Mini Book Review: The Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson, Translated by Reg Keeland
Well, first order of business:
I haven't died since my last post.
In August.
Of last year.
Nor was I raptured in October. Harold Camping was wrong again.
I have, however, been a victim of a busy schedule and probably some degree of overall burnout.
Anyway, new year - new goals, which include more writing, less me (and possibly a new bike...), and a few other things that are long overdue.
Let's start with the first.
For Christmas, I found myself the owner of a new Kindle Fire. I fully accept that the Fire is, out of the box, basically an Amazon Vending Machine. I'm good with that. It's got potential, and I like the form factor better than the iPad.
I'd gotten my mom the DVDs of the Swedish versions of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl who Played with Fire, and The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. I'd watched them last year, and Mom had been reading the books, so we ended up more or less swapping. (NB - I haven't seen the new American version of the first film, so any comparisons I make between the books and the films will refer to the Swedish productions.)
What I'd like to do here is capture some of my thoughts on the series without spoiling too many important plot points. Thus this won't be a full-on review but rather some loosely connected thoughts and observations. Bear with me while I try to re-engage the writing cogs.
I suspect that most people are familiar with the basic outline of the books - Swedish investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist finds himself drawn into an increasingly complex web of conspiracies when he's asked to help investigate a decades-old mystery and makes the acquaintance of hacker Lisbeth Salander and her aforementioned tattoo.
The first thing to note is that the original Swedish title of the book - Män som hatar kvinno - translates as Men Who Hate Women. That proves to be the thread that ties the entire series together, and indeed the thread that has defined most of Salander's life.
(Larsson witnessed a rape when he was young, and never forgave himself for failing to help the victim. The theme of the trilogy is derived from that event.)
In telling Salander's story of victimization - initially at the hands of her father and later at the hands of nearly every authority figure she encounters - Larsson also addresses issues of gender inequality in the workplace, in government, and in the perceptions of the population as a whole.
Lisbeth's brilliant intellect and single-minded thirst for revenge is set against her tiny, doll-like physique. Her refusal to conform to social norms is used in the second and third books to attack her in the press and in the courtroom.1
Annika, Blomkvist's sister (later Salander's lawyer) draws on similarities between her youthful behavior and Lisbeth's to point out the double standards at work. Erika Berger, Blomkvist's married lover (and a very shrewd businesswoman) finds herself under attack because of her sexual habits. Female police inspectors in the story are looked down on by their male counterparts.
An interesting thing to notice is that Blomkvist (in the books - they leave out most of this in the movies) is portrayed as quite the player. During the course of the books, Blomkvist carries on extended affairs with:
- Erika Berger - his married lover who he has been with off and on for 20 year or so.
- Cecilia Vanger - a woman who he investigates in connection with a decades-old possible murder.
- Lisbeth Salander - who seduces him during the investigation of the Vanger case, and with whom he has a fairly lengthy relationship.
- Harriet Vanger - Cecilia's long-lost cousin.
- Monica Figuerola - a special police investigator helping to work out the conspiracy surrounding Salander's father.
I'm not sure if Blomkvist is written this way in order to serve as an example within the story of a man who can relate to women as equals, or if he's written as a typical Swedish male and I'm simply trying to view Swedish attitudes about sex through an American lens, or if there's something else going on. The end result is that Blomkvist is clearly not a white-hat good guy, but is instead somewhat ethically suspect. Ordinarily, I tend to like characters with some moral ambiguity, since it makes them more interesting, but I've got an issue with this sort of thing.2
There are a few other interesting characters spread across the books. One of the most interesting, in my opinion, is Alexander Zalachenko. Zalachenko, a Russian assassin who defects to Sweden in the 1970's, is Lisbeth's father. The Swedish authorities recognize the value of the information Zalachenko can provide, and consequently give him a long leash, turning a blind eye to his violent habits and criminal endeavors. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Zalachenko's value diminishes, but it's far too late to rein him in. His activities form the nucleus of the conspiracies against Salander, but it's clear that the Swedish authorities who cleaned up after him and failed to control him are at least as culpable as he is. What makes him interesting is that he's not just evil for the sake of being evil. His actions seem consistent within the limits of his own self-interest. He's aware enough to manipulate others into doing what he needs to be done, he thinks through the consequences of his actions, and he needs a motivation to do things beyond simply causing problems for a hero to solve.3
Overall, I enjoyed the books. Having already seen the movies, I knew generally what to expect, but there was enough new and expanded material to keep me interested, especially the more detailed insight into Lisbeth's character. The nuggets of Swedish political history that are sprinkled through the books give them some grounding in actual events, which is a nice touch. Parts can be difficult to read - the assault on Salander in the first book, and some of the graphic descriptions of crimes throughout leave little to the imagination - but such scenes are important to advancing the plot.
As a set of interconnected mysteries, the books work very well, and I highly recommend them on the strength of that alone. If you happen to find topics of social justice and the treatment of women in different layers of society are more your thing, you'll find a good helping of those in here, too.
-Jay
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1In some ways reminiscent of the way women like Monica Lewinsky and Casey Anthony have been portrayed in the media. Guilt or innocence often seems secondary to digging up lurid personal details.
2I suppose it's worth mentioning that all of Blomkvist's liasons are consensual, and none of his partners have an expectation of long-term monogamy. Nevertheless, his characterization reminds me a bit too much of people who I know who think with their penises.
3Writing convincing villains is hard. Too often you end up with a 2-dimensional character that exists solely for the purpose of doing bad things. Like Darth Vader. He was nothing but a glorified errand boy. When George Lucas tried to give Vader some depth in the prequel trilogy, all he really succeeded in doing was establishing that Vader was a whiny, arrogant errand boy. Or consider the typical characterization of the devil, who seems to turn up for no reason other than to function as an agent of evil. That's a topic for another day.
Montreal Police Finally Investigating David Mabus (UPDATE)
(UPDATE)Montreal police have arrested Dennis Markuze.
So it looks like the Montreal authorities are finally taking Dennis Markuze, AKA David Mabus, seriously enough to act. (Thanks, Greg Laden.)
Markuze has spent the last several years spamming the inboxes and comment threads of various and sundry scientists and bloggers. He tends to target skeptical, scientific, and atheist folks, although he's not above assuming guilt by association and firing off some of his well-written and insightful prose verbal effluvia to anyone he finds interacting with his usual targets.
A typical Mabus missive might contain death threats, links to sites he thinks are somehow relevant, healthy doses of vulgarity and profanity, and possibly some random sprinkles of batshit crazy raving. He generally confines himself to cyber-threats, but on at least one occasion he's turned up at a skeptical conference in person. There's quite a bit of concern that he might eventually act on one of his threats.
One of his more >ahem< interesting threats was that he was going to crawl out of the TV and kill my associate Skippy, rather like the evil ghost girl from Ringu.
I'd have paid good coin to see David Mabus crawl out of a TV...
As it is, that didn't happen.
Mabus is often characterized as a crazy extreme Christian, but I think it's probably more accurate to say that he's a guy with some serious issues who happens to be a Christian.
I hope that the authorities in Montreal are able to build a solid case against DM. He clearly needs some help before he harms someone. There should be no shortage of evidence against him, as many folks have forwarded his messages to the police. (ObDisclosure - my comment and email filters don't let much of his material through. I kept a couple of emails for a while, but deleted them a while ago.)
I'm sure there will be more news to follow as the folks up north conduct their investigation.
-Jay
Liveblogging The Rapture
So the Rapture is supposed to happen today.
Personally, I don't believe that bit of theo-prophecy, but since I could be wrong, I'm going to keep an eye on things today, and post periodic updates.
0700 - Woke up. Not surprising. Checked news out of Australia, since it's already 2100 in Sydney. No reports of anything unusual. Harold Camping's website is taking too long to respond, so Firefox craps out.
0800 - Still here. News media still hasn't reported anything interesting. Maybe they're keeping things quiet to head off a panic. Wondering whether I should bother cutting the grass this evening. Camping's website still fails to load. Probably because a bunch of other skeptical yahoos got up before I did and are overloading their servers. Getting ready to run some errands.
0808 - Heard a loud thump upstairs. Just the cat jumping off the bathroom counter. Whew!
0900 - Dropped the elder child off at school for an activity. The doors we were told would be open were locked, causing momentary concern. Turns out we needed to go to the other side of the building.
1005 - Camping's site still won't load. I wonder if he's checking his math yet...
1150 - Rapture or not, I need some lunch. Nobody at Panera seems worried. Harold Camping, are you out there? You need to explain what's (not) going on!
1250 - Surely all of the roadkill possums and raccoons I've seen today are a sign of something...
1501 - As commenter Skippy points out, at least one of Camping's sites is up, but it's conspicuously void of any useful information. I'm thinking that perhaps there were some misunderstandings about Camping's true message. Perhaps he wasn't talking about the Rapture at all. Perhaps he was talking about something else...
Save The Date! The Raptor Returns! May 21, 2011
And honestly, using packs of these critters to cull the wicked would probably make a pretty convincing statement...
1800 - Nothing. Not a bloody thing. Just a bit overcast. And now word is starting to get out that Camping and his organization are gearing up to admit failure, or may have already. That's in contrast to their earlier absolute certainty.
A key lesson here: in the long history of human endeavor, no activity has such a spectacularly consistent record of total failure as end-of-the-world prediction.
Another important lesson: think very carefully before you pin your plans to the speculations and claims of doomsayers like Harold Camping. Ask yourself - is it more likely that he finally got it right, or that he's just using Stupid Math Tricks to support his claims.
-Jay
Tick Tock… (UPDATED)
It is a little over a month before Judgment Day, according to Harold Camping1.
Harold Camping, circa 2008
Earlier this month, followers of Camping put a couple of billboards similar to this one on the main road I drive to get to work. This is one of them:
May 21 - It's Getting Close
Camping is a kook. There's really no more polite way of saying it. He previously predicted that the end of the world would occur on September 6, 1994, which it clearly didn't. Camping's excuse, presumably given on September 7, 1994, was that he'd made a math error. I suspect he'll have a similar excuse on May 22.
Here, from Wikipedia, is a version of Camping's "proof":
- According to Camping, the number five equals "atonement", the number ten equals "completeness", and the number seventeen equals "heaven".
- Christ is said to have hung on the cross on April 1, 33 AD. The time between April 1, 33 AD and April 1, 2011 is 1,978 years.
- If 1,978 is multiplied by 365.2422 days (the number of days in a solar year, not to be confused with the lunar year), the result is 722,449.
- The time between April 1 and May 21st is 51 days.
- 51 added to 722,449 is 722,500.
- (5 x 10 x 17)2 or (atonement x completeness x heaven)2 also equals 722,500.
This isn't so much a proof as it is Camping pulling some numbers out of his ass and fiddling with them until he comes up with a date that he thinks fits. Where did he get the idea that "atonement x completeness x heaven" is the key to anything? Why square the product of those numbers? What about the numbers 7 and 12? You can't swing a dead cat in the Bible and not hit the numbers 7 and 12 somewhere. Given a little time and creativity, I have no doubt that Camping (or some other enterprising doomsayer) could come up with a superficially interesting "proof" to peg Judgment Day at just about any date they wanted to. (Really, anyone who tries to extract a hard date for the end of the world out of the Bible is pulling numbers out of thin air. No human endeavor has such a consistent history of spectacular and invariable failure as Bible-based end-times prediction. Refer to the books by Johnathan Kirsch and Sharan Newman that I linked to here.)
Some writers have compared Camping to a cult leader, in that he's telling his followers to abandon their existing churches and join his movement. I can see some validity in the comparison, and in clips of his sermons and radio call-in show, he comes across as very authoritarian and refuses to acknowledge that he might be wrong. The few comments I've read from his followers suggest that they've bought into his claims completely, and have internalized the view that if they're still here on May 22, it's because they weren't good enough, not because Camping is a batshit-crazy lunatic, and that sort of blind devotion to the leader's pronouncements is a common feature in cults.
What's not clear at all is how those people will respond when they are here on May 22 and nothing magical has happened. Maybe they'll all re-set and get ready for October 21. Maybe they'll realize that Camping is just a religiously deluded old man and try to regain something of their previous lives. Or maybe not.
I sincerely hope they don't do anything rash.
-Jay
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1Camping predicts Judgment Day for May 21, 2011, and the actual end of the world on October 21, 2011. Not that the distinction makes Camping's ravings any more credible, but I wanted to point it out in the interest of accuracy.
Teaching The Bible In Kentucky Public Schools – 2011 Edition
The Louisville Courier-Journal ran an article on 21 Feb 2011, originally by William Croyle from the Kentucky Enquirer discussing Senate Bill 56, which specifically allows the teaching of the Bible as an elective course in social studies.
Legislators tried to get a similar bill, SB 142, passed last year - I wrote about that one here and here.
The summary of this year's bill follows:
AN ACT relating to Bible literacy courses in the public schools.
Create a new section of KRS Chapter 156 to require the Kentucky Board of Education to promulgate administrative regulations to establish an elective social studies course on the Hebrew Scriptures, Old Testament of the Bible, the New Testament, or a combination of the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament of the Bible; require that the course provide students knowledge of biblical content, characters, poetry, and narratives that are prerequisites to understanding contemporary society and culture, including literature, art, music, mores, oratory, and public policy; permit students to use various translations of the Bible for the course; amend KRS 158.197 to permit a school council to offer an elective social studies course on the Hebrew Scriptures, Old Testament of the Bible, the New Testament, or a combination of the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament of the Bible.
Compare this to the summary description of SB 142 from 2010:
AN ACT relating to Bible literacy courses in the public schools.
Create a new section of KRS Chapter 156 to require the Kentucky Board of Education to promulgate administrative regulations to establish an elective social studies course on the Hebrew Scriptures, Old Testament of the Bible, the New Testament, or a combination of the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament of the Bible; require that the course provide students knowledge of biblical content, characters, poetry, and narratives that are prerequisites to understanding contemporary society and culture, including literature, art, music, mores, oratory, and public policy; permit students to use various translations of the Bible for the course; amend KRS 158.197 to permit a school council to offer an elective social studies course on the Hebrew Scriptures, Old Testament of the Bible, the New Testament, or a combination of the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament of the Bible.
Jenkies! It's exactly the same!
Jenkies!
What happens when we get into the bills themselves? (SB 56, 2011 is here, SB 142, 2010 is here.)
If you compare them side by side, they're identical, apart from the date, bill number, and sponsors.
Consequently, the concerns I had last year about this time still stand. I'll include them here, and elaborate on some of them (elaborations denoted by bracketed italics).
- Right out of the gate, there's a problem with defining what we're talking about when we say "The Bible". Not only are there many different translations (e.g. NRSV, KJV, NIV, The Message), but there are multiple canons - Catholic Bibles have books that Protestant Bibles don't, Eastern Orthodox Bibles have yet a different canon, and the Tanakh has a different structure than the Christian Old Testament. Additionally, English translation of the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts necessarily introduce subtle changes in meaning which can affect interpretation. And then there are the issues with textual transmission in general. [Discussions of the Bible need to acknowledge that there has been a considerable amount of tinkering with the text down through the centuries. Some of this tinkering was likely by well-meaning individuals who sought to clarify points in the transmitted text. On the other hand, some of this tinkering was very likely with the intent to advance agendas or favor one orthodoxy over another. A truly objective course on the Bible would need to acknowledge these issues and not ignore them or gloss over them.]
- Students of different backgrounds would necessarily bring different assumptions, presuppositions, and theologies to the class. Teaching around those differences would be difficult, particularly if the teacher isn't knowledgeable about them and skilled at recognizing his or her own biases. [ A teacher who cannot disengage from his or her own biases and preconceptions will have a very difficult time engaging with opinions and scholarship that disagree with their beliefs. Do the sponsors of the bill really expect the people teaching these classes to compare the Genesis creation myths with the other creation myths, or to compare the stories of Noah's flood with the Epic of Gilgamesh?]
- While the bill states that courses must maintain religious neutrality, it's difficult to understand how a course on the Bible can be religiously neutral. Will there be a section on the Qu'ran? The Book of Mormon? The Śruti? Dianetics? [It also occurs to me that in order to truly maintain religious neutrality, we have to revisit point 1, above. Because the proposed legislation does not require a specific version of the Bible to be used in class, there will be different versions in play. The Biblical influence on some issues is different depending on which translation one uses. For example, translating a word as "kill" vice "murder" is significant.]
- Specifically, what "knowledge of biblical content, characters, poetry, and narratives" are prerequisites "to understanding contemporary society and culture, including literature, art, music, mores, oratory, and public policy"? This looks suspiciously like code for a broad conservative Christian agenda, and not a non-sectarian discussion of the Bible's influence on modern society. There are other, arguably more fundamental, "prerequisites" to understanding modern arts, culture, and policy besides the Bible, including ancient Greek literature, politics and mythology, the works of Shakespeare, and human sexuality. [Further, the Bible (particularly - but not exclusively - the Old Testament) is rife with stories of genocide, incest, sexual manipulation, revenge, and feeding children to bears, all done by, directly or indirectly at the command of, or in the name of God. Somehow I don't see this course covering material like the story in Genesis where Lot's daughters get him drunk, sleep with him, and become pregnant by him...]
- Biblical "literacy" and "history" imply more than simply knowledge of the content of the Bible, which is what is called out in the summary. While the text of the law itself specifies that students shall be familiarized with "(t)he history of the Hebrew Scriptures or New Testament" and "(t)he literary style and structure of the Hebrew Scriptures or New Testament", I seriously doubt that these concepts can be properly addressed within the context of a one or two semester elective. [I cynically wonder if the "history of the Hebrew Scriptures or New Testament" actually means "history as viewed through the lens of the Hebrew Scriptures or New Testament" rather than the history of how and why the material came to be written...]
- Conspicuously absent from the bill are any specific references to the socio-political context during the periods of authorship of the various Biblical books, which have tremendous bearing on their content. I do not think it is possible to adequately discuss the influence of the Bible on modern socio-political topics without discussing the contexts in which the Biblical books were written. [Consider, for example, the Book of Revelation. It was written to and for people in a very specific set of circumstances, but it's significance has been horribly overemphasized by modern interpretations. While it's true that Revelation has influenced the modern world, much of that influence has more to do with what more modern readers assume it means than what the original author intended his contemporaries to learn from it.]
In the end, I suspect what would likely happen is that courses offered under this law would end up being taught by and filled by people jumping at the chance to turn them into state-sanctioned Bible "study" sessions which are long on Bible and short on anything resembling actual study, and that would probably be more about the people in the class affirming their own beliefs rather than trying to learn anything new.
I've said before that I'm completely in favor of people learning about the Bible and its history and background, but if all you do in a Bible study is look at the material in terms of what the leader thinks God was trying to say and ignore what the humans who actually wrote it were trying to say to their contemporaries, you've missed the point.
-Jay
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