Part 1:
Stieg Larrson’s Millennium Trilogy and the two (so far) follow-ups by David Lagercrantz
Context on The Millennium Trilogy:
Larsson’s trilogy is an unusual case for a book series in that the content becomes less exaggerated as the series progresses. Whereas literary figures such as James Bond or Hannibal Lecter started out in relatively grounded narratives before moving into more stylised domain, Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist unmask a notorious serial killer and sink a business empire during The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, before becoming entangled in a vast legal conspiracy throughout the following two novels.
The horror of Nils Bjurman raping Lisbeth Salander in Dragon Tattoo becomes a bizarre kind of exhibition when Salander’s covertly filmed account is presented as part of a legal case in The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest.
Likewise, Salander’s revenge upon Bjurman, using a tattoo gun to permanently brand him as “a sadistic pig, a pervert and a rapist”, becomes something of a dark running gag amongst the police investigations going on throughout the following two novels.
By Hornet’s Nest, the horror of Salander’s ordeal and the catharsis of her revenge become somewhat cartoonish in the context of the trilogy.
Likewise, the story of sadistic serial killer Martin Vanger, who with his torture dungeon and incestuous leanings would be right at home in a Hannibal Lecter novel, becomes an afterthought within the same book as the final antagonist role is transferred back to white-collar crook Hans-Erik Wennerström, with the novel ending with his financial ruin and murder.
Regardless of my quibbles about the tone shifting within the original trilogy, Larsson’s books are page-turners packed with intrigue and suspense, and it’s clear that Larsson seriously did his homework throughout the writing process.
Although this does work against him by Hornets’ Nest, where the ongoing legal battles require the reader to absorb large chunks of information on Sweden’s judicial process.
That said I’m fairly sure these issues could have been addressed were it not for Larsson’s untimely death before anything was published.
DavidLagercrantz Takes The Helm
In 2013 author David Lagercrantz was enlisted to complete the Millennium series. He did so without access to Larsson’s material and outlines for future novels, which remain with Larsson’s partner Eva Gabrielsson.
This led to the two (so far) continuation novels, The Girl In The Spider’s Web in 2015 and The Girl Who Takes An Eye For An Eye in 2017.
I have no issue with the idea of bringing in another author to complete a series in the case of the original creator being unable to do so.
I was eager to see how the intertwined narratives of Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist would continue, as I’d imagine most fans were.
As long as it has the approval of the creator’s estate, there shouldn’t be an ethical problem with continuing a piece of art although in this case Larsson’s family appear to have gone behind Gabrielsson’s back to carry on the series without her consent.
That aside, what I do have an issue with is when the continuation work isn’t very good.
In the cases of most series that have a long gap between instalments, they tend to either rely too heavily upon the original work to function as a complete experience (see the Star Wars prequels, largely recycled parts of the original trilogy mixed in with concepts and characters rejected from the original films) or act as a weird, slightly sad imitation of the original work (every comedy sequel that comes out over ten years after the original).
Although modern cinema has now almost mastered the art of the soft reboot, which function as both a continuation and reboot to ageing franchises such as Star Wars and Jurassic Park, this is not as widely used a technique when it comes to books.
The Girl In The Spider’s Web
The Girl In The Spider’s Webtakes the opportunity of a time skip to introduce further amounts of social commentary, in particular the NSA’s tendency to monitor people and the potential abuses of this kind of power.
To tie into this further, the villains of the series continue to become both more spectral and mysterious and closer to realism for the most part.
Spider’s Webintroduces the Spider Society, formed from the remnants of Zalachenko’s criminal empire and helmed by Lisbeth’s long lost sister Camilla.
And this is where the problems really start to kick in for Spider’s Web.
Simply put, the Spider Society doesn’t seem like that credible a threat when compared to supposedly the greatest computer hacker alive.
Having Camilla be evil and “following in her father’s footsteps” is a pretty predictable move, and she functions as a fairly generic antagonist, from her pulpy femme fatale act used on Blomkvist, to her taunting “until next time!” message to Salander at the end of the book, Camilla is not an intriguing villain, having been used as a copy of the more engaging Zalachenko, and admitting in-universe that she wanted to be like him is not excuse for powering on ahead anyway.
There’s a backstory mention of when Zalachenko locked his daughters in their room while he was beating their mother, how Camilla would punch the mattress in time with Zalachenko’s punches.
Even when compared to the cartoonish sadists on display in Larsson’s original books, this moment for me was when Spider’s Webcrossed the line into all-out absurdity.
Several previous plot points are out and out retconned to little impact other than attempting to tailor the original trilogy to a more conventional layout.
Camilla goes from being the one normal member of Lisbeth’s family to a sociopath similar to their father for seemingly no other reason than having a familiar character act as an antagonist.
Having Lisbeth’s ‘Wasp’ handle supposedly derive from the Marvel Comics character of the same name felt like an attempt to link the series to current pop culture and had a cheapening effect on the character. So too with Camilla’s handle as ‘Thanos’, which will do little but culturally date this volume in the series.
General writing problems are felt throughout, Blomkvist thanking his lucky stars twice within the first 150 pages was the most acutely felt.
The plot wraps up fairly neatly with the Camilla disappearing largely unscathed and no real cliffhangers, which left me pretty empty upon finishing.
Spider’s Web includes some good character ideas; Lisbeth rescues and bonds with August, the young autistic son of a murdered AI developer. August’s drawing skills are both impressive and hold the key to identifying his father’s killer. To Lagercrantz’s credit, he gives Lisbeth an interesting foil to play off of, and is able to have her show a few more moments of humanity without making it look like she’s losing her edge.
Other positives include the online smear campaign against Blomkvist was pretty interesting and a nice taking apart of internet campaigns, and the general idea of print media paling in comparison to the rise of blog news media.
In general, Spider’s Webhas a few good ideas but Lagercrantz spends far too much time trying to soft reboot the series to fit his own vision and flood the narrative with exposition to develop these ideas in a more satisfying manner.
The book certainly could have benefitted from being longer.
After the dense and winding (maybe too winding) epic of Hornets’ Nest, Spider’s Webfeels frustratingly back-to-basics. The style is a tad more obvious, with exposition dropped in small but noticeable chunks throughout, and the plot wraps up in a predictable manner.
However, Spider’s Webwas still a page turner, although it’s the first time I felt I was in a rush to finish the book, it might have been faith to the characters that kept me reading more so than the quality of the book.
The Girl Who Takes An Eye For An Eye
I assumed that many of the issues I had with Spider’s Webwere down to Lagercrantz finding his bearings and being cautious about avoiding the kind of seven-hundred-page pileup that Hornets’ Nestbecame.
Then I read The Girl Who Takes An Eye For An Eye.
Thankfully Eye For An Eyedevelops most of the better parts of Spider’s Web and progresses in a way more faithful to the original trilogy in general.
Positives first.
The book starts off much better immediately, by putting Lisbeth in the unfamiliar surroundings of an adult prison, you give the reader an entirely new set of expectations, we’ve never seen her as an adult in this kind of environment.
The reasoning for her being in there is fairly plausible, although not really in keeping with the tone of the series.
Fellow inmate Benito feels slightly cookie-cutter, but serves as a more immediate antagonist than Camilla as we get to see Salander deal with her directly, and the direct repercussions of her actions within the echo chamber of prison, more succinct and punchy, effectively captures the ideas of actions having consequences displayed so well in the original trilogy.
Lagercrantz adds to Lisbeth’s backstory without intruding upon prior events too much, the additions feel like natural evolutions rather than extraneous additions in this area.
He continues to reintroduce a few more memorable figures and motifs, and I particularly enjoyed the characters of Leo and Dan and the shooting mystery, which reminded me of the journalistic skills employed in Blomkvist’s investigation into Harriets Vanger’s disappearance from the first book, although not necessarily in an imitative manner.
The classic mystery novel device of having identical twins is here used as a springboard into a sinister Nazi-like venture into shaping identical twins separately from birth, a natural evolution from the “nature vs. nurture” concept.
Now for the problems.
Salander is frustratingly absent for large portions of the novel, without the excuses of being in hospital or custody. She’s released from prison halfway through the novel, and takes a back seat in favour of several flashbacks showing how the two mysteries of the twins and her former cellmate’s murdered lover relate to one another. Surely, especially when one considers how proactive a character Salander is, she should have put into an investigative role like the previous books had done?
And why even put Salander in prison in the first place if it doesn’t ultimately affect her character, and she gets released halfway through anyway?
Faria Kazi is a sympathetic figure, but her plot exists seemingly to keep Lisbeth distracted from the main plot long enough for the antagonists to do enough damage.
Kazi’s situation does tie well into the series’ ongoing examination of violence against women, a theme glaringly absent from Spider’s Web, but its use as a side story feels frustratingly token.
Lisbeth’s secondary antagonist throughout the book is the cartoonishly evil fellow inmate Benito, who I swear has some kind of dagger fixation.
Her obsession with proclaiming that her ‘Keris is pointing at you’ as a kind of death sentence becomes frankly ridiculous by the end, where she’s been severely beaten by Salander and needs a bunch of cronies to even get hold of her.
The entire showdown between the resurgent Benito and Bublanski’s forces at the end was somewhat predictable, although it thankfully wasn’t the main attraction this time.
Salander confronts Rakel Greitz and Lagercrantz gives her an appropriate send-off, with Salander preventing Greitz’s suicide and having her arrested and await her “death by shame”. This certainly seemed more in line with Larsson’s original version of her character.
Overall Eye For An Eyewas a marked improvement over Lagercrantz’s first attempt and gives me a fair bit of hope for future instalments.
Main Issues
My main issues with Lagercrantz’s attempt to continue the Millennium series are as follows:
- He does not seem overly interested in sticking to the characterisations of much of the cast, instead preferring to keep them separate more for reasons of the plot than of their own volition, giving the books a distinct air of poor fanfiction.
- New characters are often shunted in at the expense of existing characters. Much of the cast built up during Hornets’ Nestis removed as of Spider’s Web, leaving Blomkvist and Salander flailing.
- One of Larsson’s express purposes when writing the series was to provide a scathing examination of the misogyny ingrained within society in a supposedly civilised age, especially when justified ‘for the greater good’. By swapping the villains for a science fiction hacker network in Spider’s Weband putting Salander in prison anyway in Eye For An Eye, Lagercrantz’s work suggests he wasn’t interested in continuing one of the core themes of the series.
- The original books, while not being hot-blooded erotic works, contained several scenes of a sexual nature. Lagercrantz’s follow-ups often come across as sterile and sexless. Their absence is especially conspicuous in notable womaniser Blomkvist’s scenes. Coupled with Figuerola’s absence, and he appears deliberately neutered for no other reason than Lagercrantz’s discomfort with covering the topic. Which again begs the question as to why Larsson’s family thought him the best author to continue the series?
- Lagercrantz’s additions are notably more episodic, with only passing references to past adventures. Had he been asked to continue the series if only the relatively standalone Dragon Tattoowas the only available novel, this would be an understandable strategy and would have lead to a relatively understandable change. However, two very layered and intertwined volumes stand between Dragon Tattoo and Lagercrantz’s efforts, and his efforts to force the series into a more conventional thriller format are akin to locking the gate after the horse has bolted.
- By making the unique and non-conforming figure of Lisbeth Salander a guest in her own series, Lagercrantz effectively smothers one of the series’ biggest draws.
Conclusion
Overall, Lagercrantz’s follow-ups are not necessarily bad books on their own, it’s just that they are ill-fitting at best with the rest of Larsson’s series and clearly betray their germination from a dubious legal tangle.
It’s disheartening to see a series once so unique become so anonymous so quickly.
That said, the series was fairly wrapped up as a trilogy if left alone so one can still enjoy Larsson’s work as it stands.
Lagercrantz’s additions are ultimately unnecessary to the series’ main arc of achieving Lisbeth Salander’s freedom.
Lacgerantz’s style is frustratingly timid and tame, he seems afraid of dealing with the serious and controversial content of Larsson’s series, yet he presses on.
As a Millennium fan, I’m likely to read his next addition to the series, and I am hopeful that his work will continue to improve.
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