Stieg Larsson, My Friend - Kurdo Baksi [42]
Many readers of Stieg’s books wonder how much of himself is in the character of Mikael Blomkvist. There are some obvious similarities, of course. They are both journalists and work on magazines critical of contemporary society – even if I imagine that Stieg would have liked to be as good an investigative journalist as his main character.
Apart from that I don’t think there are many similarities. I think Stieg had much more in common with Lisbeth Salander, not least their lack of confidence in so-called authorities. And they both had a reluctance to talk about the past. Both of them preferred not to discuss their childhoods. Moreover, they seem to have had similarly bad eating habits. But it has to be said that Mikael Blomkvist didn’t appear to be all that interested in cooking either.
In this book I have been quite critical of Stieg as a journalist and reporter. But his weaknesses in that respect were more than made up for by his phenomenal ability to do research. In a way one could say that Lisbeth is Stieg as a researcher, albeit supercharged. She is cleverer and faster than he was – but after all, everything is easier in fiction than in real life.
It is hardly surprising that Stieg made Lisbeth a chain-smoker. It is not difficult to work out where that vice came from. The same applies to her as a drinker of awful coffee.
The Stockholm locations are pretty much accurate – the fact that “Millennium Walks” through the Söder district have been a big hit confirms this.
So it is possible to find reflections of Stieg’s everyday life in the novels. In a masterly way he depicted the things about which he was an authority. I think that what makes his books unique is the way in which he portrayed the violent exploitation of women and the forces at work behind that. Readers are aware that these stories are being told by somebody who knew what he was talking about.
Needless to say, there were others who served as models for characters in the books apart from himself. A lot of authors write about how their characters are amalgamations of friends and acquaintances. That is no doubt true in Stieg’s case as well. I would go so far as to say that a few of the Expo staff are clearly recognizable in the books. And of course, it is only reasonable that a large number of the characters and the inspiration behind the books come from the history and environment of Expo. To give a few examples: one of Expo’s first members of staff was a well-known, highly competent researcher and computer wizard; a very important person in the history of Expo was Jenny, who most probably inspired Lisbeth Salander’s appearance, clothes and tattoos; and Mikael Blomkvist’s endless philandering is very reminiscent of somebody – who happened also to be called Michael – who worked on Expo in the early days.
The fact that I am named and feature in The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest was due to the fact that I was a friend who happened to have been born in Kurdistan. Stieg the internationalist had a warm regard for and interest in the world’s forty million stateless Kurds. As soon as he had an opportunity to do so, he called attention to Saddam Hussein’s oppression of the Kurds. Many Kurds had great respect for Stieg, thanks to his participation in their long struggle for human rights in Iran, Turkey and Syria.
The important role played by Grenada in The Girl Who Played with Fire has to do with Stieg’s long-standing and active interest in the little island in the West Indies. It is hardly a coincidence that Lisbeth Salander happens to go there on holiday. In real life Stieg visited the Marxist lawyer and prime minister Maurice Bishop several times. Stieg was also an important member of the Grenada Committee and was associated with its journal in Stockholm. Only a month or so before he died, he and I had dinner at the home of one of his friends from that country. Stieg was delighted to find that nearly all the committee were present.
“Bishop was the Caribbean Che Guevara. He was a friend of mine,” Stieg once told me over a glass of whisky.