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Sweden seems perfect - ordered, free and fair, things work. Sweden must be one of the few countries that I have visited where people really know about SA and apartheid. Over the last few years we have established strong links with some of the people through conferences on environmental issues and children's rights. Recently, we have become involved with a children's project started by two Swedish women in one of our townships.
Stockholm is beautiful - it is known as the Venice of the North - thousands of islands, trees, people fishing in the lake in the middle of the city, skyscrapers next to mediaeval buildings on cobble-stone streets. On a recent visit I found myself thinking that I might be able to live there for a while, that is, if I could convince my inner African violet to survive the winter. I watched the Swedish film, As it is in Heaven, four times (OK, maybe the fourth time was a bit too much) and bopped along with Meryl Streep to the ABBA (famous Swedish export) songs in Mamma Mia.
So what it is the point of this little ramble? I have just emerged from reading the Millennium trilogy books by Stieg Larsson, a Swedish journalist who wrote the three books and died of a heart attack at the age of 50, soon after delivering the manuscripts to his publisher. The books have become a phenomenon, already being made into Swedish movies, with Hollywood versions soon to follow.
These are not the kind of books I would normally buy. However, I found myself being sucked into each consecutive 500+ page tome (the third one is more than 700 pages), after being proudly handed them by a friend from Sweden. I was feverishly reading whenever I could, although I confess to needing a break between each book to read something "normal". I was slightly shell-shocked after each book - I had been exposed to the dark underbelly of the society, detailing human trafficking, espionage and prostitution. In spite of being a little distracted by the very foreign-sounding Swedish street names and places, I found the writing easy and the pace exciting - I wanted to know what happened to the "most unlikely heroine" I have ever read about.
So now I find myself wondering how much of this is in fact truth or a creation by an author who had experienced some of the danger and intrigue as a journalist known for his outspokenness against neo-Nazism and the like. How much of this darkness is really being covered up by a facade of perfection? Certainly the grass is never completely greener on the other side, but the book has succeeded in rocking the boat and making me wonder.
