arts & entertainment
The team behind
Stieg Larsson’s
searing success
Millennium men
By J. Rentilly
A globAl publishing phenomenon about
unlikely heroes in exotic locales battling an unimaginable evil. it’s not too much of a stretch to suggest
that stieg larsson’s Millennium series—that is, The
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played
with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s
Nest—is Harry Potter for adults.
similar to how J.K. Rowling’s fantasy series
swept the world, larsson’s powerhouse trilogy has
found some 46 million readers in 44 countries braving paper cuts as they rapidly turn pages to follow
the vivid, byzantine, occasionally sadistic twists,
turns, spills and thrills as a punk-rock computer
hacker and a hardboiled journalist team to uncover
political and sexual intrigue against a backdrop of
moral and financial corruption, a thorn-encrusted
family tree and horrors both personal and global.
The books have been perched atop worldwide
bestseller lists since their publications, and have
spawned a swedish film series (the most successful
in scandinavian history) and a European television
miniseries; sony pictures is fast-tracking an
English-language adaptation for American screens
for Christmas 2011. That would be three novels,
four films and a pop-culture whirlwind in less than
five years.
Author Stieg Larsson (below)
passed away before he had the
chance to see how internation
ally popular his Millennium
series had become.
Team effort
For readers who have somehow escaped news
of the searing Millennium series the past couple of
years, they were written by an enigmatic, leftist
journalist who envisioned a sweeping 10-book saga
that would bring to a boil global politics, economics,
sex and violence against a devastating canvas of
rape, theft, murder and conspiracies tied to some of
history’s greatest atrocities. The long-suffering
hacker and the disgraced journalist team to achieve
personal redemption and a modicum of truth
against all odds. The results are dizzying, gripping
and the very model of page-turning brilliance.
Three of the men responsible for bringing the
Millennium series to critical mass—translator
steven T. Murray (working under the pseudonym
Reg Keeland), Dragon Tattoo film director niels
Arden oplev and Knopf executive director of publicity paul bogaards—believe there’s no secret
behind the series’ success: it’s the characters, stupid.
Michael lionstar
“it’s the gumshoe and the tech savant, a very odd
pairing,” says bogaards. “When you add sex to the
mix, and the very timely elements of corporate malfeasance, corrupt governments and violence against
women, you have a story that truly taps the zeitgeist.”
oplev believes it’s the goth hacker, lisbeth
salander, a primal, nocturnal vigilante in stilettos, a
femme batman if you will, who has most powerfully
captured readers around the world. “i like to joke
that lisbeth salander is the scariest thing to come
out of sweden since AbbA,” oplev tells The
Connection. “she is a survivor and a vigilante, a victim who becomes powerful. That’s a masterstroke.
it’s something we can all relate to, even if it’s only a
wish most of us never fulfill.”
