In June, I read two fairytales for the men and women of the early 21st century: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire, the first two instalments of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy.

Larsson, following only a marginally more sophisticated “write-by-numbers” syllabus than the one Dan Brown used, gives us a female protagonist, Lisbeth Salander, and a male protagonist, the journalist Mikael Blomkvist, who are apparently designed to fulfill one function and one function only: to live out on paper the fantasies Larsson attributes to every female and every male at this moment in history, and thus make him pots and pots of money.

Which all came true, except Larsson didn’t live happily ever after, but died rather promptly.

And what are those fantasies?  For men, it’s … sigh … sex.  Mikael Blomkvist shags every woman who crosses his path, from mid-50s neighbours and sheep graziers, to the mid-20s Salander who, of course, also happens to be bisexual, while at the same time continuing the affair he’s been having for decades with his Editor-in-Chief, Erika Berger, who, of course, regularly tells her husband she’s spending the night with Blomkvist instead of him.

Young women. Tick. Older women. Tick. Bisexual. Tick.  Open marriage. Tick.  Any he’s missed?

Then there’s the fantasy for the female readers.  This time, it’s revenge, served steaming hot, via the maniacal Lisbeth Salander, an anorexic computer hacker channelling Glenn Close-meets-The Terminator. Subjected to a vicious rape, she overwhelms her attacker and pulls out her tattoo kit to incise on his belly,

I am a sadistic pig, a pervert, and a rapist.

Short of cash, she disguises herself as a Norwegian, hacks into the bank account of the baddie and steals billions of kronor with which, amongst other doo-dads including the entire contents of an Ikea store and some new t-shirts, she buys an 18-room apartment in the best street in Stockholm.

And then there’s the moment when the whole shaking, stinking pile of rubbish wobbles its last, when Lisbeth, first shot in the head, then buried alive, rises up out of her grave to avenge herself on her father, a Russian assassin, and her half-wit brother, a 200kg monster.

Vanquished creeps. Tick. Fabulous apartment. Tick. Month’s supply of pizza. Tick. Billions in a Gilbratar bank account. Tick. Someone to assemble the furniture. Tick.

It’s hilarious. And so poorly made.  For example, reviewers have latched on to the originality of the Salander character.  Now this is true in the way that writing a book about, say, a man being faithful to his wife is original.  That is, Larsson’s whole originality lies in having a woman as the central character.  And yet, having made the giant leap, what does Larsson do?  Why, he promptly leaves her out of half the second book, that’s what!

This, combined with Larsson’s lack of skill in plotting or pace, results in great tracts of pages which are just so much dead air; flat and completely lacking tension or interest.   I kept waiting for the books to start, until, particularly in the second, I realised I was about to run out of pages.

Really, don’t read these books. The only non-phoney part of them is the scenery.

*****

Happily, not all was lost to Mr Larsson and what passes for fantasy in June, because I also read Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi, recommended by Thomas.  Unlike Larsson, Hegi is the real deal: a completely authentic and masterful storyteller.  Her story of Trudi Montag, the dwarf (or Zwerg) and her father Leo, living in a German town prior to, and during World War Two is a marvel.  I laughed, I cried, I was transported.

What Hegi’s done doesn’t lend itself to quotation.  Because it is a world Hegi has created, not merely a book.  Yet there’s one snippet I responded to which I think can stand alone.

‘About endings … Unless we do them well, we have to keep repeating them.’

*****