For my Birthday, my mother-in-law gave me the beautiful clothbound set of Steig Larsson's trilogy from Amazon. To be honest, I added these books to my Wishlist without actually reading what they were about. They are so popular and the box set looked so nice that I figured I couldn't go wrong! I was wrong.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo wasn't what I expected. This definitely isn't a book that grabs you from the start. The first couple of chapters were terribly dull; the writing had an almost amateurish quality. Perhaps Swedish doesn't translate well into English? After about fifty pages I was finally pulled into the story and I did find the murder mystery plot interesting. However, after finishing this book I can honestly say that I feel disturbed. The Swedish title for this book is Men who Hate Women and that is an apt description of over half of the male characters in this book. I can only conclude that a large portion of Sweden's male population is made up of pedophiles, sadists, serial killers, and rapists.
Now for the main character. Lisbeth Sanders, the one with the dragon tattoo, is an pseudo-anorexic, gothic, socially incompetent "genius" with a photographic memory. What confused me most about this character is even though she is constantly described as anorexic looking, tattooed, pierced, and dirty, all the men in the novel seem to be mysteriously attracted to her. Very weird. Her mode of attack usually involves computer hacking, golf clubs, and tasers. Gutsy, yes, but she's quite deranged.
Now that I own the other two books I feel obligated to read them, but I'm afraid I’m going to need therapy when I'm finished.
Hmm, that is interesting that you say that. I haven't read them yet but was going to borrow them from someone who RAVES about them. Perhaps she's deranged herself...
ReplyDeleteI'm reading the third one and have actually enjoyed all three of them :) Different strokes for different folks! Lisbeth Salander is an odd duck but you will learn more about why she is the more you read!
ReplyDelete-Rachel Arroyo (Krupp)
Lol Ang! I do think that a part of my dislike stems from the fact that I don't really read the murder/mystery genre very often. Read the first one and tell me what you think. Maybe I'm the one who's deranged! Rachel, I read on Wikipedia that one of the reasons Larsson wrote the character of Lisbeth is because he witnessed a gang rape of a young girl when he was 15 and he never forgave himself for not trying to help her. Lisbeth is based on this girl. This fact, at-least, helped me understand authorial intention with this character.
ReplyDeleteInteresting. I've actually heard the same opinion about this from other people, and therefore have no desire to read these books anymore. If the book doesn't grab me in the first chapter, I get impatient and rarely continue. Also, I'm not a fan of translated books, for the very reason you mentioned. Some things just can't be translated properly into English, and I believe a lot is lost in translation.
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