Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Bloomkvist will be together. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo read online

The film “The Girl Who Got Caught in the Web,” about the exploits of hacker Lisbeth and her old friend, journalist Mikael Blomkvist, is being released in Russia. This, as you can guess from the title, is a sequel to “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” but instead of David Fincher, the Uruguayan Fede Alvarez, whose credits include the powerful thriller “Don’t Breathe,” is in the director’s chair. The role of the hacker was played by the brave Englishwoman Claire Foy (TV series “The Crown”), and Blomkvist himself was played by the authentic Swede Sverrir Gudnason (it will be hard to get rid of the ghost of Daniel Craig, who played this role in the first part of the trilogy). Kommersant Style spoke with Swedish actor Sverrir Gudnason

- So, what is it like to be in the shoes of a character who has been with us for quite a long time?

Yes, it’s like playing Hamlet, because other actors have played him before. Although this is not such a rarity in our profession.

- Is this the difficulty of the role?

No, the difficulty of the role is to make it believable. Believable and alive. But, of course, I have a lot of respect for everyone who played it before me. Mikael Blomkvist was a close friend of mine. So it's a little strange to take over this role from him, but it's still very exciting.

- Did Mikael's death somehow affect your role?

He died before I even knew about this project. We worked together on Serious Game, directed by Pernilla August. He was a great guy.

- How was it working with Fede Alvarez?

He has a clear vision of what he wants to do and guides you kindly. And he is also very smart. Considering his background and the kind of films he made, Fede brought a lot to this project. He knows how to add tension, how to create real action.

- Blomkvist is a journalist, and while preparing for the role, did you somehow immerse yourself in this profession?

No, except that I constantly gave interviews to journalists. (Laughs.) That’s how I studied you.

- What kind of journalist is he? Tell us about him!

He is an investigative journalist who strives to get to the bottom of the truth.

You mentioned that Blomkvist is being kicked out of his publication. Does the film in some way reflect the changes that are happening in publishing and journalism?

Yeah, it's all clickbait now, right? But Blomkvist is a journalist of a different caliber. He investigates and seeks the truth, and that is no longer for sale. So yes, it does reflect.

Critics say that Mikael Blomkvist is the grown-up Kalle Blomkvist from Astrid Lindgren's books. Have you heard of this comparison and do you think it has any basis?

I think he got his nickname when he was an aspiring journalist and solved several bank robberies, and Kalle Blumkvist is a character in Astrid Lindgren's books who was in a sort of secret society like spies. So there is a certain dark humor in all this: characters from children's books become part of fairy tales for adults.

-Have you read these books?

Yes, because I live in Stockholm, where they were written. So I read them when they first came out, and I've been living with this universe for quite a long time.

You said that you have read all the books in the series, and the book on which the film is based is the first that was not written by Stieg Larsson (“The Girl in the Spider’s Web” is a novel by the Swedish journalist and writer David Lagercrantz, which continues the “Millennium” trilogy by Stieg Larsson .- “Kommersant Style”). Have you noticed any differences in Mikael Blumkvist's development? Or could he write it?

I think David has done a wonderful job of keeping the characters grounded in this universe, and I think the readers are happy.

What is the relationship between Mikael and Lisbeth in this film? How have they changed since the first film?

Mikael and Lisbeth are very important to each other, but at the beginning of this story they have not seen each other for three years. At the same time, Mikael's life went downhill a little. He gets kicked out of the magazine and drinks a little more than he should. And then she appears and asks him for help, this gives him new strength. It seems to me that they feel each other and both are looking for truth and justice.

- Tell us, how was it working with Claire Foy, whom we all know as the queen?

Yes, she is a wonderful actress. And she's very focused and charming. She cares about everyone around her and makes you feel at home on set.

How absorbed was Claire in her role? I remember talking to Noomi when she was playing the role and she said that even when the cameras were off, she continued to act like Lisbeth Salander. What about Claire?

Maybe. Although she herself should answer this question for you. She played very convincingly.

- Can you tell us foreigners if there is something about Scandinavian thrillers that we don’t understand?

Hmm, I don't even know, I think some of them are like opera. I think that the Scandinavian mentality combined with the criminal world is a winning combination.

The world-famous Professor Bolder is successfully developing artificial intelligence. Thanks to hard work, he finally manages to achieve his goal. In order for the world to become acquainted with the innovative developments of the professor, he asks for help from the famous journalist Mikael Blomkvist to publish his scientific works.

In order to protect his own scientific achievements from banal theft, Bolder hires one of the best hackers in the world - a girl named Lisbeth Salander. The young girl is an excellent specialist in the field of modern computer technologies. She can hack almost any security. In addition, Lisbeth does an excellent job of protecting data located on the global network. She is the one who gets the chance to get acquainted with all the information stored on the US national security portal.

The journalist and the hacker girl begin to work together. They have a real chance to expose a criminal gang called “Spiders”. Moreover, this criminal group threatens not only Lisbeth and Mikael, but also all residents of Stockholm. To find out how the movie “The Girl Who Got Caught in the Web” ends, watch and buy movie tickets online on our website.

Opinion

As for the technical side of the issue, the feature film “The Girl Who Got Caught in the Web” turned out to be intriguing and dynamic from the first to the last second of viewing. In order not to strain too much when watching it, you should not pay attention to the dialogues of the main characters - they are secondary and carry practically no semantic load.

In fact, director Federico Alvarez (Don't Breathe, Evil Dead: The Black Book, From Dusk Till Dawn series) created a typical action movie. In places it really captivates so that the viewer begins to delve into the events taking place with interest. The picture is quite high quality, which makes you think about the well-done camera work.

Director Federico Alvarez is a master at creating a creepy atmosphere in his films. Of course, you shouldn’t expect super-powerful emotions from the tape. In some places it is really interesting, but in some moments you find standard cliches. However, if you want to have a good Thursday evening and try to compare the first part of this story with the second (last time the main characters were played by other actors), then welcome to the Ufa cinemas.

Today the sequel to the trilogy about hacker Lisbeth Salander and journalist Mikael Blomkvist is released. However, the word “continuation” is only half correct. The Millennium trilogy, written at the beginning of the 2000s, was released after the death of the author and literally blew up literary (and not only) circles. Of course, the books were followed by film adaptations - the Swedish film series reproduced all three of Larson's novels on the screen, but in the case of the American remake, everything was limited to a film based on the first book.

However, what exactly the contribution, which is usually distinguished by a strong author’s vision, made to the remake is difficult to judge - most of the time “” resembled a frame-by-frame reshot of a Swedish film, although the film was not lacking in style and luxurious pictures (the technical Oscar is proof of this) . One way or another, things did not go beyond the first film in Hollywood, and therefore it was decided to focus on creating a new film based on the fourth novel about Lisbeth Salander. It’s worth saying here that it was not Larson who wrote it, but a colleague of the writer David Lagercrantz. The book, by the way, was criticized by both the Swedish press and Stig Larson's widow. The fact is not particularly relevant to the film adaptation, but definitely alarming.

So, Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist (here they are played by the star of "" and ") still live in Stockholm and continue to do their own thing: hacking and investigative journalism. At some point, Salander is approached by a scientist intimidated by the intelligence services, who has lost access to his super-powerful program, which remains in the US National Security Agency. He has already asked for help from the Swedish State Security Service, but still doubts the competence of the agents, and therefore decides to go to an independent expert, that is, Lisbeth, bringing his little son with him. Salander agrees, quickly watches a YouTube video and hacks the NSA in a minute.

An American agent on the other side of the ocean (), namely in Maryland, at the same time does not have time to shut down the servers, relying on his authority and pumped-up skills, and therefore a few hours later, angry as hell, he flies to Sweden to take back the miracle program , capable of giving control of nuclear missiles to half the world. However, both the Swedish security service and certain “Spiders” - a network of criminals who are ready to do anything to achieve their goal - are already starting to hunt for the encrypted disk.

Still from the movie “The Girl Who Got Caught in the Web”

The main problem of "" is the lack of atmosphere (from the Scandinavian there is only snow and the above-mentioned Stockholm, although the "remake" is obvious and the characters often talk about America and San Francisco) and the presence of many script holes and miscalculations. Throughout the entire film, Lisbeth and her friends find themselves in the hands of a magic key to all doors - the heroine can steal any car, hack anything, get away from under the noses of her pursuers and not even be particularly hurt (firearms have virtually no effect on her ability to move doesn’t count – incredible, but true). In other words, the entire film is an illustration of the deus ex machina principle, which is implemented even without special tricks.

“The Girl in the Web” also does not work within genre boundaries: Lisbeth stubbornly refuses to kill those who want to kill her. Despite the fact that the authors changed the background of the characters and tried to make the difficult past of the characters the main intrigue of the film, this question remains open even from a logical point of view. Either Salander doesn’t want to get her hands dirty (motivation and moral guidelines remain behind the scenes - she does an excellent job of poking tied men in sensitive places with a stun gun), or her such behavior is simply prescribed by the authors and gives them the opportunity to tighten the story even more. Why this is happening is also unclear: despite the fact that “The Girl Who Got Caught in the Web” is incredibly stylishly shot, there are not many action episodes in it. Yes, small-town squabbles happen regularly and cheerfully, it’s difficult to find fault with this point, but the catharsis that the creators have been leading so persistently and for a long time does not happen - all strength runs out about halfway through the journey.

Still from the movie “The Girl Who Got Caught in the Web”

The film exploits cheap tricks that offend both the audience and the characters themselves. Sometimes this recursion and “set-up within a set-up”, when characters deceive each other, work perfectly within the framework of the film, but more often it still fails. The difference between Lisbeth and Mikael is also striking - in the original the characters were also too different to “fit” with each other, but in the new film there is some kind of catastrophic gap - Salander, played by 34-year-old Foy, looks like a seasoned heroine, capable of holding the entire weight of the world on her fragile shoulders, and 40-year-old Sverrir Gudnason is nothing more than an innocent little errand boy. In essence, he performs exactly these functions - there is no dialogue between the characters, they do not work as a team, but simply interact within one frame, and then only with great reserve.

Still from the movie “The Girl Who Got Caught in the Web”

The tension in the relationship between Lisbeth and Mikael also looks far-fetched - the viewer learns that there was something between the characters in the middle of the film and, as it were, by the way. At the same time, we should not forget that we are talking about key figures who are simply contraindicated to be so impersonal. The rest of the characters look like complete idiots - vain and narcissistic: the American agent throws something over his shoulder about privileges, and then gets into such a mess that it doesn't seem like much. In addition, the film, which shot the tense thriller “,” is full of symbols that often look like dummies, and the laws of physics in the film work only once in a while.

“The Girl Who Got Caught in the Web” looks incredibly appropriate in the era of #Metoo and the sex scandals that have shaken up the public. But Larson's original idea of Lisbeth Salander as a champion of the downtrodden and a heroine who punishes men who mistreat women (a theme generally well developed in Scandinavian literature and film) goes a little differently here. The motive of renunciation of family ties and traumas with which this is in one way or another connected is put at the forefront - it does not matter whether such a decision (or even renunciation) is a cause or a consequence.

Still from the movie “The Girl Who Got Caught in the Web”

But even here the script is capable of throwing a trick. “It’s good that they’re both dead,” Lisbeth categorically snaps, speaking about her father and sister, but her friend immediately finds in the trash of such an unsentimental heroine an old photograph in which Salander is captured with her sister (). Yes, such episodes are a little interrupted by poignant passages, like a little boy’s monologue about how the past can make you disappear, but they still spoil the final viewing experience.

Lisbeth wears the terrifying makeup only once: it is clear that she simply does not have time for such trifles, but the pathos of such gestures is off the charts. The creators really pull out the visuals: the opening credits, the incredibly cinematic explosion in Salander’s apartment, and other episodes work at full capacity. But otherwise the film is more static than dynamic.

Still from the movie “The Girl Who Got Caught in the Web”

The picture really works for the viewer, but at the same time it betrays the fact that the authors overdid it: the makeup and clothes of Lisbeth’s sister Camilla are ideal and harmonious, the law of karma works without failures and causes a deep sense of satisfaction, and Salander herself does not meet practically any obstacles on her way to the final goal. no resistance except for a couple of moments.

The topics of terrorism and the work of the special services are reduced to nothing here, as are Blomkvist’s attempts to speculate whether he is a trembling creature or has the right. The creators, in principle, moved Mikael somewhere to the periphery, but because of this, the balance between the heroes suddenly collapsed. In the original, they were the ones who balanced each other. In The Girl in the Web, Lisbeth's sister Camilla plays the role of counterweight. But this confrontation, even despite the blood ties, does not look tense, there is no spark in it: only coldness. Partly because the heroines themselves are exhausted, they are tired of the life they lead and of their own past. Partly because the chemistry between the characters is lacking as a class: all the characters in The Girl in the Spider's Web are fragmented and isolated, they are used to acting alone and fighting for themselves. Partly - and this is the most fatal and most offensive at the same time - due to the fact that the picture in the case of the new film in the franchise prevails more than usual over the content.

Still from the movie “The Girl Who Got Caught in the Web”

Trailer for the film “The Girl Who Got Caught in the Web”

Stieg Larsson and his legacy

Stieg Larsson began the Millennium trilogy in the summer of 2002. He was 48 and had never written a line of prose before. A well-known Swedish journalist, Larsson spent his entire life researching right-wing ideologies and extremist organizations, and writing novels fit so poorly with his figure that even his friends treated the idea of writing as a joke. Mikael Ekman, Larsson's colleague, recalled how in 2001 they drank whiskey after work and fantasized about what they would do in retirement. “I’ll write a couple of books and become a millionaire,” Larsson said. Ekman laughed at him. Larsson's former boss, Kurdo Baxi, reacted similarly when Larsson admitted he was writing a novel and asked to see the manuscript: "I thought he was joking."

But Larsson wasn't joking. In two years, he composed an entire trilogy and was already preparing it for publication, but on the morning of November 9, 2004, he suddenly died of a heart attack while climbing the stairs to the seventh floor to his office. Six months later, the first novel appeared in bookstores and immediately became a bestseller in Sweden, and five years later - throughout the world.

It was this unusual trajectory of the writer’s life (and death) that made the books an early success. It's no joke - he wrote three excellent detective stories from scratch and died on the doorstep of fame: a marketer's dream. But the main reason for the popularity of the Millennium trilogy is, of course, the characters.

Mikael Blomkvist

In the Swedish adaptation of Millennium, the central male role was played by Mikael Nykvist (villain from the first John Wick).

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In the American version - agent 007 Daniel Craig

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When creating his heroes, Larsson deliberately went against the canons. Noir is a well-established genre: at the center of the story is an invariably gloomy, depressed alcoholic misanthrope like Harry Hole from , who solves crimes in between trips to his favorite bar and recovering from heavy drinking. Mikael Blomkvist, the founder of the Millennium magazine (hence the name of the series), in this sense the character is the opposite: an absolutely healthy, moderately drinking truth-seeking journalist with a crystal clear reputation; Even his physical attractiveness is played by Larsson as a mockery of the toxic masculinity characteristic of the genre. Blomkvist is a hit with women, but in the books his affairs always look like he's being seduced into bed, which is quite clever compared to the ossified notions of irresistible heroes in noir novels.

Lisbeth Salander

The role of a girl with a dragon tattoo and on a motorcycle launched the Hollywood career of Noomi Rapace (“Prometheus”, “Common Fund”)

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Lisbeth Salander, like Blomkvist, is a shapeshifter. With her, Larsson did something even more radical: he took all the known stereotypes about female heroines and turned them inside out. The result was an aggressive hacker girl with a keen sense of justice and an extremely high IQ, dressed like a punk and riding around the city on a motorcycle.

Larsson tried to achieve maximum contrast between the characters, and he succeeded: if Blomkvist is an opponent of violence, who is always looking for a way to comply with protocols, then Lisbeth, on the contrary, behaves like an avenger from comics - she personally punishes those whom the law does not reach. In addition, Larsson’s protagonists are equal in rights: here, too, the author abandoned the standard detective trope, without dividing them into Holmes and Watson - the brain and his assistant. It was this novelty - an attempt to play with tired clichés - as well as the chemistry between the characters that made the books such a success all over the world.

Family thought

The family is perhaps the main unit of measurement in Scandinavian literature. All sagas begin with long lists of family ties - who gave birth to whom and from whom. And secrets in Swedish thrillers also most often revolve around skeletons peeking out of closets. For example, many novels by Håkan Nesser or Anna Janson are written according to this formula: the tragedies and crimes in them are the result of unsettled life and hidden resentment rather than malicious intent. Just remember “The Man Without a Dog,” where the plot centers on a family celebration.

Larsson is no exception: the theme of family is very important to him, but he plays it in his own way. If you cut off the unnecessary stuff, then “Millennium” is one big journey of Lisbeth Salander in search of a real family, that is, people who will accept and love her for who she is. Architecturally, all the plots in the trilogy are structured so that towards the end the heroine frees herself from all tyrants and finds peace. And the main paradox is that Lisbeth's oppressors in this family saga are her blood relatives, her father and half-brother, as well as her court-appointed guardian. Larsson's novels are so well thought out that even if the reader does not see this semantic inversion, he still subconsciously feels the message: family is not at all an entry on a birth certificate, blood ties are a fiction, and a branch can be broken off from the family tree at any time and find a new family. This is exactly what Lisbeth does, and therefore the very last scene, when she opens the door for Blomkvist, that is, she finally lets him into her life, is perhaps the ideal conclusion to her story.

Who is Eva Gabrielsson

Larsson himself, like Salander, also, in a sense, had two families - relatives and a wife. Until he was eight years old, he lived with his grandmother in the village, then he moved to Stockholm, to live with his father and brother, but at sixteen he left home. And at eighteen he found a second family - he met the architect Eva Gabrielsson. They worked and traveled together, and in 1981 they went to Grenada, where they studied the revolutionary experience of the newly liberated republic. Gabrielsson played such an important role in Larsson's life that when the Millennium trilogy conquered the world and journalists began to delve into the author's biography, a theory emerged that Eva had a hand in the books. This is understandable - even his colleagues doubted Larsson’s literary talents until the very end, while Gabrielsson, on the contrary, has always been known not only as an architect: in her youth she translated Philip K. Dick into Swedish.

What happened after Larsson's death?

Unfortunately, Larsson did not leave a will, and his marriage with Gabrielsson was not officially registered. The writer was afraid that if they had common property, his social activities could endanger her life. Therefore, after his death, all rights to the books legally went to his father and brother.

Gabrielsson tried to sue, she still had an unfinished fourth novel about Salander - Blomkvist in her hands, and she was ready to finish it, but the court sided with the heirs and forbade her to use the names of the characters. And already in December 2013, Larsson’s father announced that journalist-biographer David Lagercrantz would continue the series.

Are Millennium sequels worth reading?

David Lagercrantz

Developing a successful franchise after the death of the author is quite common practice. For example, Sebastian Faulks, among others, and Anthony Horowitz brought Sherlock Holmes to life. But there are two nuances here.

Firstly, Faulks and Horowitz are accomplished writers and have at least a grasp of the basics of the craft, while Lagercrantz is a journalist whose CV includes semi-biographical novels about Alan Turing, the conquest of Everest and a memoir compiled from 100 hours of recorded interviews with a footballer.

Secondly, the sequel to Millennium has nothing to do with Larsson's original plan. Eva Gabrielsson never handed over the unfinished draft to the heirs, and Lagercrantz had to write a new story from scratch, which is a big problem because he obviously has no idea how a good thriller plot works.

What Afisha wrote about Millennium and its sequels

"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"

"The Girl Who Played with Fire"

"The Girl Who Blew Up Castles in the Air"

"The Girl Who Got Stuck in the Web"

Lev Danilkin: “We’ll do without hallelujah, but if your quota for detective stories is one per year, then let it be Larsson”

Lev Danilkin: “And the first book was very exciting, but the second is much more exciting: like Follett’s “Pillars of the Earth,” like “Smilla,” like “The Count of Monte Cristo”; to such an extent that you can go into “read-only” mode for a couple of days, and do everything else on autopilot.”

Lev Danilkin: “This, of course, is not a detective story at all, or even a political conspiracy thriller, or even an office series about relationships; something much more significant. A fictionalized guide to the Swedish constitution. Essay on a model of interaction between private individuals and government agencies"

Lev Danilkin: “The novel is teeming with Yuri, Ivan and Vladimir - State Duma deputies, pimps, killers, hackers; Nikita Mikhalkov is even mentioned here. One can only guess how Larsson himself would have reacted to the fact that his books turned into weapons of the Cold War.”

To be fair, Larsson was also a journalist and also started from scratch. His books have a lot of flaws - they are redundant, wordy, they have problems with rhythm - but the thing is that Larsson, in any case, knew how to create charismatic characters and build up the atmosphere. Lagercrantz is incapable of this: while working on the sequel, he simply pulled plot lines from the original trilogy. Remember how in the second book of Millennium, Blomkvist realized that Lisbeth had hacked his laptop and communicated with her through a text file on his desktop? The same thing happens at Lagercrantz.

“The Girl Who Got Caught in the Web” is not a continuation of the series: it is the plots of the first three books, crushed and ground in a blender, sterilized and diluted with water. Almost all the scenes in Lagercrantz's novels are conversations between two people in a room or on the phone, and on the phone they usually retell to each other what happened in the previous chapter. There is not a single attempt to build an effective scene: the whole book looks like a collection of interviews - one long dialogue follows another.

The original trilogy, among other things, was also distinguished by its extreme cruelty: over the course of three novels, Lisbeth managed to pour gasoline on her father, set him on fire and hit him with an axe, spent 381 days in an isolation ward in a psychiatric hospital and nailed her brother to the floor; she was raped, beaten, shot in the head, and once even buried alive; she chased a maniac-killer on a motorcycle, tattooed the word “pig” on the rapist’s chest and single-handedly swept away a crowd of bikers. Larsson's books in this sense are an example of a Scandinavian detective story; injuries and cruelty in them are part of everyday life: in one scene the heroine is having breakfast, and in the next she already has a concussion and a couple of penetrating wounds - and this is normal.

Not Lagercrantz. The new novel has one broken jaw at the beginning, a frail old man killed by an overdose in the middle, and then a vague fuss about a “mysterious secret experiment on orphans,” which is presented without irony and is similar to the plot of a film stolen from Uwe Boll. Lagercrantz simply doesn't have the spirit, the imagination, or the instincts to pull off the heat - and compared to the madness that was going on in the original author's pages, it's just ridiculous.

Larsson, like an Old Testament god, forced his heroes to undergo the most terrible tests - Lagercrantz seems to be afraid of harming them and, if he punishes the character, it’s as if for fun: Lisbeth is always wounded not seriously - so that after twenty minutes she can gallop through the fjords like an antelope and fire a pistol with one hundred percent accuracy. In “The Girl Who Searched for Someone Else’s Shadow” the reader meets Salander in prison - and here it would be possible to thicken the colors and unwind the legal line, force all the heroes to fight for life, but no: Lisbeth leaves prison after two months without a single scratch. And this prison is more like a pleasant Swedish hotel with a garden in the courtyard, a ceramics circle and cheesecakes with lingonberry sauce for lunch. If this continues, then in the third book Lagercrantz will put Lisbeth in a corner and forbid her to watch TV - he is obviously not capable of great cruelty towards the characters.

Writing a sequel to a well-known series is, in principle, a very risky undertaking; the successor, one way or another, must compete with the original source, try to get out of its shadow, and say something of his own. Lagercrantz has no such goal: both of his “Girls” are novels that scream about their secondary nature. Their author does not even try to flirt with the genre and somehow express himself: on the contrary, he is constantly looking for a way to write “like Larsson”, to hide behind him - and even fails in this. The Millennium sequels do not even reach the level of fan fiction: the latter may be awkward and crooked, but at least they are always written with love - for the idol writer, the characters, the atmosphere of the original. Lagercrantz's books are written with a love of money.

Swedish writer Stieg Larsson without exaggeration, he is known throughout the world as the author of the Millennium trilogy about a journalist Michael Blomkvist and the hacker girl Lisbeth Salander. In his native Sweden, he became famous for his research on far-right extremists and neo-Nazis.

Stieg Larsson (Stieg Larsson) was born on August 15, 1954 in Västerbotten, northern Sweden. Stig spent his childhood with his grandfather, his mother's father, in the village, since the family was not rich and could not afford the time to raise their son in the General Welfare Society. The men in the Larsson family have always been distinguished by their willfulness and stubborn character. My grandfather ended up in a concentration camp during World War II for criticizing the Nazi regime; my father was an active participant in the trade union movement. Stig also followed this path and took an active interest in politics, sympathizing with the left.

Stig had a love of reading from early childhood and was an avid library visitor. After graduating from school, I tried to enter the journalism department, but did not pass due to low grades. But as they say, if you are unlucky in learning, you will be lucky in love. That same year, at a rally against the Vietnam War, he met a young, energetic girl Eva Gabrielsson (Eva Gabrielsson), who became his life partner, although they were never officially married. Eva worked as an architect, and Stig managed to get a job at Swedish News Agency in place of a graphics editor.

Stieg Larsson was always interested in the topic of the ultra-right, Nazis and racists, and when in 1995 an acquaintance of his asked for help in financing the newspaper Expo, exposing the activities of the far right, Larsson helped him not only with money, but also as literary black, that is, he wrote drafts of articles on given topics. When Larsson was laid off in 1999, he was immediately appointed editor-in-chief Expo.

The future writer has always been a passionate reader, with a particular emphasis on detective novels and science fiction. He headed the Scandinavian Science Fiction Society for two years, but only took up writing in the late 90s. According to the recollections of his colleagues, he burned his first two novels because he did not like them. By the time the first novel in the series was created Millennium , according to the stories of loved ones, there were sketches of characters in Larsson’s head, which he brilliantly embodied in his popular novels.

Colleagues also say that the idea to write a detective story began as a joke. Larsson was hinted that it would be interesting to write a novel about the aging heroes of a popular French comic book Tintin. The future writer thought about it. However, the work really began to boil when Larsson tried to age the famous Swedish heroine of children's novels Pippi Longstocking in the same way - this is how Lisbeth Salander. From memory Eva Gabrielsson working on the first novels of Millennium began during a joint vacation that they spent together in the Stockholm archipelago.

All three novels were written unusually quickly, taking approximately 9 months of continuous work per novel. And if you consider that each novel was more than 600 pages long, you had to write at least 2.5 pages a day. Larsson was so passionate about writing novels that he spent all his free time on the computer. In April 2004, he signed a publishing contract for the first three books, which were almost completed.

The heirs of his work claim that he wrote about half of the fourth novel, but since the heirs still cannot share the rights to refine or print existing manuscripts, the series Millennium limited to three books.

Popularity of novels Stieg Larsson is so great and unique, and his books are breaking all sales records throughout Europe and America, surpassing even the extremely popular thrillers of Dan Brown. The plot of the first three novels was made into popular films in Sweden, and then David Fincher staged a remake with Daniel Craig And Rooney Mara starring.

About creativity

Mikael Blomkvist

Mikael Blomkvist (Mikael Blomkvist) was born on December 18, 1960 in Borlen. Mikael was late, but not the only child in the family of Kurt and Annika Blomkvist. Both spouses turned thirty-five when their first child was born, and three years later Mikael had a sister, Annika. Kurt often traveled on business trips, as required by his profession as an industrial equipment installer. Annika spent almost all her time at home because she was a housewife.

By the time the youngest Annika was born, the Blomkvist family had moved permanently to Stockholm. Mikael was not much different from his peers. He attended school in Brom and then went to the gymnasium on Kungsholmen. As a youth, he was interested in music and formed the rock band Bootsrap, one of whose songs was even broadcast on the radio in 1979.

Mikael had a cherished dream to visit various exotic countries in order to earn money for the trip; after graduating from high school, he worked as a metro controller. He traveled around Australia, Thailand and India, and after returning he was attracted to the profession of a journalist, but he managed to enroll in university studies only after completing his military service in Lapland.

Currently Mikael Blomkvist works as a professional journalist, which is why he can hardly be called rich.

Like his creator Stieg Larsson, Blomkvist eats disgustingly (only fast food) and abuses coffee, but unlike the author, Blomkvist keeps himself in shape and runs regularly in the morning. He agrees that he is considered apolitical, he is much more attracted to detective stories and modern music.

Women occupy a special place in his life. A special place among them is occupied by Erica Berger, with whom Mikael has maintained a surprisingly good relationship for many years. Blomkvist was married to Monica Abramson, and they had one daughter, Pernilla.

Relationships with Lisbeth Salander awaken paternal feelings in Mikael, which he showed little when he was married and raising his own daughter.

In the case of Blomkvist Stieg Larsson did the same as with Lisbeth. If the main character was the successor of Pippi Longstocking, then Blomkvist became an adult continuation of another famous Swedish hero - Kalle Blomkvist. The story about the young detective was told by the famous Astrid Lindgren, and the obvious connection was suggested by the author, both by the surname itself and by the story when Mikael managed to completely accidentally expose a gang of bank robbers, for which he received the nickname Kalle Blomkvist.

Mikael Blomkvist works as a journalist for Millennium magazine, after which the series was named, symbolizing a new approach to journalism, a new style in professional ethics and civic position. Larsson uses the fictional novel to declare his own principles - independence of the press, even from the police, criticism of any form of power, but criticism must be based on constitutional foundations.

Blomkvist is a talented journalist, but a rather sharp opponent, which is why he is sued in the first book of the trilogy, but he manages to cope thanks to his talent.