| Critic's view: Stieg Larsson was a very Swedish global phenomenon Larsson took a genre which has generally sold to men β thrillers turning on technology and conspiracies β and feminised itOn a French beach this summer, almost every sunbather regardless of nationality was reading one of Stieg Larsson's three novels in one of their numerous translations.This phenomenon is improbable, given the project's many obstacles. The author died before the first book even went through the editorial process and, in most such cases, readers are left with a tantalising sense of the polish further drafts might have provided. And, while Swedish crime fiction already had a high reputation β through the Wallander novels of Henning Mankell β Larsson has achieved a global level of acclaim and sales which is very unusual for a story that is not originally written in English.My theory for the phenomenon is that Larsson took a genre which has generally sold to men β thrillers turning on technology and conspiracies β and feminised it through a highly unusual central character: Lisbeth Salander, who combines the brain of Sherlock Holmes with the martial arts skills of Lara Croft. It's also likely that the history of Sweden β where an experiment in liberal government was compromised by violence and corruption β resonates with readers in other countries. And the author's sudden death β although family and fans accept that he was killed by smoking rather than a smoking gun β adds to the sense that the novels contain urgent and dangerous truths.And yet perhaps the books' triumph should not have been so great a surprise. It is an oddity of Swedish culture that a country often easily ignored suddenly throws up an example in a certain field β Abba, Bjorn Borg, Volvo β which proves to be a world-beater. Larsson is the latest example.The sadness is that the question which always underlies a reader's relationship with a favoured author β what will they write next? β cannot apply here, although suggestions that Larsson's laptop may have contained outlines and notes for many more books are one possible reason why his estate has been so bitterly contested.Stieg LarssonSwedenMark Lawsonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Cellphone Apps Challenge the Rise of E-Readers Some readers prefer the convenience of small-screen smartphones to e-readers. feeds.nytimes.com |
Holiday Books: Fake News This spinoff from The Onion captures the trajectory of fake news from gag to serious critique. feeds.nytimes.com |
Little nuggets On the shortest day of the year, with scant shopping hours left to Christmas, the comedian recommends books that won't detain you longTim Key is a 33-year-old who works in the broad arenas of poetry, comedy, general, film and bookwriting. His first book sold out almost immediately (small print-run) and led to him becoming the resident poet on BBC4's Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe (ever so cool). He also became resident poet on Mark Watson's radio show (Radio 4) and had his poetry published in Vice magazine (niche) and Reader's Digest (different niche). He then went back to the cafΓ© and wrote a second, altogether less coherent book. Instructions, Guidelines, Tutelage, Suggestions, Other Suggestions and Examples etc concerns descriptions of photographs and maps, and the possibilities that may be contained in a fiddler's noggin.Β This year Key has co-penned and starred in Cowards and We Need Answers (both BBC4) and a Christmas Special of his much-loved Radio 4 comedy drama All Bar Luke. Key is a mess. Buy Tim Key books at the Guardian bookshop "A list of books which should be easily accessible around the house, to pick up, poke your beak into for a couple of minutes, and put down again."Β 1. Incidences by Daniil KharmsDaniil Kharms was a Russian loon who scribbled in the 1930s. His material is dark and loopy in equal measure, full of repeated actions and plenty of death. It's troubling β there's a strong impression the guy had a number of screws extremely loose β but it is also compelling and hilarious. The Tale of the Plummeting Women is an obvious highlight.2. Anthropology by Dan RhodesRhodes writes short stories which are 101 words long. He writes 101 of them. Every single one is beautiful, funny and impressive in equal measure. The pieces in Anthropology are all about flawed relationships; all flawed in eccentric and delicious ways.3. 100 Facts About Pandas by David O'Doherty, Claudia O'Doherty and Mike AhernEveryone loves a panda fact. This cheeky little hardback exploits this; plonking 100 of them next to each other β all spurious; all beautifully illustrated; all funny. Panda Fact 24 claims that panda milk is deadly to any animal other than the panda. So it's a useful book, too.4. Elephant by Raymond CarverJust short stories. But the best short stories ever written. Carver's a master of the genre. Carver writes with incredible economy. Nothing much happens. And yet we watch the character's lives change irreparably before our eyes. American, too, so he uses phrases like "he fed it some gas". Nice.5. Schott's Miscellany by Ben SchottBit of an obvious one. It's Schott's Miscellany, innit. Everyone got one for Christmas in 2005. But it is, still, essential to have round the house. Google's only realistic competitor these days, it's important not to allow our attitude to Schott to be destroyed by all these other books with similar covers but about the minutiae of, say, food or Harry Potter.6. The Overcoat by Nikolai GogolAnother spot of Russian. Russian short stories are mental and Gogol wrote some real humdingers. This is the saddest and my favourite. About a titular clerk (obviously) who saves up his money to get a new overcoat and turn his life around. It goes quite well for him for a bit. But then Gogol leaves us all devastated.7. This Book Will Change Your Life by BenrikClever lunatic combo Benrik stick the best bits of This Diary Will Change Your Life together to create a big thick selection of things to do. Watching Someone Sleep is one of them, as is Freelance as a Traffic Warden. So there's an argument for enjoying the bitesize entries rather than using it as a basis for sweeping lifestyle changes.8. Facts and Fancies by Armando IannucciIannucci's brain is clearly as big as a fridge so he is capable of making eye-popping televisual satire and feature films. But you can't put a feature film in your bog so this book plugs a gap. Iannucci lets his hair down and has a lot of fun with the English language as he gets his head round things like queues and noise.9. The Timewaster Letters by Robin CooperDeranged, misguided Cooper writes speculative letters to people with far less time on their hands than himself. Often they are provoked into using some of this time to reply to Cooper. Cooper then writes back himself. And so it goes on. Cooper's an astonishing, dreadful man and his targets are imaginatively picked. Sometimes you feel for the poor man who's wasted an hour writing back but only between volleys of cruel laughter.10. The Meaning of Liff by Douglas Adams and John LloydThis was always on my old man's desk. A real dip-in-and-out-of classic. Adams and Lloyd have found some funny place names. Adams and Lloyd have assigned some funny definitions. Adams and Lloyd have evidently had a lot of fun. A warm, very English book.Best booksFictionComedyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Edmund White and the literary lottery Edmund White's new memoir infectiously remembers the sudden feuds that fired up the New York literary universe and the self-proclaimed geniuses who stalked itOne of the many incidental pleasures of City Boy, the latest slice of memoir from the irrepressible Edmund White, laureate of gay New York in the 1960s and 70s, is White's wickedly infectious pleasure in the absurdities of literary life and its many vicissitudes.So Vladimir Nabokov puffs White's first, quite experimental, novel, Forgetting Elena, and White thrills to the sudden attention this generous act of patronage provokes. Then he discovers that Nabokov is only being polite to a visiting American journalist. He hasn't actually read Forgetting Elena, but he happens to like White, a witty and engaging character with whom he has exchanged some long phone conversations (and that's another story). Susan Sontag likes our Ed, too, and uses her considerable influence to promote his literary career. But then he puts her in his novel Caracole β affectionately, he believes β and there's a massive row, with wild accusations of betrayal and bad faith. Years later, with Sontag now terminally ill, they meet again by chance in a New York restaurant. Sontag affects to be indifferent to their "silly little feud". Yet the next time they meet, in a less convivial setting, the old froideur is back, leaving White puzzled and confused. He wants to like everyone, he says, and cannot grasp that his amusing little treacheries are not appreciated by his victims. Why he should be drawn to these hurtful betrayals, he says, a lifetime of therapy has not yet managed to explain.No one writes better about the roller coaster of literary life (who's in, who's out) than White, and City Boy, which is like a long footnote to his coming-of-age classic A Boy's Own Story, paints an extraordinarily vivid (and, to my eyes, accurate) picture of New York in its death-rattle years (1973-79). At the same time, his account contains, for insiders, some delicious gossip, and some bittersweet recollections.One of the finest, and most poignant, passages about the vagaries of literary fame concerns a writer that almost no one will now remember: the New Yorker writer Harold Brodkey. For a generation, by means of brilliant self-promotion, the advocacy of some powerful local editors and sheer will, Brodkey contrived to present (dare I say, market) himself as an unrecognised genius at work on an unfinished masterpiece β a kind of Manhattan Proust. Tantalising extracts of his magnum opus would appear as short stories in the New Yorker and, whenever there was a new Brodkey extract, everyone would nod wisely and declare that here β yes, indeed! β was something out of the ordinary; something that, in the fullness of time, would reshape the course of American letters. I well remember how the contract for this unpublished work of genius was traded among the major US publishers like a down-payment on an automatic rendezvous with posterity. According to White, Robert ("Bob") Gottlieb was persuaded to put down $1m for the rights, sight unseen. (From what I know of Gottlieb, a shrewd operator with excellent judgment and a sharp eye for phonies, this is unlikely, but let that passβ¦) When Brodkey's great novel, The Runaway Soul, was finally published on both sides of the Atlantic by credulous publishers who had fallen for the hype, it was swiftly exposed for what it was: an over-inflated dud. Brodkey himself died of Aids a year or two later, leaving an account of his last years (This Wild Darkness) that far surpassed anything he had written as a "great novelist". Today, he remains a curious footnote to a time when serious new fiction was the hottest literary genre in town, and anyone who could convince the opinion formers that they were the master of this elusive art would be golden.Every generation has its Brodkey. Who now reads Charles Morgan from the 1930s, or George Meredith from the late Victorian years? There must, no doubt, be other examples of writers whose advance reputation is not sustained by the work itself, or by the judgment of posterity β just as there are many books that find their true niche in the posthumous career of their author. Such is the lottery of the life literary, something Ed White understands, and celebrates in City Boy.Robert McCrumguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |