Biography - Stieg Larson

Image:

This is an image of Stieg and his significant other, Eva Gabrielson. They were together for around thirty years but decided not to get married because of Larsson's career as an activist. They felt that it would have endangered her life. However, now, after his death she gets left with nothing because they are not technically married, thus she has no rights.

Quote: "He was a man of political commitment who was prepared to risk going to prison for his beliefs." (3)

This quote is at the beginning of the book describing, in a nutshell, who Stieg Larsson is. He was a very loud anti-war and anti-facist activist. His life was dedicated to taking down the irrational radical conservatives who promoted racism. He was a much hated person and many people wanted him dead. Although he wasn't murdered, he still risked his life for what he believed in.

Connections:

1) This connection is more of an anti-connection. This biography, wasn't a biography at all. When reading this book, it didn't follow a logical progression. The chapters went from Publishing Larsson's books, to What I want to say, to a summary of each of the books, to Scandinavian crime novels. After reading Born Standing Up, Steve Martin's autobiography, I figured that a biography would be an overview of Larssons' life. This was more of an all over the place collaboration of commentary on Larssons' life from others who worked with him or analyzed his writing.

2) In the first chapter the author talks about how Larsson was completely absorbed in politics. Larsson found an organization designed to 'counteract the growth of the extreme right and the white power culture in schools and among youth.' (6) Although I neither started an organization nor worked with an organization that was dedicated to politics, I have been working with and leading an activist organization, Sierra Club. My life has been surrounded by helping the environment, which is my loyal cause, but Larsson's cause were his political causes.

3) One of the current issues with Stieg Larson is the remains of his so called 'fourth book'. Apparently on Larssons' personal laptop he had written about 200 hundred pages of a fourth novel. This is similar to the pyramids in ancient egypt. There are pyramids out there that are still closed and we won't know what's in them for a long time! It's the same with the book! Until the problem between Eva and the Larsson's is settled we won't get to read those 200 hundred pages of the new book.

Reflection:

This biography was not the most eloquently written. It covers a multitude of topics based on Stieg Larsson but it does it in an odd way. The biography follows an illogical progression skipping all around his life. The beginning three chapters have to do with him and his life but then it changes into summaries of his novels and then into his competing Swedish novels and finishes with a long summary of the first three chapters. However, the last chapter is mainly quotes of people who worked with him.

I was completely unimpressed with the writing style of this autobiography. It does give some background information about Stieg Larsson, but it was mainly focused on his novels and the writing style used. I would have enjoyed it more if it gave more background on his life and inspiration for his novels as opposed to just summaries of his books.

I would not recommend this book to anyone because I don't feel that it did Larsson justice. A biography should showcase a person, whether good or bad, and this book did not do so. It merely lightly touched on Larsson and the author got others to talk about him. I would not consider this a well written biography.

Questions:

-What will happen to Eva G., his significant other?

-Why is Eva so reluctant to join forces with the Larssons?

-Was there any single source that inspired Larssons writing?

-Will the forth book ever be released?

-If Larssons' health didn't kill him at an early age, would he have finished his goal of ten novels?