellers. For example I dont get why adults read (and apparently enjoy) the Harry Potter series, Twilight baffles me, James Patterson's recent fictions (his first few books are good) read like they were written for and by eejits and the breakthrough success of Stieg Larsson is peculiar. I found the first Millennium novel to be a decent overly didactic novel in need of a brutal editor. If he had lost maybe thirty percent of the financial shenanigans, cut some of the explicit torture and all of the last fifty pages Dragon Tattoo could have been great. Stieg Larsson's novel The Girl Who Played With Fire has many of the same problems but the author's tics are worse. I stopped reading the novel at the point in the text where Larsson mentioned "ignorant American tourists." The book had been getting on my nerves for some time before this but finally I could take the patronising tone no longer. Americans in Larsson's world are always fat and stupid, Australians live on sheep stations, businessman are all secret Nazis, people of color are all simple but good hearted folk. The "stupid American tourist" line was almost the final straw. I did read one more paragraph but unfortunately that paragraph contained a line about an innocent man who was thrown off a British Airways flight for "looking vaguely Arabic." Sigh. ...
Larsson's humorless political correctness reminds me of a special meeting of the students union circa 1988 when an argument breaks out over what to name the new disability access room, either Nelson Mandela Hall or The Rosa Luxemburg Centre. Who likes this kind of stuff? All those ladies reading Larsson on their holidays can't all be contributing editors to The Daily Kos, can they? If a book is really well written I can forgive and ignore a writer's prejudices: Evelyn Waugh was a squalid individual who wrote like a dream. Philip Larkin was even creepier and even better. But if a writer isn't quite so good then his or her prejudices rapidly become tiresome. And prejudice from the left is just as boring as prejudice from the right. Call me a cock eyed optimist but I feel that the public isn't stupid and they will eventually see this. I mean you just have to look at what's happened to Stieg Larsson's recent sales . . . oh, er, wait.
73 comments:
I agree with what you say about the political-correctness bits in the books. But, the reason that people like the books, in my opinion, is that they're very good stories.
It seems to me that novels have almost become status symbols for a certain segment of society. For example, my wife and her goomba's wouldn't read a crime or thriller novel if you paid them, but they are all going gaga over Steig Larsson. It seems more about saying you are reading something, rather than the novel itself.
I'm about to start listening to this book, next time I find time to start an audio book. I'm curious to see where my opinion lies on it, especially after seeing the book everywhere, reading reviews about how good it is, and then, conversely, reading the comments on here about it from people that I know for a fact know much more than me about books and writing.
As for Twilight, I'm not sure I can explain it. I think it's the simplicity and ease of it. There's no real thought or challenge involved, and every now and then, that break is nice.
Ta for the heads-up. The sort of stereotypical characters you mention would set my teeth on edge.
I guess in Steig's world African-Americans never travel...
Two things:
I've probably posted this before, but it's worth reading again, from the F Word blog because out lays out the issues so well, I think.
And then I came across another Swede (I think) with quite different views of the world, giving a Ted Lecture.
I think you are right, Adrian, but maybe you take those books too serious, they are entertainment, easy to read, if I would take offense to all this pathetic patriotic crap in so many Hollywood-movies, there would be lots and lots of movies, I could not watch, but I do, because I take stuff like this with a smile. BTW: I read one book of the trilogy, I cannot understand the success, it was neither bad nor really good.
Adrian, Me thinks you used one or two English stereotypes in your The Dead Yard book but I could picture the characters and the scene perfectly so maybe a little here and there is ok eh? Are you a litle bit more touchy when it's anything anti American?
I would say the one thing you and
Steig Larsson have in common is a suspenseful plot
I loved the Dead Trilogy by the way particularly The Bloomsday Dead.. Fab!
Alan
I agree I thought the first book had a good story. Just needed a more stringent editor.
Did the second one have a good story? I dont know. I just couldnt take the tone anymore. Perhaps I'll pick it up again in a month or so. I seldom give up books completely.
Sean
There could be something in that. It becomes like a cult or something?
Glenna
I cant really comment on Twilight at all. I havent read the books or seen the films. I've the trailer in the cinema and man it looks cheesy but I just dont know.
Mike
However I agree with the people who talk about the interesting plot and locales in book 1.
John
I hadnt seen either of those before.
The first one rings a bell in my head. Having your cake and eating it too is Mr L.
The second one shows you the bankruptcy of the anti globalist crowd. That kind of 1970's thinking will get us nowhere.
Andre
100 percent agree. The sins of Hollywood are far far worse than the sins of S.L. I'd go further than just complaining about the macho patriotism and all that crap.
What about the fact that ALL films nowadays are aimed at 13 year old boys? How did that happen? Remember the 40's when women dominated the movies? Or the 70's when they made pictures for grown ups?
I'm a geek and I read Aint It Cool News but when every single bloody film is aimed at that market something terrible has gone wrong.
Frankie
Yup guilty as charged. However I admit its par for the course and I dont take myself very seriously and to prove it I have jokes! (maybe not very funny ones but jokes none the less) SL has no jokes.
There is no question that there is a cultish aspect to this, as there is to anything that attains such popularity.
Yes, Adrian has jokes, including a very good one about touchily worshipful Red Sox fans and a better one about Fox News commentators.
==========================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
I dunno, Stieg Larsson is said to have devoted his life to worthy causes, but why should this be inimical to a sense of humor?
I've been reading James McClure, whose sly humor exposes the ugliness of apartheid in 1970s South Africa better than Larsson exposes the ugliness of...well, just about everything.
And McClure came from a jourmalism background, too, so Larsson can't use that as an excuse for his books' didacticism, a feature oft-pointed out.
==========================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Adrian,
You should try reading it, I'd love to hear your take on it..I'm sure it'd be entertaining. And, you're perception is right, it is cheesy, (the movies even more so than the books), but for some reason the cheesiness works.
I'm a few chapters into The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and I already think it needs to be cut down. I don't every person's, or businesses life history to grasp the story. I'm hoping something happens soon.
As a colleague said recently, "I can only hope Larsson's leaden prose is somehow the fault of the translator".
I never thought I'd say this, but you are a cockeyed optimist, Adrian.
Latest news from bookland is that the American distributors of the Swedish movies are bringing out the other two before we get too far into fall and emailing bookstores to advice them to encourage book groups to do Steig Larsson movie dates together.
Yes, humorlessness is a telling problem with his work. I think it's key.
I'd spend more time complaining but, well, Ka-ching, Ka-ching, Ka-ching!
Peter
Obviously for his family its a tragedy that SL died. But its also a tragedy for the books. Apparently the estate does not allow "heavy handed editing" and was initially even opposed to the English titles of his books preferring clunking transliterations of the Swedish.
I feel that a strong English editor could have talked him into major cuts and revisions and perhaps injected humor too.
Glenna
Well my very intelligent and perceptive niece loves Twilight so perhaps I will give it a go.
David,
I think the translator did the best possible job under the circumstances. And every author his tics. I blame the editing.
Seana
And its not as if Swedes arent funny. They are. Very funny. Well, funny for Scandanavians.
I think it's an error passionate, idealistic people often make--they think that humor has no place when it comes to important causes. But humor is often the last refuge of people who are actually undergoing horrors as opposed to just being appalled by them. I have not a bad word to say against these idealistic reformer types except just to advise them that when you're trying to persuade people of something, it doesn't actually help to beat them over the head with your conviction.
As to Scandinavian humor I don't know so much about it, except that one of the professors at this discussion group I go to was a Minnesotan of Lutheran persuasion. Maybe he was a changling, because I think he was probably born with an impish face. But anyway, for years he had trouble with his father's propensity for the "Norwegian Needle". The humor is apparently of a poking, gouging sort. I think the idea is to toughen you up and it does, but to what end, I don't know. Preparing one for an invasion of Swedish needlers, perhaps?
Actually, come to think of it, Bookwitch is Swedish, and she's pretty entertaining.
Yes, lots of smart young women love Twilight. The archetype is bigger than the prose, I expect. Unfortunately, I think it may bind them to a lifetime of expectations that mere mortal men can't fulfill. I mean, judging by my nephew, regular teenage boys can't even be bothered to read the book, even though it would probably earn them all sorts of points.
Adrian, another factor may be the British publisher's tinkering with the American translations. Steven T. Murray tells the story that he was unhappy with some of the changes the British publisher made, which is why he took his name off the books. Hence their publication as tranlated by Reg Keeland.
Is this estate that does not allow heavy-handed editing the same estate that is cutting Larsson's longtime girlfriend/partner out of any share of his inheritance?
And could Americans, with a streak of Puritanism in them, welcome belittling of Americans as unworthy?
Oh, Americans love to be belittled. Except when they don't.
It's a pretty tricky line to walk.
Seana, you're right. But that's a standard knock against American liberals, isn't it? You know, the so-called blame America crowd.
But then, it's not as if Larsson isn't popular everywhere else as well. Obviously those readers love to see America belittled.
Everyone loves to see Americans belittled, including Americans. Because we identify as Americans but not with those Americans. Whoever that might be. Luckily, it's a big country, so the risk is small that it might actually turn out to be us.
Yep, Americans are parochial, belligerent, xenophbic, philistines. I'm not talking to you, I'm talking to the guy next to you.
Isn't there some sensible midpoint between jingoism and self-flaggelation?
Peter, Seana
comparing the US and French teams
But of course then there's this:
O Canada.
Adrian, that NY Times piece is interesting. The US team is certainly acting like a team.
And easy, superficial anti-Americanismn seems to always sell. There's a large part of America that may be the biggest market for it but some of that may be because the US has been exposing its own faults to the world for a long time now.
You know, homogeneous European countries have been calling Americans racists for a couple generations now without having to face it themselves. Now that they are, they don't look that different.
Maybe that'll be a good thing, when people start to notice more of their similarities.
I think DRAGON TATTOO the most overrated book I've ever read. Not the worst; the most overrated.
What gets me most of all is Larson's gift for spending too much time on things that aren't worth it, and not enough time on things that are. The balance and pacing of the entire book are ass backward. The dialog is stiff and the characters (except for Salander) are borderline cartoons, but it was the balance that bothered me most of all. ( I guess I kind of expect weak characters, dialog, and description in commercially popular fiction anymore.)
I apologize for this next bit, but as soon as I saw it, I thought "Adrian McKinty is going to want to know about this."
http://www.theonion.com/articles/a-special-issue-guestproofread-by-bono,17670/
John, I remember thinking during the riots of 2005 in the Paris Banlieues that maybe now the French will stop lecturing Americans on tolerance and integration. What do these guys think they are, Voltaire?
Life takes some strange twists and turns and one of them for me is reading an article on soccer and finding it interesting. I guess what I like about sports is the backstory.
Canada still seems like it would be too cold, though. I wonder if all those people from tropical climes have really considered that.
Ah, Bono. The question is, what can't he do?
It's funny, Seana, one of the running commentaries here watching the World Cup is how hot it is here and how the players in the bench are wearing heavy coats and tuques.
But yeah, it's also a common story of people coming to Canada and finding it very cold. We even use it to sell Tim Hortons coffee.
I admit I have not yet reached the exact point at which I started reading Stieg Larsson.
But yeah, it's also a common story of people coming to Canada and finding it very cold. We even use it to sell Tim Hortons coffee.
That is a beautiful commercial!! If I ever go to Canada, I'll be looking for Tim Hortons. (Although, I don't see that happening with all of that white stuff on the ground all the time.)
If I ever go to Canada, I'll be looking for Tim Hortons. (Although, I don't see that happening with all of that white stuff on the ground all the time.)
You don't have to go to Canada. There's a Tim Horton's in Belfast.
==========================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Peter,
That's even better :)
I'm with Sean's post -- I don't get the number of people reading it who don't read mysteries. My mother-in-law is one; she's completely into all three books.
I read the first one, and thought it was OK, but nothing great. I want to say to people like my mother-in-law, "the only reason you think this trilogy is so great is that you won't read the genre as a whole, which has waaay better stuff."
My mother is at least consistent -- she doesn't like thrillers and she didn't like "Tattoo" either.
I am a Canadian living in Philadelphia, so naturally I bought a bagel with Philadelphia cream cheese at the Tim Horton's in Belfast.
Gavin, I, too, fantasize about putting really good crime fiction into the hands of people who read Larsson.
John
Its funny, in the last two years we have seen a dramatic increase in racial attacks in Ireland because for the first time ever Ireland has had foreign immigrants (well the first time since the Vikings) and the economy stinks.
Dana
The Onion is spot on, as always.
Actually the lead story in The Daily Telegraph yesterday was about Bono's wife's "ethical clothes" brand, where the profits go to for example schools in Nigeria etc. She was talking about one school she visited where they had no books and the teachers hadnt been paid and how the clothing brand would help them. You know if I was worth 1.5 billion Euros I maybe would have bought that school a few books out of my own bloody pocket.
I know what you mean about balance. 50 pages on the stupidity of Swedish financial journalists, 2 pages on the murderer and his motivations.
Peter
Le Monde however has been very thorough in looking at this from every angle. On the day after Les Bleus elimination the top 10 stories on Le Monde were all about it from every angle including the take on race.
Nice Christine Keeler ref on the other post. Dates you though a bit doesnt it? I guess I would say that wouldnt I?
Seana
When I was in Vancouver I did a little kayaking trip round the harbour and the guy taking me on the tour said that Vancouver almost never gets snow and the climate was quite temperate.
However I remember going to Montreal in late April once and being shocked to see that the bloody river was still frozen!
Matt
But the peer pressure will make you in the end.
Glenna
If you're Belfast really you should have a nice cup of tea instead in Bewleys.
Gavin
I wouldnt push her to immediately read say The Cold Six Thousand but something by Peter Temple or Elmore Leonard might sure how it should be done.
Adrian,
If I ever make it to Belfast, I doubt I'll actually drink little more then Guinness, but I'll keep that in mind.
I'm not as old as you think, mate. Christine Keeler is a figure from history to me. Well, from history and from John Lawton's "A Little White Death."
Peter
I was in a neighbour's house a few months ago and he had a picture of his wife in the Christine Keeler pose in an arty B&W on his desk.
Ahh, the Christine Keeler pose, I said.
The bloke had no idea what I was talking about.
Glenna
If you go to Carrickfergus check out my sister's pub, The Joymount Arms. Excellent Guinness in there.
An appalling lack of historical awareness to display his wife in this pose and be so ignorant of the iconography.
Glenna, they pour a mean Guinness at the Joymount Arms.
==========================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Adrian, I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this, but I saw some firsthand evidence of the Black-Blanc-Beur appeal of the French team in 1998.
I watched the second half of the 3-0 demolition of Brazil in the final at a bar in Madrid. After the game, a small group of enthusiastic young Frenchmen and women, led by a large man who looked North African and waved a large French flag, ran through a public square singing La Marseillaise. It was a moving sight.
====================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Peter
Plus ca change as they say. I read an article in Le Monde on Thursday lamenting the fact that the current captain of Les Bleus doesnt feel that he can sing the Marseillaise because "he doesnt agree with the sentiment".
Peter
Nice bit of revelling in the misery here:
http://www.lemonde.fr/sport/article/2010/06/24/c-est-la-france-que-les-bleus-representent-pas-la-banlieue_1377911_3242.html
And here's Finkelkraut's original hysterical remarks here:
http://www.soccerblog.com/2010/06/alain-finkielkraut-les-bleus-t.htm
Peter
Nice bit of revelling in the misery here:
http://www.lemonde.fr/sport/article/2010/06/24/c-est-la-france-que-les-bleus-representent-pas-la-banlieue_1377911_3242.html
And here's Finkelkraut's original hysterical remarks here:
http://www.soccerblog.com/2010/06/alain-finkielkraut-les-bleus-t.htm
Interesting remarks from some of those French sort-of youngsters.
And what Jeab-Claude Izzo have had to say? He predicted at least one upheaval in France: http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/2007/03/more-fabio-montale.html
Jean Claude Izzo nailed the whole immigrant, non-immigrant, and all the shades in between situation I think. The Marseilles trilogy comes highly recommended by a few of us here if anyone hasn't read it.
John, we had an African exchange student who I got to know in high school and she was cold in coastal California. That's why I think they might not know quite what they're getting into. But if you have to be cold, then Canada does look like one of the better places to do it. And I wouldn't mind some of that coffee right now.
Thank you, Seana. Did you know I'd see this?
Us Swedes need to have cliché style Americans. It's how the world looks from our end. And we have a disproportionate fondness for the Irish. Especially the Catholics.
Adrian, you're wrong about Harry Potter. And Stieg. But you're so Irish I forgive you.
Oh, I know you bop in and out of here every once in awhile, Bookwitch. The melancholic Swede of detective fiction you are not.
I don't think I live up to the American cliche too much, hard as I might try. But I probably live up to anyone's idea of a Californian all too well. More the Berkeley stereotype than the L.A. stereotype, but still.
Hi Adrian,
I've only read bits of SL's first book over my girlfriend's shoulder and thought it wordy and poorly-edited. The movie was good, though, as it left out all the extraneous descriptions and lists etc and simply told the story.
Is that Billy Mumfrey I hear?
cheers,
Katherine.
Katherine
Well I am a simple country boy.
I too agree with your points. But the books contain almost the truth. So keep on reading nice books.
Adrian,
I'd just like to be able to taste the Mackinaws again.
k
Am a fan of the trilogy - like Peter R, for the stories (and the different milieu) - but agree entirely on the editing problem. All three books, even pitched as epics, are just that bit too long - and occasionally long-winded. People who have worked as editors, like Larsson, tend to be a bit precious in that they know all there is to know - and are very tricky to edit. And they fight to to the end to make sure their babies aren't murdered. It's why books by ex-newspaper editors are generally far too long...
Garbhan
The second book for me had a disastrous 100 page prologue that surely would have gone if Larsson had lived and been taken out for a nice lunch and the whole thing explained to him. But once the poor chap died his words became like Holy Scripture.
I've read just the first of the Larsson trilogy, in fact.
I do regard crime novels by former reporters with some trepidation. I always have this fear that they'll strain too hard and too obviously for the colorful touch and that they'll try too hard to wow the reader with whizz-bang exposition. And the SOBs write long and they never file on time and ... But never mind. I've had some good luck with such books recently, notably James McClure's novels.
The second book for me had a disastrous 100 page prologue that surely would have gone if Larsson had lived and been taken out for a nice lunch and the whole thing explained to him. But once the poor chap died his words became like Holy Scripture.
Few commentators on the first Larsson book mentioned the salient fact that he was a first-time novelist and a reporter and thus prone to the since of both. Now, of course, he is beyond sin.
You’re right about the Holy Scripture, Adrian – it’s as if they had a superstitious fear of cutting and allowed him to ramble. You know well yourself that we all over-write and need an axe-man like Peter R to tell us when we’ve lost the run of ourselves.
For all the flaws and occasional clichés, though, I think Larsson created a major anti-heroine for our times in the dark and damaged Lisbeth. Kalle also, while improbably honourable, is a good representation of the crusading lefty journalists that infest every newsroom, and whose arses managing editors are never done busting.
Watched the ‘Dragon Tattoo’ movie last night and was impressed. The editing is very tight – the film comes in at a pacy 2.18. I’d imagine it’d be pretty graphic if you hadn’t read the books, the central focus is on the murders and hunt for Harriet. But they’ve done away with some of Larsson’s more complicated threads like Kalle’s increasingly improbable lovelife and the comings and goings at Millennium. If you’re going to try it, make sure to watch on subtitles and not on the ridiculous American dub, which sounds just like a soft-core porn flick, or so I’m told.
And give the books another try in a while - he gets demonstrably better as he goes along.
Garv
No I agree the film was excellent. Tight and to the point which is what you want.
Not in the same league as Let The Right One In though.
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Laura Miller on "Why We Love Bad Writing"
http://www.salon.com/books/laura_miller/2010/12/14/docx/index.html
Laura Miller on "Why We Love Bad Writing"
http://www.salon.com/books/laura_miller/2010/12/14/docx/index.html
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