The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

[palin99999]

Pretty disappointed to hear the generally negative comments as I picked this up as part of a 3-for-2 deal at Borders (the other ones being The Book Thief and Watch You Bleed: The Sage of Guns N' Roses).

I've been considering giving it away as an Xmas present anyway.

It's not a terrible book, it's just that it was hyped way too much to be anything but a letdown. It has it's moments, but they're few and far between.

[Kat]

Hmm...just finished listening to the third book. I must have really liked these because I was so unaware of the hype--I just picked up the first audiobook a couple months because my mother described it as, "You'll like this, it's about a hacker girl." Didn't listen to it until last month because I wasn't in the mood for a seriously depressing book, and since every other Swedish mystery I've listened to has been pretty dark I figured this one would be too. It's a little longwinded, especially in audio form where you can't skim anything (although the narration, by Simon Vance who I have liked in the past as well, was excellent), but I didn't find Lisbeth to be particularly Mary-Sue-ish. She legitimately couldn't hold relationships together and pissed people off with her personality, but I can understand why the people around her would love/hate her. (Her relationship with her lawyer in the third book seemed particularly realistic.)

[OldLordPlumm]

Only part I read is the part where she tortures her rapist, but it just doesn't describe her sodomosing him with the dildo as nearly graphically as it's portrayed in the movie, much better...

[pat5150]

Totally loved the three volumes!

So much so that I'm kind of scared to watch the movies, which are usually crap compared to a good novel... :worried:

Patrick

[Galactus]

Totally loved the three volumes!

So much so that I'm kind of scared to watch the movies, which are usually crap compared to a good novel... :worried:

Patrick

The swedish movies or the american remakes?

[pat5150]

Weren't they just dubbed into English for the US release?

Patrick

[Guest Raidne]

I am just starting to read this book right now, and will report back when I finish and am not risking spoilers.

[Blaine]

For me, this was one of those cases where I totally understand what people don't like about the books and I completely see all those problems myself, as I read them - and I still don't care. I still really enjoyed them. In fact, I totally loved them, warts and all.

Like, I'd groan outloud as Larsson's obvious fantasy version of himself, Bloomqvist, beds another woman or pulls off some giant, improbable journalistic victory - but it didn't really lower my opinion on the readability of the book. Same thing goes for the long descriptions of Salandar's Powerbook or her shopping decisions from Ikea. Read them, rolled my eyes, and then kept going because I just enjoyed the ride overall.

Not sure why they're such a HUGE hit, but seriously, I could read a hundred of these books. And there's something to that. Larsson's characters and his world were just really easy to get lost in. The mysteries were enjoyable and the action well thought out, for the most part.

I think it's totally possible for books to be massively entertaining without being transcendent. Movies and TV fit that bill all the time. To me, reading the Larsson books was probably closest to watching the Bourne movies with Matt Damon or a marathon of a really solid crime procedural show. It's not going to revolutionize the way you think about the medium or anything, but if done well, you can thoroughly enjoy it for what it is.

I watched the Swedish version of GWTDT and thought it was about as good as a film adaptation could be possibly be. Hopefully the US version doesn't completely suck. For me, taking the book out of Sweden would ruin at least half of what I loved about the book, but who knows?

Anyway, the legal estate fight between Larsson's family is actually almost as fascinating a story as the books themselves. There's a good article on it here, NYT - The Afterlife of Steig Larsson.

Larsson died without leaving a will. Like a great many Swedish couples, he and Gabrielsson never married — she was his sambo, as the Swedes say, his live-in companion — and they had no children. Oddly, Sweden, that model of social liberalism, has no provision for common-law marriage, the way many American states do, and so Larsson’s father and younger brother, who are not particularly literary, got everything: the rights to his books, the money, even half of the apartment that Larsson and Gabrielsson shared. This has made Gabrielsson, a complicated and fascinating character in her own right, an object of intense sympathy in Sweden, where seemingly everyone has an opinion about how Larsson’s estate should have been divided.

Legally Gabrielsson has no claim, but she has asserted a kind of moral entitlement. She also has a crucial piece of the Larsson legacy: a laptop computer containing roughly three-quarters of a fourth novel. According to Gabrielsson, in 2005 the Larssons offered to give her Stieg’s half of the apartment in return for the laptop. She refused, calling the offer extortion, and they eventually relented, very likely under the weight of public opinion, and let her have the whole apartment for nothing. Last November, they told a journalist that they were willing to settle the dispute for 20 million kronor, or roughly $2.6 million. Gabrielsson didn’t respond.

I'd be happier if I could actually just read the 4th book, or what's done of it - but from the looks of Larsson's estate fights, it doesn't seem likely soon.

[Mexal]

I'm a fan. I burned through the books rather quickly. It kept me wanting to read more and sometimes, that's more than enough.

[Galactus]

^^ Actually, Sweden has provisions for sambo-inheritance. Although it's slightly weaker than the case for married property. It's a bit weaker than marriage though. (Basically, in a marriage all property not specifically excluded is counted as common property and is to be divided at the end of the marriage, if merely cohabiting only property acquired during the cohabitation is considered to be common propert)

[Iskaral Pust]

That's actually the thing about the book that i liked the less. The "hacking" thing is really too easy for Salander and it really does work like magic for her. Made me appreciate the book a lot less that i could have.

I totally agree. The hacking super-powers are so annoying. This may not be the worst offender, but I can't suspend my disbelief when the plot and character rely completely on such wishful thinking*. And even her anti-social maladjustment felt like a geek wankfest: a poster girl for basement-dwellers who resent their lack of social skills. And Bloomqvist was an even bigger Gary Stu than Lisbeth was a Mary Sue.

*Fantasy writers, on the other hand, manage to write about dragons or even gods walking among us while managing an appropriate balance of belief suspension and fantasy indulgence.

[Arbor Gold]

I totally agree. The hacking super-powers are so annoying. This may not be the worst offender, but I can't suspend my disbelief when the plot and character rely completely on such wishful thinking*. And even her anti-social maladjustment felt like a geek wankfest: a poster girl for basement-dwellers who resent their lack of social skills. And Bloomqvist was an even bigger Gary Stu than Lisbeth was a Mary Sue.

I agree 100%. I disliked the first book, then bought the second book in an airport because a friend of mine told me it was better than the first. It was so awful I intentionally left it in the Iberian Airlines VIP lounge in Madrid rather than finish the 50 pages I had remaining...I was afraid I might injure myself with all the eye-rolling. There's a part early in the second book where Lisbeth is described as wearing tight jeans with a hole in the ass so that you could see her blue panties underneath... :rolleyes:

Larsson seems like a lazy writer who relied on 'shocking' sexual plot devices (analrapists! incest! regular rape! underage rape! sex slaves!!) and stock character tropes to create a readable, but ultimately uninteresting, mystery series.

[Crazydog7]

I haven't read the books but the movie kicked ass.

[Turinqui-Calima]

I hated these books. Every time I see someone reading them on the subway I feel like apologizing on behalf of Sweden and tell them there are better Swedish authors.

I guess the books were entertaining enough, I got through them all, but everything was just so over the top and the characters so unbelievable. Even if you're just looking for something fun and intriguing or what-not, there are so many other authors in this genre that are SO much better.

The legal disputes between the 'sambo' and the father/brother are actually much more interesting. I'm not sure about the Swedish laws but my parents have been together for almost 40 years without getting married but are thinking about getting married now to avoid any legal troubles should one of them pass.

[Analu]

Been a while since I read it, but I remember despising this book and being completely baffled at its popularity. Blomkvist and Salander are ridiculous characters, and some scenes made me feel a little dirty reading them. I felt like taking a shower after reading it.

For me, next time I want to read enjoyable trash, I'll just pick up the next Jack Reacher novel or reread some old Clancy/Grisham books. Hell, even Cornwell books are better than this.

[Gigei]

Er not everyone had read the books and generally we do spoiler tag spoilers or the word spoiler is put in the thread title if spoilers are not to be spoiler tagged.

Only part I read is the part where she tortures her rapist, but it just doesn't describe her sodomosing him with the dildo as nearly graphically as it's portrayed in the movie, much better...

[Quoth]

Thanks for the thread! I was about to delve into these books. Based on what I've read here, these books won't do it for me.

[Davieboy]

It's impossible to find a tube train in London without at least one person reading a Millennium novel. I myself listened to the first one on MP3 - it was ok, but didn't feel the need to continue with the trilogy.

[Lyanna Stark]

Yes, but she is an invincible hacker / vigilante millionaire genius. She's like Bruce Wayne, basically.

I don't think that's a fair description of her at all. She gets beaten and abused a LOT and although you can argue that she had the whole difficult upbringing at what not, she's often presented as the victim, the underdog and most importantly on the Mary Sue aspect: She's not beautiful.

Hence I think people tagging her with the Mary Sue label is doing so at least partly wrongfully, and that in this case, people don't really know what a Mary Sue is. Lisbeth Salander is not described as pretty, invincible, or fantastic. She's described as extremely intelligent, but not beautiful and with a very, very strong, almost debilitating anti social streak.

If you're looking at problems with the books, look at the random kindness from middle aged men towards Salander.

The good bits are where it describes the built in problems in the Swedish system where everyone trusts the authorities and it can be extremely hard to get anywhere, plus ofc that it is written with an inherent feminist pathos (maybe not always executed "correctly" as such, but it's definitely there).

The bad bits are Blomqvist (you should focus on a Gary Stu, not a Mary Sue people) who does nothing important and sleeps around a lot, plus all his weird non-relationships with women, who are unable to resist his magnetic charms (screams Gary Stu to me).

I agree with whomever says it's a normal suspense/criminal novel and it is, with perhaps a couple of extra twists making it more special. Since I don't live in Sweden anymore, I haven't been party to the enormous hype so I basically read it assuming it wasn't anything special. It probably helped me enjoy it more, as I did enjoy it, based on what it is.

[Zoë Sumra]

Hence I think people tagging her with the Mary Sue label is doing so at least partly wrongfully, and that in this case, people don't really know what a Mary Sue is. Lisbeth Salander is not described as pretty, invincible, or fantastic. She's described as extremely intelligent, but not beautiful and with a very, very strong, almost debilitating anti social streak.

...

The bad bits are Blomqvist (you should focus on a Gary Stu, not a Mary Sue people) who does nothing important and sleeps around a lot, plus all his weird non-relationships with women, who are unable to resist his magnetic charms (screams Gary Stu to me).

Severe past abuse is one of the Mary Sue cliches, often used to "counterbalance" Mary Sue's "advantages".

But yes, I agree with you that Blomqvist is much more of a Gary Stu than Salander is a Mary Sue. As I have said elsewhere, I think it's much easier for readers to jump on a Mary Sue than a Gary Stu, in that the powerful, good-looking male character who gets all the girls and all the money, or simply the uber-powered male, is a more common trope in fiction anyway and not often seen as Gary Stu, whereas presented with a gender swap the character would be described as a Mary Sue.