Wednesday, 1 September 2010

Heavy Larsson

I'm no fan of the mysteriously popular Stieg Larsson. Prose with the grace of a software manual, endless pointless detail, a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too approach to sexual violence against women where rape is tut-tutted over after being described in lavish and drooling detail, and a classic male Mary Sue hero are just some of his books' many problems. But if you were a Larsson fan, you could so a lot worse than get hold of this upcoming and rather lovely Knopf boxed set of his trilogy, designed by Peter Mendelsund (from whose blog most of these pictures were stolen).



I'm also intrigued by these slightly peculiar Spanish (heroine as doll) and French (heroine as sexy Wednesday Addams) versions (the final image being the French boxed set).


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9 comments:

  1. Bob Fingerman1 September 2010 at 16:26

    I'm not going to judge the books without having read them, but they hold little to no interest for me. Everything I've heard makes me say, "Life is too short to waste any of it on these." My dad tells me each book climaxes and concludes about one hundred pages before it actually ends, like Larsson didn't know when to stop.

    The slipcased one is very attractive, but those French covers are really bizarre, especially the Wednesday Addams one.

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  2. JRSM1 September 2010 at 17:06

    That's the thing--they're bad AND huge! The worst possible combination.

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  3. Leslie @ This is the Refrain1 September 2010 at 18:58

    The titles are different, too. "Men Who Don't Love Women", "The Girl Who Dreams with a Match and a gallon of Gasoline", "The Queen in the Palace of Air Drafts?" That last one is really awkward, it sounds much better in Spanish. I haven't read these, but haven't had much interest in them for the reasons you state.

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  4. Renée T. Habashy2 September 2010 at 08:57

    This blog is so entertaining. I actually love the first set of covers- very minimalist. The other ones are bizarre, though.

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  5. Martin W2 September 2010 at 14:01

    I decided to try out the first one using my free introductory audiobook offer. Imagine not being able to skip the bits about electronics or European industrial subsidies.

    You might enjoy Nora Ephron's Larsson parody.

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  6. JRSM2 September 2010 at 15:23

    Thanks, Renee. And Martin, that parody is great!

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  7. Unknown2 September 2010 at 20:01

    I wouldn't say their popularity is mysterious. They're better than Dan Brown (not saying much I know) and I'm sure he's sold more :)

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  8. Inés Jankowski,5 September 2010 at 11:39

    Aaaah thank you! I have read the first and part of the second book, (I'm a compulsive reader) and have that impression too. Is a mistery for me the great success of this books, full of common topics, with artificial and forced characters, and whit a "well-thinking" message barely hidden over a appareance of roughness...

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  9. JRSM5 September 2010 at 16:54

    Alex: I guess that's true, and I'd rather Larsson than Brown myself, but still... there's so much good stuff people don't read, and these clunkers take off?

    Ines, glad you agree!

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