In this candid and rounded memoir, Baksi answers the questions a multitude of Larsson’s fans have already asked about his upbringing; the recurring death threats; his insomnia and his vices; his feminism.
You mean that your buddy was lying?
Hey, toy boy. It’s only 3:00, and I want to be properly entertained before dinner.
Blomkvist had kept the promise he’d made in December to stop visiting Lundagatan in the vain hope that Salander might appear.
He sat still for almost ten minutes before he heard movement in the corridor and was aware that the police had arrived. By now he was not thinking of anything in particular. Then he raised the revolver one last time, held it to his temple, and squeezed the trigger.
She was surprised to be alive. Yet she felt indifferent. If death was the black emptiness from which she had just woken up, then death was nothing to worry about.
She felt high, as if she had consumed some inappropriate and presumably illegal substance. She focused her gaze on the street lamp outside the window and sat still while her brain worked at top speed.
She considered him to be a good person, possibly with a Practical Pig complex that was sometimes a little too apparent. And he was unbearably naive with regard to certain elementary moral issues. He had an indulgent and forgiving personality that looked for explanations and excuses for the way people behaved, and he would never get it that the raptors of the world only understood only one language. She almost felt awkwardly protective whenever she thought of him.
Thinking about her mother always pitched Salander into a mood of helplessness and darkness black as night. As a teenager, she had cherished the fantasy that her mother would get well and that they would be able to form some sort of relationship. That was her heart thinking. Her head knew that it would never happen.
I can still remember the unexpectedness of The Girl with the Dragon.
Greeks who coined the term “Amazon.” The word literally means “without breast.” It is said that in order to facilitate the drawing of a bow, the female’s right breast was removed, either in early childhood or with a red-hot iron after she became an adult.
The desk was orderly, only a few paper in one heap. At its edge was a silver-framed photograph of a dark-haired girl, beautiful but with a mischievous look; a young woman on her way to becoming dangerous, he thought.
Si amor significa querer mucho a alguien, entonces supongo que estoy enamorado de varias personas.
Salander gave him a long look, satisfied herself that he was an idiot, and decided that she would not waste too many seconds concerning herself with his existence.
And yet it was her life that was going to be turned inside out. She would be forced to explain herself and to beg for forgiveness because she had defended herself.
There was a difference, besides, between Catholicism and Judaism. He went to the synagogue when he needed company and fellowship with other people. Catholics went to church to seek peace in the presence of God. The church invited silence and visitors would always be left to themselves.
How could you be so idiotic as to decide to begin liquidating individuals in Sweden just as we saw happen in Chile under the Pinochet dictatorship?
The older I get, the more I think it’s like a game of roulette. I don’t believe we’ll ever figure out precisely how the brain works.
He did not for a second doubt that Salander was mentally ill and capable of killing.
The equation was simple. A bank director who blows millions on foolhardy speculations should not keep his job. A managing director who plays shell company games should do time. A slum landlord who forces young people to pay through the nose and under the table for a one-room apartment with shared toilet should be hung out to dry.
On his way home to Katarina Bangata, Bublanski felt an.