Review Tuesday: 'The Man Who Left Too Soon'

Today’s ‘Review Tuesday’. As foreshadowed [1], I’ve just read The Man Who Left Too Soon: The Biography of Stieg Larsson [2]. Written by English crime fiction journalist Barry Forshaw and published in 2010, its 292-pages divide into four parts:

1. (62 pages). Covering Larsson’s upbringing, his journalistic career championing feminism and decrying right wing groups, his long-term relationship with Eva Gabrielsson, his plans for a 10-book series, his junk food addiction and chainsmoking, his death due to heart attack (i.e. not murder), and his estate dispute between his family and Gabrielsson.

2. (152 pages). Comprising a paraphrasing of the Trilogy’s plotlines – with Forshaw’s annotations vis-à-vis Larsson’s biographical details, and references to other crime fiction books.

3. (53 pages). Recording well-known Scandinavian and other crime fiction writers’ responses to Larsson’s trilogy. Their consensus? All three books need a thorough edit, Lisbeth Salander’s their most compelling character, and it’s unlikely Larsson would’ve sustained interest in his characters and their adventures beyond the third book.

4. (25 pages.) Discussing a Millenium Trilogy walking tour, the films based on the books, and Scandinavian crime fiction’s bright future.

Forshaw’s book disappointed me. It told me little of what I didn’t, but wanted, to know of Larsson and his Trilogy. And the annotations didn’t justify the 152-page plot paraphrasing section (52% of the book). But given the runaway popularity of the Trilogy and its deceased author, if one can’t excuse Forshaw for hopping on this bandwagon, one can at least perceive his primary motive. Ho hum.

farmdoc's blog post number 693

At Jeffrey’s party last Friday evening, my darling sister Sue and I lamented that our Dad didn’t live to see any of his now eight grandchildren (of whom the oldest was born 26 months after his death). Some people have no children, or more rarely they die before their children are born. That’s a more heart-wrenching scenario, though it’s akin to the conundrum my daughters used to pose me: Would you rather die by being hit by a train or a truck? Tragedy (i.e. events resulting in great loss and misfortune) is universal. Every single person on this planet will, at some time in his/her life, experience tragedy. Not all tragedy’s equal. There’s a gradation. A hierarchy. At one end is death. All death’s tragedy – for family and friends at least. Then, I reckon, comes significant permanent disability – be it physical or psychiatric. To me, everything else is background music. In other words, not real tragedy. Even though, close to the event at least, we think it may be. So next time someone scrapes your car door in a parking lot, or you lose your keys or laptop or what have you, just think of my Dad who did not enjoy even one moment of the sublime bliss called grandparenthood. And spare a thought for Stieg Larsson (pictured) who died in 2004 at age 50 years, and whose Millennium Trilogy of crime novels which were published posthumously made him 2008’s second best-selling author in the world. And who had no children.

farmdoc's blog post number 582

A mere 11 days after the launch of Alzheimer’s: a Love Story, books are very much on my mind. Two days post launch, Sweetheart Vivienne and I visited our friend Irene who’d been given an Amazon Kindle for her recent birthday. I’d heard and read of the Kindle, but I’d never seen let alone used one. So I was intrigued when Irene started it up and let us play with it. She’d downloaded one book (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson, if you’re curious). New things are hard to adapt to, especially for an old guy like me. I think I absorb stories and information better when I read from paper I hold in my hands – be it a book or a pile of A4 pages. Recently I volunteered to read a draft manuscript novel written by Sweetheart Vivienne’s writing colleague, and our friend, Jane. As I expected, I received it as a Microsoft Word file attached to an email. Yesterday I read half of it. It felt oh so strange reading it on my computer screen. I longed to hold a paper version in my hands, to feel the pages, to smell them, to hear their sound as I leafed through them. Michael Dell and Bill Gates denied me that privilege this time. But after Jane’s book’s published, as I think and hope it will be, I’ll do so then. But will I ever get used to books in electronic form? Who knows? As I wrote here, I love the smell of books and bookshops. And as I wrote yesterday, the internet was once anathema to me, but now it’s second nature. Time will tell.