Author proposal

To find a place to start with this project, I basically began asking myself a lot of questions.  First things first, who am I studying?  I chose to study the novels of Stieg Larsson, but why am I interested?  His novels are a huge international hit.  A lot of times, really big bestsellers don’t always have notable style other than that they’re easy to read.  Larsson’s novels aren’t super easy to read, but they’re still immensely popular.  There is something about this style that intrigues me.  One thing I like about it is that he uses techniques that would normally bother me from other writers, so I'm interested to see why they work.  He writes a lot of long, specifically detailed descriptive paragraphs that might normally be hard to get through from some writers but seem to work coming from Larsson.  He also switches character points of view rather quickly, without indication and often times without even having introduced the character beforehand.

Being interested doesn't make this a simple project, however.  There are a few big things that will complicate my work.  First, his novels were written in Swedish, so they were obviously translated by the point when I read them.  Second, Larsson is dead and his works were published posthumously, so he has never commented on his writing style in the way a writer with his fame and success normally would have.

So, what is my big question?  What am I hoping to learn more about?  I want to look at this project from the angle of the translation.  How does the translation of Stieg Larsson’s work affect his style, voice and ethos?

It will take a lot of work to answer a question like that, though.  First things first, I'll need to get myself a little more acquainted with the crime novel genre.  I've read other crime novels, but I don't stick to a particular genre when reading, so I do need some background information.  Where do Larsson's books fit in the genre?  His writing definitely has political and social motivation.  Is that normal for the genre, especially to the extent Larsson takes it?

Once I figure more out about the genre, I need to start looking at the translation.  Basically, I need to discover how much of the translator himself gets mixed into the work during translation.  I need to find out what Steven Murray, the translator of the novels, says about his work and technique.  Does he believe he takes part in the creative process?  (He claims he does.  Do other translators agree?)  I also need to discover some basic knowledge about translating.  What does it take to become a translator, and what kind of work goes into translating a novel?  Understanding this will help me get into some more detailed questions.  

I'll need to discover what kind of attempts are usually made to preserve style while translating.  I want to know what kinds of cultural factors are lost or preserved.  Does the translator make stylistic choices to appeal to the new target audience, or does he/she make an effort to preserve the original intended style?  What affect does this have on ethos?

In addition, because Larsson is dead, I plan to do some research on other translated novels so I can get more insight from both the author’s point of view and the translator’s.  Their commentary will help me discover what might have happened in the translation of these novels.  Some comments I found online indicated that the translation seemed rushed in order to make the novel available to be turned into a screenplay.  Is this a common opinion?  How does that change things?

Looking at the novels from the angle of their translation will help me better understand Larsson's style of writing by identifying how much of it might have been changed by the translation.  It will also help me better understand how ethos could be affected in a situation like this.