Read Online "There Are Things I Want You to Know" About Stieg Larsson and Me by Eva Gabrielsson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Eva Gabrielsson
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child, I was aware of our responsibility toward these continents.
Every village had its small congregation houses where the villagers gathered. Because of the great distances to be traveled, however, people out in the countryside could not attend church regularly, so their pastors and lay preachers, who were sometimes their neighbors, would visit them. And if there was only one book in the house, it was the Bible. I think that even Stieg’s communist grandparents had one. The Bible had been a nurturing presence in their childhood, as it was in the lives of every Swedish citizen, because until 1996, everyone was automatically born a Lutheran in Sweden, where church and state were not separated until 2000.
Life was hard in the North, and not just when a family was visited by illness or death; the Bible brought courage and comfort to people who struggled daily to survive in the fields, forests, and the few factories there. For Stieg and me, the Bible was not so much the New Testament, the Jesus who asks us to turn the other cheek, but the formidable Old Testament, blunt and violent, like the age-old way of life up in our territory. Without officials or judges, and with mostly itinerant pastors, society had no fixed hierarchy, so people had to shape rules for themselves in order to survive together. That was the context in which Stieg and I were raised by our grandparents, who lived by the values ofolder times, and this upbringing gave us a strong moral compass, a faculty doubtless more developed in us than it is in most people of our generation. Some things are done and others are not. Period.
We were not believers, but when we traveled we always visited churches and cemeteries. I loved—and still do—to light candles in memory of the loved ones I have lost.
In our apartment in Stockholm, we each had a Bible that, like the Koran, was always somewhere among our clutter of books. Stieg used his, of course, to help him write about the murders of the young women in the first volume of the trilogy: taking inspiration from real police reports, he then culled from the Bible the verses he could use to create an enigma.
The Duty of Vengeance
STIEG WAS a generous man, loyal, warmhearted, and fundamentally kind. But he could also be completely the opposite. Whenever someone treated him or anyone close to him badly, it was “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” He never forgave such an affront, and made no bones about it. “To exact revenge for yourself or your friends,” he used to say, “is not only a right, it’s an absolute duty.” Even if he sometimes had to wait for years, Stieg always paid people back.
In the first volume of the trilogy, Henrik Vanger speaks for Stieg when he tells Mikael Blomkvist, “I’ve had many enemies over the years. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s never get in a fight you’re sure to lose. On the other hand,never let anyone who has insulted you get away with it. Bide your time and strike back when you’re in a position of strength—even if you no longer need to strike back.” In the third book,
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest
, Mikael explains to Anders Jonasson, the doctor who takes care of Lisbeth Salander, that he must help his young patient even if it’s illegal to do so, because he may in good conscience break the law to obey
a higher morality
. For Stieg, Lisbeth was the ideal incarnation of the code of ethics that requires us to act according to our convictions. She is a kind of biblical archangel, the instrument of
The Vengeance of God
, the working title of the fourth volume in
The Millennium Trilogy
.
When he was a boy in Umeå, Stieg got into fights everywhere and often. One day a boy broke one of his front teeth, so Stieg had to have a gold false tooth implanted in his jaw. Long afterward, he lay in wait for his attacker one night and took him by surprise. Stieg never had another problem with him—or anyone else. Yes, revenge is indeed a dish
Every village had its small congregation houses where the villagers gathered. Because of the great distances to be traveled, however, people out in the countryside could not attend church regularly, so their pastors and lay preachers, who were sometimes their neighbors, would visit them. And if there was only one book in the house, it was the Bible. I think that even Stieg’s communist grandparents had one. The Bible had been a nurturing presence in their childhood, as it was in the lives of every Swedish citizen, because until 1996, everyone was automatically born a Lutheran in Sweden, where church and state were not separated until 2000.
Life was hard in the North, and not just when a family was visited by illness or death; the Bible brought courage and comfort to people who struggled daily to survive in the fields, forests, and the few factories there. For Stieg and me, the Bible was not so much the New Testament, the Jesus who asks us to turn the other cheek, but the formidable Old Testament, blunt and violent, like the age-old way of life up in our territory. Without officials or judges, and with mostly itinerant pastors, society had no fixed hierarchy, so people had to shape rules for themselves in order to survive together. That was the context in which Stieg and I were raised by our grandparents, who lived by the values ofolder times, and this upbringing gave us a strong moral compass, a faculty doubtless more developed in us than it is in most people of our generation. Some things are done and others are not. Period.
We were not believers, but when we traveled we always visited churches and cemeteries. I loved—and still do—to light candles in memory of the loved ones I have lost.
In our apartment in Stockholm, we each had a Bible that, like the Koran, was always somewhere among our clutter of books. Stieg used his, of course, to help him write about the murders of the young women in the first volume of the trilogy: taking inspiration from real police reports, he then culled from the Bible the verses he could use to create an enigma.
The Duty of Vengeance
STIEG WAS a generous man, loyal, warmhearted, and fundamentally kind. But he could also be completely the opposite. Whenever someone treated him or anyone close to him badly, it was “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” He never forgave such an affront, and made no bones about it. “To exact revenge for yourself or your friends,” he used to say, “is not only a right, it’s an absolute duty.” Even if he sometimes had to wait for years, Stieg always paid people back.
In the first volume of the trilogy, Henrik Vanger speaks for Stieg when he tells Mikael Blomkvist, “I’ve had many enemies over the years. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s never get in a fight you’re sure to lose. On the other hand,never let anyone who has insulted you get away with it. Bide your time and strike back when you’re in a position of strength—even if you no longer need to strike back.” In the third book,
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest
, Mikael explains to Anders Jonasson, the doctor who takes care of Lisbeth Salander, that he must help his young patient even if it’s illegal to do so, because he may in good conscience break the law to obey
a higher morality
. For Stieg, Lisbeth was the ideal incarnation of the code of ethics that requires us to act according to our convictions. She is a kind of biblical archangel, the instrument of
The Vengeance of God
, the working title of the fourth volume in
The Millennium Trilogy
.
When he was a boy in Umeå, Stieg got into fights everywhere and often. One day a boy broke one of his front teeth, so Stieg had to have a gold false tooth implanted in his jaw. Long afterward, he lay in wait for his attacker one night and took him by surprise. Stieg never had another problem with him—or anyone else. Yes, revenge is indeed a dish
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