This morning, literally minutes before someone on Twitter posted Nora Ephron’s cheeky sendup of Lisbeth Salander and “Kalle Fucking Blomkvist” from The New Yorker, I told my friend R.:
me: I finally finished HORNET’S NEST and hated it so much
myfriendr: Expository.
Turgid.
me: Tell don’t show, the Stieg Larsson motto!
myfriendr: the whole book was tell, tell, tell. Not a single scene rendered.
NB: R.’s AIM name has been changed to protect him, because he truly is innocent — he is not about to go on record saying that he dislikes The Book That Saved Publishing 2010.
I share that exchange with you as a way of showing you — take note of that, “showing you” — that I have been annoyed about the Stieg Larsson phenomenon for a while.
Before you flame me, dear readers, let me state a few facts:
1. I have read all three of the Stieg Larsson Lisbeth Salander novels in their entirety.
2. I am an avid mystery reader.
3. I have read a great deal of Swedish mystery fiction, including most of Mankell, a great swath of Sjowall/Wahloo, and all of Peter Hoeg, and some Jo Nesbo.
I just want to forestall the inevitable “If you’d read the books, you’d know how good they are!” and “You must just hate mysteries” and “You obviously don’t get the Swedish crime fiction mentality” comments. I’ve read the books, I love mystery novels, and I have even interviewed Henning Mankell in person.
Now let me explain what it is I truly don’t like about Larsson’s books, and then you can feel free to flame me for those opinions.
If you’re reading this blog, you probably already have heard the phrase “Show, don’t tell.” It’s thrown at writers of every age and stage. Even elementary-school students are reminded that they can show that a character is angry instead of simply stating “He was angry.”
Of course, it isn’t as easy as it sounds to “show” rather than “tell.” If it were, there would be far more beautifully written books. Unfortunately, because people believe that they are “showing” things simply by writing them down, there are many, many badly written books.
I won’t try to argue about whether or not Stieg Larsson is a good writer or a bad writer. What I will argue is that his Millennium Trilogy is rife with telling: “He was anything but pleased.” “In spite of his respect for Astrid Lindgren — whose books he loved — he detested the nickname.” And so on and so on. We never “see” anything in Larsson’s books, because the author is too busy describing the most mundane moments. Why do we need to know exactly how Lisbeth Salander puts her groceries away? The passage to which I refer from “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” does not in any way enhance our understanding of her much-mentioned but never confirmed Asperger’s Syndrome, or any of the other DSM-IV categories into which she might fall. It simply tells us how she puts the groceries away.
But the most important thing about the “Show, don’t tell” rule is that by showing and not telling, authors allow readers to take an active role in stories. One of the things I most detest about commercial fiction, even at its best, is that by telling us things it takes away our ability to feel those things, to imagine those things, and to react to them with authentic emotion.
I welcome YOUR authentic emotions, now, about The Millennium Trilogy. Thanks for reading!
