15 Comments
May 27, 2023Liked by Mr. Troy Ford

I'm not smart enough to adequately respond to this piece. I've just sat here and read it, wide eyed at both your ability but also the content and weaving, along with the injustice. I didn't know any of that about Stieg. Damn shame.

Lisbeth is a brilliant character. Roony Mara is an incredible actor. What a pairing.

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It reminds me also of Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas. When Stein died her family pretty much took everything and left Toklas to fend for herself. Even though willed her estate to her Toklas was left destitute. I wonder if that hadn't happened if she'd had written her cookbook. Such a sad story. People don't realize how devastating it is to lose your partner only to have everything you've built together taken away from often estranged and strange "family" members....

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Wow. Wow. Wow. Love how you weave literary works with other literary/cinematic works with real life and real life worries. Beautiful, brilliant, and charming as always.

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Long live Lisbeth... If Stieg had known, he might have married Eva, or not. It's certainly not the first time there's a conflict about an estate. Family members tear each other apart for much less than Stieg's unexpected and sudden fortune. For millions or a rusty chandelier, it's always ugly. But that gets us away from characters "right to exist". They're the authors' creations and the authors can do whatever they want with them. Kafka wanted his writings burned. His friend refused to do so. Betrayal? Greed? Or admiration? In today's world, what heirs do with artistic property is (almost?) always driven by greed. See the debate about "sanitizing" Roald Dahl or Ian Fleming and try to convince me that agreeing to the changes is not about keeping the stuff on the shelves, for sale. Also, I agree with you, Stieg is a great storyteller but a sloppy writer. I read the trilogy soon after it came out, in the French translation (no repetitive "girl" in those titles) and I would have cut a bunch of coffee interludes! Some of the sex too, that got tiresome, lol!

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author

"as though...as though" I know, I know... ;)

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May 26, 2023Liked by Mr. Troy Ford

Writers don’t owe their characters anything. They brought them to life. Often in a painfully long and excruciating process. Once made public, they are « born » and thus, by definition, separate. They will be done with as whoever pleases. Such beings are reanimated by their creators or others ( lawsuits be damned) more by pecuniary rather than ethical or artist motives. Witness Harrison at Cannes. On the other hand, I understand how we get attached and miss the characters we love. I don’t have a third hand so I’ll quit here.

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