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

[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.