More Parsing Larsson: A Revisitation

I've been hearing from a lot of people interested in analyzing Larsson's prose, so I thought I'd share links to some blog posts I did a while back examining his writing.

This one inventories verbs on one page of a Larsson book and compares his verb choices to those of Cormac McCarthy and Stephen King.

This one looks at his characters' dialogue and throws in for good measure some sample dialogue from two writers who I believe do it better.

This one, actually my first blog post on the subject, contains a sample rewrite of a short Larsson passage.

More Parson Larsson: Million-dollar Dialogue – Five Cops, a Killer and a Here’s How It’s Done

Here are some dialogue excerpts from Stieg Larsson’s “The Girl Who Played with Fire” and “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest." The first five are cops -- all different cops, believe it or not -- and the last is a thug who runs a sex slavery ring talking to someone he’s about to kill.

After that, for contrast, are dialogue excerpts from James Cain’s “Double Indemnity” and from my friend Christa Faust’s novel “Money Shot.”

* * * * *

“He made it very clear that this was a matter that required the greatest possible discretion and that we should get as few people involved as possible. Bjurman should never have had anything to do with it -- it was way above his level -- but since he already knew what was going on it was better to keep him on rather than bring in somebody new. I assume that the same reasoning applied to a junior officer like myself. (Officer Bjorck, “Fire” p. 527)

“Salander has been subjected to a number of infringements on her rights, starting when she was a child. I do not mean for this to continue on my watch. You have the option to remove me as leader of the investigation, but if you did that I would be forced to write a harsh memo about the matter.” (Officer Bublanksi, “Hornet” p. 27.)

“His injuries seem to be similar to those of a car crash victim -- it's hardly credible that anyone could do such damage with his bare hands.” (Chief Spangberg, “Hornet” p. 29)

“I have met Mikael Blomkvist on several occasions in the course of this investigation. I have found him quite likeable, even though he is a journalist. I suppose you’re the one who has to make a decision about charging him. All this stuff about insults and resisting arrest is just nonsense. I assume you will ignore it.” (Officer Modig, “Hornet” p. 31)

“I agree with Sonja. I too think Blomkvist is a man we could work with. I’ve apologized to him for the way he was treated last night.” (Officer Erlander, “Hornet” p. 31)

“You set up your observation post on precisely the spot where we’d positioned alarms. It’s the best view of the farm. Usually it’s moose or deer, and sometimes berry-pickers who come too close.” (Organized crime boss/pimp Alexander Zalachencko, “Fire” p. 599)

“If they called us up, we’d cancel on him wouldn’t we? You bet we would. We’d return his unused premium so fast you couldn’t see our dust, and he knew it. Oh no, he wasn’t taking a chance on our doctor going out there to look at his leg and tipping things off. That’s a big point.” (Insurance inspector Norton, “Indemnity” p. 58)

“I had an aunt named Lia. But she was a fat, religious woman with eight kids and more hair on her chin than I have on my pussy.” (Porn actress Tabitha Moore, “Money Shot,” p. 116)

More Parsing Larsson: Verb Inventory

After yesterday’s post about Stieg Larsson, I got an itch to compare his verbs to some other writers’. Not that verbs are the biggest problem with Larsson’s writing. Far from it. Still, I was curious. So here is an inventory of verbs from a page of Larsson’s “The Girl Who Played with Fire,” a page of Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road,” and a page of Stephen King’s “Just After Sunset.”

I list these verbs in their base forms -- i.e. “had been” and “were” are listed as “be.” Verbs forming independent clauses are in all caps. Verbs forming subordinate clauses are lowercase. Participial modifiers are not counted as verbs.

Larsson, page 414 -- 18 sentences:
1. BE
2. BE
3. RECALL, HAVE, be
4. BE
5. UNDERSTAND
6. BE, FIND, find
7. BE, gnaw
8. NOTICE, take, keep
9. BE, BE, summarize
10. HAVE, BE, clear out, throw
11. THROW
12. BE, FIND
13. SEE, remove, deal with
14. SPEND, MISS, COME, HAVE
15. FIND, contain
16. GO, try, find
17. BE
18. DISCOVER, GO, USE

McCarthy, page 136 -- 15 sentences
1. bend, see, FEAR, be, put
2. GO, CROSS
3. SET, TAKE, PUNCH, PUNCH, DRAIN
4. PULL, POUR
5. TWIST, MAKE, POUR, PUT, SHAKE
6. POUR, TAKE, STUFF
7. TAKE, GET, STRIKE
8. TRY, STOP, POUR
9. FLARE, say
10. NOD
11. RAKE, BLOOM
12. REACH, BLOW, HAND
13. SAY
14. TAKE
15. DO

King, page 61– 27 complete sentences
1. HOLD, LOOK
2. LOOK
3. cut, SAY
4. LOOK, CUT
5. CUT
6. TRY, scramble, go, thump
7. PIVOT, BE
8. SEIZE
9. DANGLE
10. GET, TURN
11. WAIT
12. BRING, WANT, MAKE
13. REMEMBER, choke up
14. BE
15. BE
16. BE, be, SOUND, slacken
17. HAPPEN, BEGIN
18. STARE
19. STARE
20. do, SAY, REACH, take
21. SAY, SWING
22. HAMMER
23. BURST, snap
24. RUN, PATTER
25. stop, SAY
26. LOOK
17. SAY, BRING

25% (ten) of Larsson’s verbs are “be.” Just over 25% (eleven) are nonphysical or mental actions like “recall, “understand,” “summarize,” “discover” and “find.”

2-1/2% (one) of McCarthy’s verbs are “be” and 2-1/2% convey a state of mind (“fear.”)

10% (five) of King’s verbs are “be” and most of the rest are actions.

The process I used to choose these pages probably wasn’t fair. I started with a Larsson page I had already noted as bad then flipped through McCarthy and King for pages that looked about as dense with narrative as the Larsson page (that is, pages that didn’t have much dialogue). Still, I bet that a fair and complete accounting of the verbs in all three books would show similar -- if not quite as marked -- tendencies. That is, McCarthy and King rely more on action verbs while Larsson’s work relies more on verbs that convey being, seeming, or thinking.

That’s partly why I prefer reading McCarthy and King.

Larsson structures a lot of his sentences like this:

“The reason for her visit to the crime scene was to get two pieces of information” and “Second was an inconsistency that kept gnawing at her.” (p. 414)

Notice how, in both, he hangs the main clause on “was” and crams the more interesting stuff into less-prominent parts of the sentence. Imagine he had written them:

“She visited the crime scene to find two pieces of information.”
and
“An inconsistency kept gnawing at her.”

See how the noun “visit” can be made into an action? See how “gnaw” can be made the main action in the sentence instead of just part of a relative clause in a sentence whose main verb is the ho-hum “was”?

I think there’s a lesson in here …