"Hello, Kalle Blomkvist"
- Chapter 5, page
Through the book Mikael is referred to as "Kalle," a nickname that he isn't too fond of. Lisbeth is also connected to Pippi Longstocking a couple of times. Her boss is even guilty of thinking the two are similar.
This is important because Steig Larsson had wanted to create a grown-up character based off of Pippi Longstocking:
From an interview with Steig Larsson:
"I picked up Pippi Longstocking. What would she be like today? What would she be like as an adult? What would she be called? Sociopath? DAMP-child? She has a different view of society than others. (or: She doesn’t look upon society like other people do). I made her into Lisbeth Salander, 25 years old, with a feeling of being a total outsider. She doesn’t know anybody, has no social competence whatsoever.
-- Then you need somebody to counterbalance her. It turned out to be Mikael 'Kalle' Blomkvist, a 45-year-old journalist. A hardworking, capable, good guy, who works at his own magazine, called Millennium"
The connection between the name "Kalle" and Pippi are their author, Astrid Lindgren. Mikael is mockingly called Kalle because his character is "a more-or-less ordinary Swedish boy with an extraordinary fascination for detective work. He identifies clues, investigates enigmas, and solves the riddle surrounding a mysterious stranger while the police and other adults overlook or dismiss the whole matter" (taken from the wiki). This would describe Mikael well in his pursuit of men at the center of scandals.
From an interview with Steig Larsson:
"I picked up Pippi Longstocking. What would she be like today? What would she be like as an adult? What would she be called? Sociopath? DAMP-child? She has a different view of society than others. (or: She doesn’t look upon society like other people do). I made her into Lisbeth Salander, 25 years old, with a feeling of being a total outsider. She doesn’t know anybody, has no social competence whatsoever.
-- Then you need somebody to counterbalance her. It turned out to be Mikael 'Kalle' Blomkvist, a 45-year-old journalist. A hardworking, capable, good guy, who works at his own magazine, called Millennium"
The connection between the name "Kalle" and Pippi are their author, Astrid Lindgren. Mikael is mockingly called Kalle because his character is "a more-or-less ordinary Swedish boy with an extraordinary fascination for detective work. He identifies clues, investigates enigmas, and solves the riddle surrounding a mysterious stranger while the police and other adults overlook or dismiss the whole matter" (taken from the wiki). This would describe Mikael well in his pursuit of men at the center of scandals.
|
|
|
|
Larsson is quite clever in his analogies to Lindgren, even having one of the characters named Anika, the name of Pippi's friend. It's also ironic that Lisbeth hates being connected to Pippi, while several times in the book she calls Mikael "Kalle."