Legend has it that Stieg Larsson appeared at the publisher’s door with the first two volumes of the “Millennium” trilogy in a plastic bag. The third volume was also more or less finished. There are over 100 million books sold since. Few would claim that “Men who hate women” (2005), “The girl who played with fire” (2007) and “Luftslottet som sprengtes” (2007) are perfect crime novels. The squeamish among us could find both logical flaws and loose ends. Smoking permitted But Stieg Larsson’s stories were believable on a deeper, human and political level. The Swedish writer combined a genuine anti-racism and feminism, with something indefinable, freedom-seeking. In Larsson’s books, smoking was definitely allowed inside, and it was also possible to make love (with) whoever you wanted. This promiscuity was then set against a darker, violent sexuality – carried out by men who hated women. Taking over the baton Stieg Larsson had got some way into the fourth volume when he fell dead on the stairs on the way up to the office. The father and son, who held the rights, then passed the assignment on to writer David Lagercrantz. He wrote three books before Karin Smirnoff got the job. PROMISING CANDIDATE: Smirnoff’s previous books created expectations for her taking over the “Millennium” pen. Among other things, her debut novel was nominated for the prestigious August prize. Photo: JAN ERIK HENRIKSSON / AFP Smirnoff has previously published books about chess-driven individuals in Outer Sweden. She is well known in the northern Swedish countryside, where Stieg Larsson also grew up. Like Larsson, she has many years of experience as a journalist. Hiring her to continue writing the story wasn’t perhaps the stupidest thing to do? Meeting in the small town But then it quickly turns out that it’s going to be pretty stupid anyway. Let’s take the action first. Mikael Blomkvist is on his way up to Norrland to attend his daughter’s wedding to a corrupt local councillor. This municipal councilor will decide which company will get a license to build wind farms on areas that have partly been Sami pasture. The thirteen-year-old girl Svala also lives up here. She is Lisbeth Salander’s niece, and, like her aunt, has a great aptitude for numbers and advanced mathematics. Svala has grown up under objectionable conditions with a mother who has been very unlucky with men in general – and the teenager’s father in particular. For that it is none other than Ronald Niedermann, whom Salander nailed to the floor in one of the earlier books. Increasing staffing There is also a scary lone wolf in an old cabin in the picture here. He is fond of sea eagles, but also kills people, which he gets delivered as a kind of package to his door at regular intervals. In general, there are so many villains, and potential heroes, in this small Swedish town that one realizes that the local police have had to increase their staffing. In purely literary terms, the problem is that none of the people involved get the necessary room for action that is needed for us to start caring about them. Little between the lines A good author shows us what a novel character is like through dialogues and actions. When Smirnoff has to describe Lisbeth Salander’s introverted personality in meetings with her colleagues at work, it happens in sentences like these: Smirnoff, for her part, does not take the time to let the reader read between the lines. She states briefly that this version of Salander is also a lone wolf. This type of assertion is not sufficient to arouse the reader’s empathy and compassion. Working for market forces But it is not primarily the absence of literary credibility that is the problem. There is another, deeper form of credibility, an ethical credibility, that is missing. Could it be the feeling that this entire universe of people and environments has been set in motion solely to further line the pockets of publisher, author and heirs? That we are dealing with a literary spinoff product that is just that? More spinoff than book? In that case, it is paradoxical that Salander and Blomkvist have once again been put to work to stimulate the forces of capital that the moral left-wing socialist Stieg Larsson was so keen to rein in. In such a light, Smirnoff’s wintry saga from Norrland appears as a rather icy publishing product. If nothing else, this Stieg Larsson story teaches us this: Every work of art needs its originator. If not, it’s a craft at best. news reviewer Photo: KAGGE FORLAG Title: “The Scream of the Sea” Author: Karin Smirnoff Publisher: Kagge Genre: Crime Number of pages: 376 Date: 2023 Hear Knut Hoem elaborate on his criticism of the book in “Open Book: The Critics”: Hi! I read and reviews literature at news. Please also read my review of “Kairos” by Jenny Erpenbeck, “Etterliv” by Abdulrazak Gurnah or Franz Kafka’s “The Process” translated by Jon Fosse.
ttn-69
“The sea eagle’s cry” by Karin Smirnoff – Reviews and recommendations
