2010/73: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo -- Stieg Larsson

[tamaranth]

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo -- Stieg Larsson

"Which is worse -- the fact that [he] raped her out in the cabin, or that you're going to do it in print? You have a fine dilemma. Maybe the ethics committee of the Journalists Association can give you some guidance." (p. 461)

An ageing Swedish industrialist engages a disgraced journalist, Mikael Blomqvist, to investigate the 1966 disappearance of his great-niece Harriet. He'd also like to know which of his relatives has been trying to drive him mad these last forty years by sending him birthday reminders of Harriet. In exchange, he promises information that will redeem Blomqvist, who was jailed for libel after an exposé that proved to be a set-up.

In the process of investigating Harriet's disappearance, Blomqvist (who is apparently irresistable to women) encounters various family members, uncovers evidence of a series of violent crimes, and meets Lisbeth Salander, a young female security specialist with a murky past, 'a rather trying attitude' and a photographic memory.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is tremendously evocative of Sweden. (Or so it seems to me: but I've never visited the country.) There's a marvellous sense of place, lakeside cabins and desolate flatlands: but Larsson pulls no punches about the dark underside of society, endemic misogyny, racism, anti-Semitism, Nazism. Each section of the novel is preceded by a statistic relating to sexual crime: "92% of women in Sweden who have been subjected to sexual assault have not reported the most recent violent incident to the police" (p. 399).

Lisbeth Salander is one of these women, though she has no trust in the system -- which has failed her comprehensively, from the unexplored 'All the Evil' in her childhood to the fact she's still classified as 'legally incompetent' -- and resorts to an alternative solution. Salander is the reason I was so engaged with this novel: she's a fascinating character, neither sentimental nor self-pitying. She is competent, and she may be the character who displays most integrity: she does not compromise.

Read for book club: I've actually owned a copy for some time ... and have now acquired the other two in the trilogy. (£7 for both at Sainsburys).

When we discussed this at book club someone raised the point that it wasn't an especially novel crime novel, in terms of the crime: but I don't read a lot of contemporary crime/thrillers, so the crime element worked for me. Yes, the violence in the novel is unpleasant, distressing: but it's not sensationalised, and Larsson doesn't focus on suffering.

I did work out what happened to Harriet, and the identity of the primary criminal: but that wasn't because the plot is simplistic, it's because the novel does present all the necessary evidence for the reader to draw his or her own conclusions. There are quite a few red herrings and a couple of useful coincidences to keep things uncertain.

The translation seems good to me, though some of the dialogue is slightly clunky: there are also points where the difference between Swedish and English terminology ("In English they call it 'new evidence', which has a very different sound from the Swedish 'new proof material'" (p.268)) are highlighted. I like this evidence of the translator's presence.

Comments

[gummitch.livejournal.com]

she's a fascinating character

She's also, allegedly, Pippi Longstocking. And there's supposedly a fourth book, finished on Larson's laptop, which is currently the subject of some dispute.

[andrewducker]

The Pippi Longstocking thing is mentioned in the text itself :->

[gummitch.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Haven't read it yet, so didn't know if that was common knowledge.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Although not as much dispute as the whole awful mess over Larsson's inheritance, which is a ghastly example of why we legal types say "just make a Will already!"

If I was a bit more cynical I'd wonder if Larsson left his affairs in such a mess to highlight yet another area (inheritance law) in which Sweden is a lot less liberal and enlightened than everyone, including Swedes, likes to think.

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

Cynical? You?

Is interesting point (and the Wikipedia article on Larsson describes a vile mess: how unpleasant for his partner, in particular.)

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

Not having read the Pippi Longstocking books (I know! Literary Heritage Fail!) I didn't recognise her easily -- though Salander has red hair dyed black.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

I rather got the feeling that Larsson loves the Swedish landscape but is less keen on his fellow Swedes. It seemed as if the subtext of the book was "We kid ourselves and the rest of the world that we're liberal and enlightened but we're as nasty as everyone else underneath, and perhaps worse for pretending otherwise."

If you liked the book I'd recommend the film, subject to the caveat that it very graphically depicts some of the book's sexual violence. But the sense of place is even more impressive than on the page - more than any other adaptation I can think of, I came away from the film version of Girl With The Dragon Tattoo feeling that it just looked like how I'd imagined it when reading it.

[sphyg.livejournal.com]

The upcoming film festival is showing all three films.

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

I'm tempted, I admit: on the other hand, as discussed at book club, the Hollywood remake with Daniel Craig as Blomqvist might actually make more sense of his irresistibility. (Also: Stellan Skarsgard!)

[sphyg.livejournal.com]

And I failed to see any of them - mainly due to being too sleepy to stay up for the late showings. Ah well, that's what LoveFilm is for.

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

I am tempted to see the films -- though see comment below re the Hollywood remake! I do like a good bleak Scandiwegian filmscape.

[nils.livejournal.com]

My main gripe with the translation is that they've changed the title of the book - the original is called 'Men Who Hate Women'.

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

I can see why they changed it: the original title is pretty uncompromising (which I appreciate more in a character than in a title!) and though it's a fair description of what the book's about, it is considerably less appealing. The change of title does emphasise the novel's focus on Salander. Though it's kind of formulaic -- 'The Girl Who [XXX]' sounds more lightweight, more like a children's book.

(Also, GRRR. Why not 'The Woman with the Dragon Tattoo'?)

Do you know if the original Swedish titles of the others have been changed? It makes a nice set in English (and keeps the focus on Salander!)

[nils.livejournal.com]

The second book, The Girl Who Played With Fire, has retained its title; the other two books have been given similar titles in English ('The Girl Who...'). The third book is called The Air Castle That Blew Up in the original.

While I've only read the first book so far (in Norwegian translation ;-), I've seen the second book described as "Lisbeth's book", focusing more on her. Changing the title of the other books to something catchier seems to focus the whole series on her, which is possibly not what the author intended.

Yes, Men Who Hate Women is a pretty uncompromising title, but then, so is the subject matter. It helps put the statistics between the chapters in context. Towards the end of the book, when they're digging up dirt on the person behind Blomkvist's libel conviction, Lisbeth's describes him as "another man who hates women". I think he's the fourth one they've encountered.

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

As a matter of interest, how close are Norwegian and Swedish? I always wonder how much I'm missing when I read in translation and I'm pretty sure it varies according to original language.

The subject matter is uncompromising, but there's plenty of context in the book. (Thought: is Blomqvist an exception to the title?) There are certainly plenty of women-haters in there. Not all of them are male.

[nils.livejournal.com]

Norwegian and Swedish (and Danish) are pretty close, close enough to be mutually intelligible (most of the time). I chose to read this book in Norwegian as I felt the translation would be closer to the original because of the similarities in language (and cultural context, I guess). Which isn't to suggest that there's anything wrong with the English translation (apart from the title ;-), just that you always lose something in translation.

You're right, of course, there is context. What I meant to say is the title adds more context. Or focus. Or something. ;-)

(Changing the title feels like a marketing decision, which is probably why it bugs me...)

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

NB perhaps you could clear up a slight difficulty we encountered during discussion: how the hell does one pronounce 'Blomqvist'?

[nils.livejournal.com]

I'm tempted to say it's pronounced how it's written, but that might not be very helpful to a non-Scandiwegian. ;-)

Blomqvist, or Blomkvist, has two syllables (blom and kvist), short vowels, all letters are pronouced, the v might be closer to a u. Does that help?

(Blomkvist, like Salander, is modeled on an Astrid Lindgren character. But I think the book makes that clear.)

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

That does help a lot actually: the 'v' was the problem!

[nils.livejournal.com]

Cool. I think the 'qv'/'kv' is similar to 'qu' at the start of words in Latin and Spanish.

[annafdd.livejournal.com]

I was really annoyed by this book. It doesn't amaze that Larsson left his real life companion in such a mess: he strikes me as much better at striking heroic poises than actually reflecting on things. It's all very well being against the patriarchal institution of marriage, but you can and should make a will. In the same way, it's all very easy and feel-goody to condemn violence against women when it's perpetrated by psychopaths and nazis, it's a bit more difficult to tackle the everyday violence of your dad and uncle who may, otherwise, be "decent", "normal" people.

The direct experience I have of violent abusive men is that they are far more complicate and difficult to deal with than the serial killers Larsson depicts.

I'll also note that Salander can cut through complicated situations because she's largely a sociopath herself, and because the author heaps enough abuse on her to make her own frankly ghastly violence excusable, which strikes me as having a bit of a thumb on the scales.

Also, there is very little examination of systemic violence as opposed to individual, criminal one: a fairly disappointing failure from a supposedly lefty writer.

Apart from that, I found the writing atrocious. The movie I liked a lot more, because it cuts down on the number of women who inesplicably fall for Blomkvist, and is visually pretty arresting.

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

I'd differ: I think he does examine everyday violence, and his serial killer is portrayed as worse than, but on the same scale as, the other 'men who hate women' in the novel. I'd also note that the novel at least begins to explore the inherent misogyny / violence of Swedish society.

Hard to tell with a translation whether the quality of the writing one reads mirrors the quality of the original. I didn't find the prose particularly offensive: it was functional. And the novel was well-paced.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

I concur. Having finished this book this morning, I don't think Larssen lets other men off - he just happens to focus on one in particular as an exemplar of the apparently nice man who is horrifying beneath.

[asynje.livejournal.com]

Larsson's books are part of this tidal wave of crime novels that's been sweeping across Scandinavia these past few years. A lot of them written by women actually, re: your other reading project. Femi-krimi.

Also, Pippi! Post haste!