Millennium trilogy
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
The Girl Who Played with Fire
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
The 4th book
Millennium Stockholm Map
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Boxed set edition of the Millennium Trilogy, the first volume of which, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, has been adapted as a major Hollywood film starring Daniel Craig to be released on the 26th December.
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Millennium-trilogy
The Millennium-trilogy consist of "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo", "The Girl Who Played With Fire", and "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest".
A well prepared debutant
Stieg Larsson began thinking about writing detective novels back in the early 90's, according to co-worker Anna-Lena Lodenius in an interview with the Swedish newspaper Veckans Affärer. He had always been interested in particularly Anglo-Saxon literature and knew the works of Elizabeth George, Minette Walters and Sara Paretsky very well. He knew what ingredients a good detective story should have, and he even reluctantly decided to spice it up with a bit of sex as it would probably please his readers.
A regrettable refusal
As for his work as a journalist, his preparations for the series were thorough. Before he started writing, he had made a detailed synopsis for ten books. He started writing in 1997, and it was not until he had finished the first two books and had the third one under way that he contacted a publisher in the summer of 2003. His first contact was with publisher Piratförlaget, which refused his script twice, perhaps the biggest mistake in Swedish publishing history. Instead, it was the publisher Nordstedts which got the opportunity to sign him in late 2003. With them, Stieg Larsson signed a contract of three books, an exceptional opportunity for an unpublished writer. The publishing rights were also bought by German and Norwegian publisher before it was even published in Sweden. During 2004 Stieg Larsson made minor adjustments to his two finished books and finished the third. When he died in November 2004, it was only a few months before the first book of the Millennium-series was released to the Swedish audience and became an immediate success.
Pippi Longstocking as a source of inspiration
Kenneth Ahlborn, a former colleague of Stieg's at TT, says in an interview with Veckans Affärer that Stieg got the idea for the character Lisbeth Salander after a discussion during a break from work. They were talking about how different characters from children's books would manage and behave if they were alive and grown up. Stieg especially liked the idea about a grown up Pippi Longstocking, a dysfunctional girl, probably with attention deficit disorder who would have had a hard time finding a regular place in the "normal society", and he used part those characteristics when he created lisbeth Salander.
- "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo"
- "The Girl Who Played With Fire"
- "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest"
Screen versions of the trilogy
It early became clear that the very popular books would be made in screen versions. In 2008 production began in Sweden, and the three books was shot back-to-back into three movies during the following year. The three movies were given the same names as the books. In the Swedish versions, male actor Michael Nyqvist plays Michael Blomkvist, while Noomi Rapace plays Lisbeth Salander.
Meanwhile the books were a major hit all over the world and it did not take long for Hollywood to see the huge potential in the thrilogy. The legal rights for the novels were set between Columbia Pictures, Stieg Larssons brothers and father and Yellow Bird, the production company behind the swedish films. Production was put on a fast track and the the search to fill the roles started.
In the end Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig were casted as leads playing Lisbeth Salander and Michael Blomkvist.
Read more about the films here
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all loose ends, no matter how many they were, are brilliantly tied up in the end.
God, among the best books/series ever!
- beaVilla, 6 June 2013
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simply WOW..
- MirrorJinx, 13 May 2013
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im complety addicted
- LISTBETH, 8 May 2013
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here is a review for you ,the best work i ve ever seen! and as far as the movies of the trilogy "lisbeth sanlander" is owned by noomi rapace and no one can out do her work. she is brillant and all they have to do is put the voices in english and keep the original film period. with noomi s voice because she speaks very well english. and thats the bottom line.
- , 25 April 2013
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Why does its French publication "Les hommes qui n’aiment pas les femmes" feature Wednesday Addams in the cover?
- Viktor, 7 April 2013
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Amazing!
- bar, 20 June 2012
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Blomkvist's and Salander's lives become so intricately intertwined with one's own is exactly why I hesitate to begin the last of the Millennium Triology...once read ...my journey alongside them will be lost forever!!!
- Kat Jurewicz, 16 June 2012
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Casted? As in Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara were cast as leads?
- , 12 June 2012
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A totally rivetting storyline that is so gripping one finds it difficult to put down
- D.R. Clark, 7 June 2012
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Older comments
ALEX by Pierre Lemaitre
‘It enthrals at every stage of its unpredictability. Grippingly original’
- The Times.
Like many great writers (Tolstoy and D. H. Lawrence, for example) Stieg Larsson believed in the female creative principle. Simply put, he liked and respected women, and believed highly in their potential. This is evident when you look at the character of Lisbeth Salander.
A very appealing thing about the Dragon Tatoo trilogy is that you can identify with the main characters, Lisbeth and Michael Blomkvist, regardless of their sex. Both respect what is good (though somewhat vary of things which look too good), and are hardcore anti-establishment figures who fight corruption in their own way.
Comparisons with Silence of the Lambs and its heroine, FBI agent Clarice Starling, are inevitable. As much as I like both the book and the 1991 film, I find it easier to identify with Salander than with Starling because the latter is a police officer, and an FBI agent to boot. I live in the third world, where the police are a byword for corruption and brutality.
Salander hates the police, and Blomkvist is suspicous of them. The trilogy has a team of good cops, and police women of heroic stature, but these are secondary characters. the only fictional policeman I have ever really liked is Martin Cruz Smith's Arkady Renko. I think Renko and Salander would have made a good team.
To turn Salander into computer hacker was a master stroke. It puts the books right here in the new millenium, and into the future. The prose is simple, not stylish like Smith's or Le Carre's. That's not really a shortcoming.
The real poetry is in the characters.
If I could bring back Stieg Larrson back to life by giving away one of my arms (right or left? I hope it will be the left!) I'd do it, but he'll have to write the rest of the series in compensation.
- Sudharshana, 12 July 2013