Thursday, February 24, 2011

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (Vintage Crime 2005)


"A left-wing magazine."
"That depends on how you define the concept 'left-wing.' Millenium is generally viewed as critical of society, but I'm guessing the anarchists think it's a wimpy bourgeois crap magazine along the lines of Arena or Ordfront, while the Moderate Students Association probably thinks that the editors are all Bolsheviks. There is nothing to indicate that Blomkvist has ever been active politically, even during the left-wing wave when he was going to prep school. VVhile he was plugging away at the School of Iournalism he was living with a girl who at the time was active in the Syndicalists and today sits in Parliament as a representative of the Left party. He seems to have been given the left-wing stamp primarily because as a financial journalist he specialises in investigative reporting about corruption and shady transactions in the corporate world. He has done some devastating individual portraits of captains of industry and politicians-which were most likely well deserved-and caused a number of resignations and legal repercussions. The most well-known was the Arboga affair, which resulted in the forced resignation of a Conservative politician and the sentencing of a former councillor to a year in prison for embezzlement. Calling attention to crimes can hardly be considered an indication that someone is left-wing.”

4 comments:

robert said...

Sir, I salute your book-reading courage, strength, and indefatigability! I've clocked up a measly 3 reads so far this year; none of them particularly long.
Ah well. Last year I read the Larsson trilogy, (amongst others), but not seen any of the films yet.
So will you read the others in this series?
Robert

Imposs1904 said...

Yeah, but all that book reading means the blog's gone for a burton. (In fairness, it was already burtoned before the great reading challenge.)

I might read the other two books in the trilogy if I see them knocking about on the cheap but I'm not sure I'll go out of my way to read them.

I wouldn't normally pick up a 600 page book to read but I have seen the films, and that made it less daunting. (If only I applied that same chopped logic to the 'classics'.)

I still hope to read some more of the Sjöwall and Wahlöö's Beck series this year.

robert said...

I have a terrible habit of repeating myself, so I may have mentioned this before ... but there was a Swedish tv series of 'Beck', which might just be torentable at demonoid... (I know nothing of such things!)
Just watch you don't d/load Glenn Beck by mistake ;>)

Imposs1904 said...

I've noticed the series on the net (in the usual places) but I think - and I'm happy to be corrected here - that the series is inspired by the books rather than being direct adaptations.

I hope I'm wrong.