This weekend novelist David Lagercrantz is the object of an enormous amount of indignation and righteous anger from the culture vultures of Sweden. He’s the man who has dared to write a continuation novel using the characters from Stieg Larsson’s Millenium Trilogy.
Very unusually for a book in Swedish, the original and the translation are being published simultaneously. There’s big money to be made. Our local supermarket already has a whole pile of them for sale.
I’m fairly pragmatic. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. By all accounts Lagercrantz is a good writer and has done a very competent job. And anyway, continuation novels, prequels, reboots etc and other developments of another’s work are fairly common these days.
Billy Bragg has turned Woody’s lyrics into full songs. David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King was published post-humously. (I tried to read it and wish it hadn’t been). My son and I enjoyed Young James Bond and Young Sherlock Holmes. Paul Rogers has stepped into Freddie’s shoes with Queen. The Clangers are back on out TV screens.
Even here on the AW we’ve had Mr Saucecraft ghost-writing on behalf of Mini and myself and adding to our body » Continue Reading.