Episode 8: Stieg Larsson Redux

Enjoy more stories in your language by visiting SPS.com.au Welcome to the final episode of the Noir here, this podcast with me, Johan Gorbrelson. Over the series we have showcased some of the best writers and met the talented people behind the popular TV shows that have made Nordic Noir an international success story. Our final episode is devoted to Sweden and Norway. A bit later we meet Norway's answer to Stig Larsson, but first let me present you with a scenario. Imagine you're a successful writer who one day receives a phone call from a publisher, asking you to take over the writings of a series of books of the Decreator of the first three edition passes away. The Swedish newspaper will call you a traitor, they will be a witch hunt against you. Are you ready for the job? The dead author was Stig Larsson, his Millennium series was one of the biggest successes of the Nordic Noir genre. The books, the girl with a dragon tattoo, the girl who played with fire and the girl who kicked the hornest nest, had caused a sensation around the world, not least for the book's main character, the leather dressed no nonsense Lisbit Salander. The man offered the job of taking over from Lorschen was David Lagerkranz, but before we bring him in, let's first meet one of the most intriguing characters that ever came out of Nordic Noir, Lisbit Salander. This is an excerpt from the girl in the Spylos web, the scene is Salander's empty apartment in the middle of Stockholm. First and foremost, she was on the hunt, and had been ever since she woke up in the light of El Lidon. With her dream of that fist beating rhythmically, relentlessly on a mattress in Ludergarten. The enemies were hiding behind smoke screens, and this could be the reason why Salander had been unusually difficult and awkward of late. It was as if a new darkness emanated from her. Apart from a large, loudmouthed boxing coach caught up in the bends and two or three lovers of both sexes. She saw hardly anyone. More than ever, she looked like trouble, her hair was straggly, her arm. Her eyes threatening, and even though she sometimes made an effort, she had not become any more fluent at small talk. David Logickance was already well-established writer when he got the call to continue Steglossian's Millennium series. His previous book about the mathematician Alan Turing had sold to 15 countries. His book about the football star Slatan Ambromovic was the fastest-selling book in Swedish history. The girl in the Spider's web, his continuation of Lossian's series received consistent positive reviews around the world. But how did he feel that fateful day he received the call from Steglossian's publisher? I think I've felt some sort of a fever, I wrote this book about Slatan Ibrahimovic, which was a huge success in Sweden, and after that, all kinds of people come to me and ask me if I would write this in this book, but maybe I was spoiled, so I sort of just joined, but then they smugged me in the basement at Northwood's publishing house and asked me if I wanted you to write a fourth book in the Millennium series. I couldn't say no, so people have asked me many times, but I didn't hesitate, you know, a second, and then I walked home, you know, thinking about it all the time and woke up before in the morning next day. And it was never a hesitation. You must have been aware that when that new spread was going to be a lot of discussions. Yeah, but maybe I was just stupid in the beginning because I just had a few doubts about the book. And of course, after a while, I understood that this could create an uproar, and then I felt fear, I think, for a while, but I think it was a good fear because that fear made me write better because I understood that I had to. I'm curious, how did you go about it, David? I had his three books, I read them over and over, and, you know, and taking notes and thinking about the characters, and when I sort of had them in my veins, you know, I had to start to figure out a good story, because St. Larsen was the master of this complex intrigue, so I understand they had good stories, I was thinking about that day and night, and then I started, and of course I had a lot of problems, you know, even though I thought I understood Lisbet Salander, I didn't have the code to write her, I had to struggle, you know, to find her, to make her come alive. How did you find her? I think I find her, you know, in the beginning I put too much emotion in her, but she isn't a girl who is suited with too much, you know, since I understood I had to find the right themes for her when she's sort of the underdog, striking back, but I think that was the magic moment when I found that the Lisbet Salander scene and drama. Was there any particular scene or any particular characteristic that you thought that maybe this is also taking her into the future, into the fourth book? I mean, I understand from the beginning, you know, that I had to develop her, I mean, like all icons, you know, out, mystical characters, they had to develop, so I had to be trustful to his universe, but I had to put something in it myself, and I understand that I had to answer questions about her, that we didn't know, for example, why is she such a great hacker? Why does she have to handle wasp, and now in this fifth book I answered a question why she has to drag into two hundred backs, so I sort of thought the best way to deepen her character, deepen her myth was to go back and dig even more in her horrible childhood. How close were you, if ever, with your hand on the phone calling the publisher and saying, "No, I can't do it." Enough now is never it, no, it wasn't an option, it wasn't an option, you know. I had my crisis, of course, as I think you should have us a writer, because if you don't have them, I mean, you don't have the real motivation, so I have my downs, but most of the time I wasn't a sort of a maniac state, because I know this was important, but you know, it was hard, of course, because I'm sensitive, so it was hard when there was such an uproar in Sweden, because when the book was released, you know, we had a war in Syria, we had, you know, big political news, but I was top of the news all over, you know, it was an absolutely crazy situation, I was, I saw my face, you know, all over, this bloody, you know, broadsheets and everything, so it was quite tough, it was, but have you experienced anything like that before? No, no, never, never, I don't think any writer actually experienced something like that. I mean, normally you write a book and you find yourself at a cultural page or something, but my book were, you know, all over the news, so that was hard, but a great thing was, you know, there was such an uproar, but then it was shifted, the first reviews in Sweden said that this was probably the worst book written ever, you know, because they had sort of blood, you know, they were longing for blood, but then there were reviews coming in from the Guardian, your Times, Le Mans, you know, all over the world, that was great, and so suddenly and slowly it shifted and that was, of course, a great relief. How many books do you see in the future, though, with Blunt Kuska? Yeah, one more, yeah, there's publishing now because it's been such a success that they, you know, they beg me to write five or ten or whatever, but I've said many times that I will just make a right tree, and then I will do something even more crazy, maybe. I had to go, I mean, I had to move on, that's important for my righty shit, because I respect many, you know, thriller authors that year after year write the same book, but I couldn't do that because then I, you know, would, you know, lose my energy, so I will write one more and then it's finished. The writer David Logichranz. Norway's Tomas Enge has often been compared to Stiglossom. Danish newspaper Christy.org blog described English book as "Filled with a language that sparkles and produces strong images with a pace that will take your breath away". But it hasn't been an easy ride for Thomas Enger, it took years for him to be published. But his first book, "Burn" caused a literal sensation in Norway and was the beginning of a series featuring the journalist Henning Jung as the central character. Here, we get to visit Henning Jung's "San-like" apartment. He lets himself into the flat after climbing three long flights of stairs, where the dust floats about the ingrained dirt in the woodwork. An appropriate transition to his home, he lives in a dump. He prefers it that way. He doesn't think that he deserves a large hallway, closets the size of shopping centers. A kitchen whose cupboards and drawers looks like a freshly-watered ice rink, serve cleaning white goods, delicate floors, inviting you to slow dance, walls covered with classics and reference books. No does he deserve a designer clock, a lily-a-block candle holder from George Jensen, or a bedspread made from the fourth skin of hummingbirds. All he needs is a single mattress, a fridge, and somewhere to sit down when the darkness creeps in, because it inevitably does. After speaking with so many writers of Scandinavian crime, I began to wonder if they are a special kind. Without exemption, they have all been the most accessible, polite, and patient lot. Our crime writers, a special breed, Tuma Sanger. "Oh yes, absolutely. I mean, I have a lot of crime writer friends. We are very nice to each other, and that is actually quite rare when it comes to writers. At least in the other genres, there is a lot more rivalry going on in those genres for some reason, but crime writers in Norway and in Scandinavia and in other parts of the world where I travel to talk about books, I just meet very nice people. They know how difficult this is, and I guess that's kind of what bonds us together. Norway is, of course, a very beautiful country, it's a rich country, but at the same time, there is evil taking place in Norway as well. So underneath this beautiful facade, people still find reasons to be mean to each other, that is the source of creativity for us, I think. You said that this genre is hard. What do you mean? Well, I think that writing crime fiction nowadays is extremely difficult because people have become very used to reading crime fiction or watching crime fiction TV series, for instance, though there is a certain expectancy that every time you publish into a book or you write a new TV series, it has to be really, really good. It has to have a plot that no one has heard of before or this twist that just comes out of the blue one and just knocks you over the head, and it has to have characters as well that the audience haven't seen before or read about before. So that, of course, raises the bar every time for us authors that we have to come up with something that's really original. I want to ask you a question that Lola ran to skip. How do you get your ideas for your books? Yeah, that is a common question, and it's a very hard one to answer actually because I don't know, and that is the truth. I have absolutely no idea where my ideas come from, they just pop up in my head for some reason. I wish I could say something profound about this, but I really can't, they just appear out of nowhere. But I think for me, the trick to be susceptible for ideas like that is just to be consciously looking for new ideas all the time. I'm always watching people talk, how they move, where they go, and I kind of just store that knowledge in my head for later use. It could be a scene in a book sometime in the future, or it could spark something, but I'm sleeping or whatever. It really is a magical thing that ideas, it just pop up out of nowhere. I don't know. I don't know where. Yeah. I don't know where. You said that in the Norwegian society, it's a rich society, there's plenty of money, but there's a dark side to it. Is that dark side something that you possibly could get inspiration from? A lot of this has to do with the climate, actually, the fact that we have very long and hard winters, sometimes we don't even get to see the light for a month at a time, especially up in the north. And of course that affects people, it makes them introvert somehow, they don't want to go out. And if you stay inside for a very long time, something happens to your mindset, I think. Then it's also in human nature not to be happy all the time. Even the wealthiest people, people who win the lottery, for instance, and all of a sudden they become very rich. For some reason, it only lasts for about 30 days or something. And then they start to feel unhappy again for some reason. So yeah, there is a darkness, I think, to almost any society. Is writer like actors, like do you take in your mind your character, handing you, and you become him, and you write about society through the eyes of this character that you created? I definitely try to sympathize or empathize with every character I write. I try to picture what it's like to be, be handing you, I try to picture what it's like to be a killer or a politician, you certainly have to dive into different kinds of personalities. And that's one of the things that I really love about this job, it's very fascinating to learn stuff about all kinds of characters and give them backgrounds and try to understand where they come from. But I wrote my first book in the handing you a series, it didn't really involve that much research because I was writing about a character that was quite close to me, it was a journalist, he lived in Oslo, he lived in the exact same newspaper that I worked in, and he walked the street that I walked and even shared a few interests that I have. So I based my main character quite a lot of my own life quite soon, I realized that I had to find out about the other characters that were around him. For instance, he has a sister who's a secretary of justice, and I had no idea what it's like to be a female politician in Norway. So I went and asked one, and like I said, that's one of the very rewarding things about this profession is that I get to do stuff like that, I get to learn a lot about society and about all kinds of professions, but sometimes there are also topics that I need to research a lot. For instance, in Bernd, the first bubble, there is a young woman who has been murdered in what appears to be a sharia killing, and at that time I really didn't know that much about sharia or Islam for that matter, so I spent a lot of time just trying to figure out the mindset of those who want a sharia law to apply to the Norwegian society. You asked a female politician how it is to be a politician or a female politician. What did she say? She certainly said that it's a lot more difficult to be a female politician than it is to be a male politician, because for some reason the expectations are different. There is a lot more sexism going on, sometimes a very subtle sexism that you have to have tough skin when you are a female politician, because people, whether they are other politicians or just the ordinary guy on the street, will find a way to use your appearance against you, for instance, if you are a female politician, then male politicians almost never get that. And that's then got in your book. Yeah, absolutely. But Thomas, when you spoke to your first book, did you feel I got to do something different from this long line on the Norwegian crime writers that have come before me? I'm not sure if I was conscious that I wanted to go in a different direction. I just wanted to write a story that I would love to read myself. So when I got this idea for the Henning Eul character, I just knew that the idea was very good. And I spent about six months trying to figure out what I wanted to tell about this character before I actually started writing. And those six months, I think, was one of the best decisions I've ever made, because I made all these plans and I really knew what I wanted to tell when I first sat down and started writing. And I also made contact with some publishers in Norway before I wrote anything about Henning Eul. And I told them about this. Is this something that you might be interested in? And very soon, they invited me to a meeting and I told them more about this character and these stories that I've planned and they just loved it. What was it that made them, do you think, say, yes, we interested? The main reason for that is the main character. Henning Eul, he is a very strong character. I mean, he has lost his son into the Mastic Fire, and he wasn't able to save his own son. And of course, he's very traumatized by that, if he has a lot of guilt. But he decides to go back to work as a journalist because he wants to figure out who has set fire to his apartment. And that motivation, that driver, I think, is something that the readers really respond to. We heard the author Thomas Enger. Thanks for listening to our new idea of this podcast series. The series was written and produced by me, Johan Gabrielson. Tactical production Vlad Lachman, Kamila Hannaan, read from David Logikran's book "The Girl in the Spider's Web" Alex Shadowvitch read from Tuma's English book "Burned" If you like what you heard, tell your friends and rate us on iTunes. If you missed any earlier episodes of Luar here this, they all up there online on your favorite podcast app. Ready when you are. Goodbye. Bond is the home of Nordic Noir Down Under. 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