The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo/Stieg Larsson
Almond
1,427 Posts
I've been making my way through my to-read list and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the best thing I've read in a while. It's by Swedish author Stieg Larsson and is the first in a trilogy of books (Dragon is followed by The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest). I'm almost done with Fire. I watched the Dragon Tattoo movie but was bored since I already knew what happened.
Has anyone else read this or seen the movie? It is a well-constructed crime novel overall, but I recommend it just on the basis of entertainment value. It's not a "girlie" book, nor is it a "quick" read. I'm not a slow reader, but the series is detailed and requires an attentive reader.
Anyway, thoughts? None of my friends read, so I'm at a loss for actual face-to-face discussion with other humans. Interwebs will have to do.
Has anyone else read this or seen the movie? It is a well-constructed crime novel overall, but I recommend it just on the basis of entertainment value. It's not a "girlie" book, nor is it a "quick" read. I'm not a slow reader, but the series is detailed and requires an attentive reader.
Anyway, thoughts? None of my friends read, so I'm at a loss for actual face-to-face discussion with other humans. Interwebs will have to do.
Comments
Aren't you in university? The friends you have in school don't read for pleasure?
This cannot be an age thing - I know university-age people and they read off the reading list like their lives depend on it.
(I have not read these books or seen these movies)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_the_Right_One_In
While I'm not into the vampire thing. It's pretty great.
I am a graduate student of economics. We do numbers. Literacy isn't required.
Very few of my friends read books for pleasure.
I'm sorry you weren't warned. The book provided more foreshadowing than the movie. The original Swedish title of the Dragon book is Men Who Hate Women, but of course it can't be marketed in the U.S. under that name. I don't necessarily think it's about "hatred" of women per se, but Larsson explores violence against women in society and how it's accepted in a way. I mean, the lawyer/guardian sees a small women who has no close friends, is financially dependent, supposedly has mental issues and will not be missed by many if she disappeared into thin air. The author discusses how some men aggregate such factors into a justification for sexual violence, or simply put, rape. I'm still formulating my thoughts on the scenes you mentioned, SoulOnIce, and though it was satisfying to see her get revenge, I'm not comfortable with the idea of a rape for a rape.
I've already got a Post-It note with Let the Right One In on my desk. Didn't realize there was a book. I'm afraid to click on the Wiki link because of potential spoilers. I probably will.
Damn, thats kind of nuts.
I havent read that book though but if you wanna start a thread about Flannery O'Connor or Borges i'll bomb the fuck out of it with some thoughts.
His whole thing is anti-misogyny. I think the books are worth reading more than Entertainment Weekly is.
There's most of a 4th book completed but there's a dispute between his long-time partner and his father and brother over who "owns" it. I hope it gets resolved soon.
The posthumous success of Larsen's trilogy is what's really also kind of interesting about these books/films.
Not having read the series, I can't say directly but:
1) Entertainment Weekly actually has pretty decent cultural criticism. People often confuse it with, say, People or (ugh) US Weekly but as far as mainstream pop culture publications go, EW is one of the best out there. Unless you've actually read this essay, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it out of hand.
2) BTW, here's the essay: http://shelf-life.ew.com/2010/06/18/stieg-larsson-tattoo-book-women-characters/
I think the key 'graph is this one: "The crimes are unspeakable ??? which you could argue is the point for an activist like Larsson: Bring it into the open, try to prevent it from happening again. Still, Larsson seems to want it both ways: to condemn such savagery while simultaneously exploiting it in graphic detail for titillating storytelling purposes. And that makes me uncomfortable."
Certainly, Larsson wouldn't have been the first one to want it both ways: to critique and exploit (whether consciously or not) the very same phenomenon.
I was given the Girl with the Dragon tattoo to read by a friends mum so i guess that shows how popular and widespread his readership is. As usual with most movies based on book the books are much better.
I think larsson has a gift for writing great characters and manages to introduce relevant social issues into his stories without detracting from them. I don't think he is misogynist at all. The hero of the book is a girl who is portrayed as a flawed character, a product of her environment but none the less with a good heart.
After finishing the trilogy i was really shocked by the thought that there would never be anymore. I really didn't want it to stop.
Let the right one as a movie was a big let down for me as i read the book before hand and was puzzled by what they did and didn't include in the movie.
The Girl with the Dragon tattoo (2009)
The Girl Who Played with Fire (2009)
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (2009)
Because there is a billion dollars to be made.
Because they speak foreign.
Haha!
I had a moment of clarity and I realized how dumb what I wrote is. Of course oodles of people who do not attend, or have not attended, university read for pleasure. But the "none of my friends read" line jumped right out at me and I instantly thought of the students I mentioned. I saw the whole thing from that angle. Silly on my part.
About violence and misogyny. Winterbottom's adaptation of Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me is not out here yet and much ink was spilled even before its release. I do want to see it. And as much as I do not like reading about soemthing before I see it, I couldn't help it with this one. Anyway, the story is known to me. There are a lot of interesting takes on it here.
I guess i'm asking the pompous question: would you consider it book porn?
By crime drama I mean that the books are suspenseful murder mysteries. I'm not that familiar with Dan Brown, but the Da Vinci Code seemed to be about a religious/historical anomaly rather than a mystery involving a genius hacker and a journalist.
If by book porn you mean that the books are so good it feels sinful, then yes. But the books are not pornographic in nature. In response to the comment about Larsson exploiting misogyny, I don't really think so. Just because he writes an interesting book that explores the acceptance of violence against women doesn't mean he's exploiting the concept. And before you mention the rape scenes, for those of you who haven't seen or read the movie or book, the descriptions are raw and frightening. If anything, he emphasizes the horror of something that many easily justify. "She's just a whore dressed in those clothes she's so small no one will miss her if she's gone no one will believe her. Perfect circumstances."
Okay, read the "essay." It's incredibly shallow and it was a waste of two minutes.
Missy Schwartz should stick to reviewing Lifetime movies.
I think he wants to know if they are the literary equivalent of junkfood.
Which they are.
You're a hard man to impress, so why would you bother to read something you consider insubstantial?
The type of junk to read on a Friday night while waiting for your potential date to text you back. I can squeeze 135-150 pages into three hours, excluding shower time.
I wouldn't--I thumbed through my wife's copy of the first one.