The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
by Stieg Larsson
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Book Reviews of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Book Review: Love the Goth girl!
Summary: 5 Stars
Somewhere out there there are dozens of Goth girls with a new hero, and it's not Marilyn Manson. Her name is Lisbeth Salander, and she's tough, smart, and hard to get to know. She has a photographic memory and fantastic computer skills, and you don't want to get on her bad side.
Lisbeth works for main character, Mikael Blomkvist, an investigative journalist who's been found guilty of libeling billionaire financial wizard Hans-Erik Wennerstrom. Blomkvist wrote an article accusing Wennerstrom of embezzling 65 million dollars from the Swedish government but was unable to substantiate part of the story. Blomkvist must serve a prison sentence but before he can clear himself, he is hired by another billionaire industrialist, Henrik Vanger, to find out what happened to his brother's daughter who disappeared almost forty years ago. Lisbeth was hired to do a background check on Mikael Blomkvist, and Henrik's lawyer recommends that Mikael hire her as a research assistant.
The Vanger family is bad news. One of Henrik's brothers was pro-Nazi during WWII. Harriet's father was a drunkard before he drowned during one of his binges. Harriet's mother is a witch. None of the Vangers get along, which makes it hard for the company to agree on a direction. Blomkvist thinks the search for Harriet is a hopeless case, but Henrik has been obsessed with her since she disappeared and he has boxes full of evidence. He wants Blomkvist to look at them one more time. Stieg Larsson runs the reader through a maze of possible clues, most of which don't go anywhere, at least not right away, but finally Blomkvist finds a photograph that cracks the case wide open.
Lisbeth is instrumental in both climactic scenes. She's such a multi-dimensional character. She's been declared mentally unstable; so although she's twenty-four, she must report to a guardian when she needs money. When her previous guardian dies, she's confronted with an abusive replacement whom she deals with in typical Lisbeth ingenuity. Despite her obvious talent, she has a terrible inferiority complex. She just can't believe Mikael Blomkvist could possibly see anything in her when he could have beautiful Erika Berger, Mikael`s friend and publisher.
Author Stieg Larsson is almost as interesting as Lizbeth. He was managing editor of a magazine opposing right-wing extremism. Before he died he submitted three complete novels. He especially hated financial speculators. There's a telling quote near the end of the book: "...it's the financial gnomes that some tough reporter should identify and expose as traitors. They're the ones who are systematically and perhaps deliberately damaging the Swedish economy in order to satisfy the profit interests of their clients." Pretty appropriate, considering what's been happening on Wall Street.
I sure hope the next two novels are sequels and that we'll hear from Mikael and Lisbeth again. I also hope they make a movie out of THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. I'm already casting the various parts. Are you still alive Winona Ryder?
Book Review: An Idealistic Hero, an Unlikely Heroine, a Swedish Setting, Dangerous Secrets, and a Dandy Mystery Make for Great Fun
Summary: 5 Stars
To me, this book is the most unexpected page-turning thriller I've read in some time. I couldn't wait for the next surprise.
I was reminded of first reading the early Ian Fleming books about James Bond, feeling like I'd entered a fascinating new world that I never had never dreamed of. But Stieg Larsson's writing is much better than Fleming's and these characters are more nuanced in their unusual characteristics.
The book defies normal novel categories. There are such a major story lines about both the hero and heroine that the novel would be more than adequate just developing those ideas. The mystery of a young woman's disappearance is more than adequate to sustain the interest of anyone who likes books about amateur detectives. In the background, there are dark secrets about a not-so-desirable family that would intrigue anyone who likes to read family sagas. What's remarkable is that these threads are very neatly combined so that you get a lot of story for your time, money, and reading pleasure.
Investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist has a problem: He's written something that he can't prove and has been sued for criminal libel. His blunder costs him his savings, his reputation, and his freedom while threatening the survival of his publication. How will he and the magazine recover?
Lisbeth Salander wants her freedom and finds it hard to win. Although she's tremendously talented, her past holds secrets that pin her down much as Gulliver was by the tiny ropes of the Lilliputians.
Henrik Vanger wants to find out what happened to his grand niece, Harriet Vanger, who disappeared while an accident was being handled near her home. Can he persuade Blomkvist to help him?
There has been a search going on for Harriet Vanger for over forty years. What have they been overlooking?
What skeletons are hiding in the pro-Nazi closets of the older generation of the Vanger family? How do these skeletons affect the present?
You'll probably never meet a more unlikely detection team than Blomkvist and Salander. The unusual chemistry and motivation behind their joint efforts directs the story into many unexpected and interesting directions.
Stieg Larsson gives as much attention to his characters and their development as most mystery novelists do to their plots. As a result, you can relate to these characters quite well . . . as though you had already read ten books in which they interacted. He also takes the time to make these characters as unique as real people are, making them more vivid and rewarding to contemplate than the two-dimensional cutouts that serve as "characters" in most mystery novels.
His plot is also very fine: He usually doesn't telegraph what's coming next. People act as unpredictably as they do in real life . . . making the plot messy . . . as real life is messy.
I was delighted to learn that although Mr. Larsson has died that there are two more books coming. I can hardly wait!
Book Review: And in what way was this a good book?
Summary: 2 Stars
Just finished reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It wasn't Bad Bad ala Twilight, but I'm just not seeing how this turned into a hit bestseller. The pacing is terrible, the twists absurd, every time an interesting threat to a character comes up it gets solved within one chapter, leaving us 600+ pages to read about if the main character can win back his honor after a libel case. Seriously, the one mystery that runs from beginning to end in this book is about libel. Murder, sadism, those get 12 pages, but libel case, and a disappearance mystery so obvious it belongs on Scooby Doo run the rest of the book.
Our protagonist starts off having lost a lawsuit against him for libel. He said bad things about a powerful industrialist based on a tip from an old friend. The friend wants to remain off the records, so our protagonist can not produce his source, and thus looses a lawsuit. This means not just a hefty fine, but a stint in jail. The jail part apparently is no big deal, a vacation of sorts. In fact nothing really bothers our main character. Even when, later on, his life is in danger, it is all just part of the day. The really big issue is if he did in fact write a false article, or if the industrialist he wrote about really was a bastard who deserved it. Someone it takes us 600+ pages to get to that.
In the meantime, several sub-mysteries pop up. The "main" one involves another wealthy industrialist whose nice was supposedly murdered decades ago. Of course no body was ever found, and "someone" has been sending him the same birthday gifts the dead girl used to provide, but we are nevertheless supposed to treat this as a "locked room" murder mystery. Along the way, the protagonist runs into the title character, "the girl with the dragon tattoo." The tattoo itself is never explained in any way, and her character is never flushed out. We do know that she is preternaturally intelligent, and put upon by a harsh and sadistically unfair system. She gets her revenge in spades, however, without expending much effort or more than one chapter in doing so. Perhaps the character gets more depth in future books, but she doesn't have it here.
For about 50 or so pages, a real mystery seems to appear, involving a serial killer who has been around for decades. He turns out to be both largely irrelevant and remarkably easy to defeat. The intricate patterns laid down, like the tattoos on the main character, are left to signify little.
In the end we are left with two characters who don't really seem to care about much, who easily defeat enemies, and whose main struggles are really about being judged harshly by a few people.
There are the elements of a fine mystery and character series buried in this book. Perhaps, with good editing, they come out better in the film. Maybe the next book is better. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, however, is likely only enjoyed if the only other choice is a long Swedish winter.
Book Review: I got my reading mojo back with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Summary: 5 Stars
I read many, many nonfiction books as part of my own work, so it often doesn't feel very relaxing to pick up a novel in my free time. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo broke through my burnout and really helped reconnect with my love of fiction. It is the first book in a long time that completely pulled me in with its characters, setting and mystery.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is highly intelligent, and earns its volatile climax. The novel progressed to a level of violence that surprised me, but again, it made sense within the context of the story, which is as much social critique as it is Agatha-Christie-like murder mystery--as updated for the era of The Silence of the Lambs. For me it brings to mind Kate Atkinson's Case Histories: A Novel, amped up a notch. (I enjoyed The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo even more.)
Disgraced journalist turned reluctant detective Mikael Blomkvist and brilliant, damaged researcher Lisbeth Salander are worthy characters whom I'll definitely follow through two sequels. Larsson hints at his characters' depths (of their life stories and pain) and their shallowness (in some quarters, when it comes to human relationships). For instance, when you find out why Lisbeth gets a tattoo, it will make you re-evaluate all that you know, or don't know, about her life history. In fact, after reading this book and finding out what goes on behind closed doors, and beneath respectable facades, you may wonder how well you really know anyone.
The cold-case mystery of the missing girl from the Vanger family completely engrossed me. My one criticism of the book is that the subplot about "The Wennerstrom Affair," which indirectly sets the main story in motion, and comes back at the end of the book, didn't really work for me. It seemed like it would ultimately have much more of a connection to the Vanger story. Was Wennerstrom just a distraction, or an element of social satire that didn't translate well, or is there more there than meets the eye on first read? The actual "payoff" of the Wennerstrom subplot was the one aspect of the story I found unsatisfying. I wonder if those events and characters will come back in Larsson's subsequent books to finally create a logical, full-circle moment.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo takes a while to get going. It took an effort to get to know the main characters and sort out the plot, and I wasn't fully invested until page 83, after the Vanger mystery was laid out. But once Mikael and Lisbeth really got going on the case, it became one of those books that kept me up until one in the morning on a roller coaster ride, trying futilely to find a place to pull over, because I knew I still had 100 pages to go and I didn't want to pull a true all-nighter.
Highly recommended for those hungry for a smart, complex and grown-up thriller.
Book Review: A Twenty First Century Mystery Tour De Force
Summary: 5 Stars
If There Wasn't Death
Agatha Christie's The Mysterious Affair At Styles was published in 1920. She wrote the first great mystery tour de force in 1924. Every mystery fan remembers The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Since then there have been a handful of books which stood out as outstandingly innovative while faithfully following the classic detective story rules. These are the books that leave the readers with a jolt in the solar plexus. Some do it with the climax, like Roger Ackroyd and in the 70s, Ira Levin's A Kiss Before Dying; some do it with a plot and writing that transcends the genre but staying within the rules, the unique, The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco.
Now in 2008 comes Stieg Larsson (and he died before the books were published). Most of the reviewers, including the venerable Machiko Kakutani of the NY Times tend to give away the plot. I skipped the details so that when I reached about page 253, the blow to the pit of my stomach was as hard as a Muhammad Ali punch.
It starts off inocuously enough. Mikael Blomkvist loses a case in court for journalistic zeal for his own publication. And we are introduced to the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Lisbeth Salander. Her horrible past is revealed later and the book goes forth on the sure footed prose of the writer, who without any over writing, maintains interest by plot creation and characters that are believable. No, Blomkvist is not a detective but he's piecing together a mystery that happened years ago, disappearance of young Harriet Vanger from a crowded party in a small island whose exit is cut off by an accident.
A classic Golden Age plot, surely.
Poirot had done it many times, delved into the past and came up with an answer.
Blomkvist reluctantly takes the job that has baffled police and everyone else for forty years. How could anyone miss a clue after such thorough investigation? That is one of the major plotting factors that will delight any reader, particularly of the old school such as myself, who venerate the Christie,Sayers, Stout kind of writers.
No more of the plot.
The writing. Absolutely gorgeous without long metaphors or description of the weather. The interweaving of the characters is natural, convincing and at times produces envy. Who could have a girl friend married to someone else (happily) and would come to Blomkvist's bed when he's alone and not make any demands?
The little village of Hedestad is like where Miss Marple might have lived. And the Vanger family . . . ay, tread carefully here, they have the secret . . .
One wishes as the book speeds along that it was longer and the evening by the fireplace was prolonged.
A highly satisfying, wonderfully literate, sophisiticated mystery that will have you squirming with delight.