Millennium in Stieg Larsson’s own words
Thursday, January 21st, 2010
Welcome to my page featuring selected excerpts of a mail correspondance between Stieg Larsson and his editors at Nordstedts Forlag [Nordstedt Publishing] about the Millennium trilogy! The quotes have been translated by Chris Marcus from Swedish to English. The full correspondance can be found on www.stieglarsson.se (in Swedish only, though).
Since this website is now on infinte hiatus I do hope someone else will take over this work!
E.g. if anyone proficient in Scandinavian languages would like to help out, just by translating one or two excerpts that you think is interesting, please contact me at chris_at_sallysfriends.net.
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Okay, let’s begin ...
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Stieg Larsson about
“- Some people who appear in the book have to be briefed. First and foremost 
this regards Paolo Roberto, who plays a certain part in book two. I have never met Paolo, but he works at Strix Television now, and both Robban and Mikael Ekman of Expo have already teased him about having to enlist the help of a girl in order to survive in a fight. He knows what’s going on and should not be too difficult to persuade. My thought when I made him part of the action was that the first book should be out before I approached him; but unfortunately I found myself writing it all so fast that you already have [three] scripts before I could talk to him.”
this regards Paolo Roberto, who plays a certain part in book two. I have never met Paolo, but he works at Strix Television now, and both Robban and Mikael Ekman of Expo have already teased him about having to enlist the help of a girl in order to survive in a fight. He knows what’s going on and should not be too difficult to persuade. My thought when I made him part of the action was that the first book should be out before I approached him; but unfortunately I found myself writing it all so fast that you already have [three] scripts before I could talk to him.”Original quote in Swedish: “- Sen måste några personer som förekommer i boken vidtalas. Den det främst gäller är förstås Paolo Roberto, som ju spelar en viss roll i bok två. Jag har aldrig träffat Paolo, men han jobbar på Strix television numera och både Robban och Mikael Ekman på Expo har redan trakasserat honom för att han måste ta hjälp av en tjej för att klara sig i slagsmål. Han vet alltså vad som är på gång och torde inte vara alltför svår att övertala. Min tanke då jag skrev in honom i handlingen var att bok ett redan skulle ligga ute innan jag började prata med honom; sen skrev jag dessvärre så snabbt att ni redan fått manus innan jag hunnit prata med honom.”
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- from a mail by Stieg Larsson to Eva Gedin, 28 April 2004
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Chris’ comments: Boy, what an understatement – that he was writing ‘so fast he didn’t have time to contact Paolo’. This explanation sounds a bit far-fetched. I think Larsson really wanted to make sure Paolo – or anyone else – wouldn’t say no, by handing in as much work as possible before asking for permission to have Paolo in book two. However, he probably didn’t even have that as his primary motivation. From the scattered biographical information available on the web we do know that Larsson was a workaholic, working at Expo during the day to document right wing extremism and going home to the couch in his and Eva’s small apartment to write about Salander and Blomkvist during the nights – and presumably consuming half of Stockholm’s supply of coffee in the process and, unfortunately, quite a few packages cigarettes as well.
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Click the numbers below to read more of Larsson’s own opinions about Millennium!
