The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest

I don't know what there is for me to say about The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest that I haven't already said about ...Played With Fire. But here's my biggest problem.

I've never visited Sweden, let alone lived there. I am completely uneducated in it's politics or social customs. But here's the thing; I refuse to believe that it is anything at all as Stieg Larsson describes it in these books.

I'm not talking about the organised crime or the shady government agencies; that stuff happens everywhere, to a lesser or greater extent, and this is fiction after all so exaggeration for dramatic effect is to be expected. I'm talking about the fact that 2 out of every 3 male characters is a misogynistic pig of the vilest sort. We aren't talking sexist, 'put the kettle on love' or 'get em out for the lads' which would be bad enough but believable; we're talking vile woman hating scumbags.

 Not a chapter goes by without one character or another; be they Private Eye, Cop, Politician, Spy, Doctor, Social Worker or Drug Dealing Mass Murdering Psychopath; spout off about whores, bitches and cunts, and it just gets ridiculous. When everyone is as hateful as that, what possible impact can your 'main' villains have?

Of course it's always possible that Larsson made virtually every male character behave in that fashion because he understood that it was the only way to make his hero look good by comparison. Don't get me wrong, I like Mikael Blomkvist; when he's being a capable reporter and/or a doggedly pursuing proof of Salanders innocence. It's when he's doing anything else that he pisses me off big style. This is not giving your lead 'foibles' or having him be 'difficult'. This is having your lead be a total shit. Seriously, how does this man have friends? His sexual attitudes alone... I'm no prude, I once read a Jackie Collins novel, but I just want to punch this man whenever his attitude to sex, or monogamy, came up.

What of Lisbeth Salander though? Well for a start off she barely registers. Huge swathes of the book are people sitting around talking about her; take a drink every time someone uses the phrase 'lesbian satanist' and you won't live through the first 100 pages; but we don't see her actually do anything much of note until probably the last 50 pages or so. At which point Larsson realises she doesn't have her 'big scene' of the book; and other people have pretty much resolved her plot for her; so he contrives to give her one last 'kick-ass' fight scene against the unstoppable man mountain killing machine who feels no pain. Yeah.

And that's where it ends. We go from the title character in mortal danger, to the book being over and her (spoiler)  perfectly safe in the space of about 3 pages. Then she forgives a man she should by rights have been slapping the face of and the book's over. A far cry from the 'when will this bloody thing end?' feeling that the last 100 pages of book one engendered, but still far from perfect. Never did find that middle ground, this series.

So yeah, this book is one big bundle of flaws. Which is a crying shame, because it has a really intriguing plot at it's core, if you can forgive the horrible convenience of everyone in the world seemingly being connected to Salander in some way. He just never quite manages to dig the plot out from under the exposition and 'gritty' sex talk.

Anyway, that's the end of the Millennium trilogy. I didn't hate it, but I can't say it particularly blew me away either. Onwards and upwards though, because next week I talk about the 2nd trade paperback collection of The Boys. Good times.

Stieg Larsson

The Girl Who Played With Fire

It's ironic that a novel with as tedious and drawn out beyond all sane reason an ending as The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo had should spawn a sequel that's biggest, though by no means only flaw, is it's overly busy and rushed climax. Yet that's exactly what you get with The Girl Who Played With Fire.

Leaving the end until the end though, what else is there to be said about The Girl Who Played With Fire?

Well, you could say that within it's 569 pages is a taut 250/300 page thriller fighting desperately to get out.

You could say that the peril befalling the protagonists veers worryingly close to cartoonish at times.

You could say that the plot relies *far* to heavily on coincidence.

You could even say that Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander, so mesmerising as creations and so competent as characters in the first book, are compromised beyond repair.

The plot this time around, when it finally gets going, is a far more personal one for Salander, and delves much further into her history, her social circle such as it is, and the behavioural issues that saw the state declare her incompetent to manage her own life. All of which, sadly, is presented with all the dramatic flare of a cost/benefit powerpoint presentation at the AGM of a plastic spoon manufacturer. Persevere though, and there are some nuggets of gold.

Blomkvist, on the other hand, is brought into the plot entirely by a series of coincidences and he  blunders around being even more of an arrogant, selfish tit than he was in the first book, while his sexual/relationship proclivities continue to present the burning question of why any woman with half an ounce of grey matter would give him the time of day.

Neither character comes out of this book looking particularly good, but they can at least rest easy in the knowledge that they are the leads so Larsson doesn't dare do as thorough a hatchet job on them as he does on every other character in the book.  Every second man  we meet is a sadistic misogynistic pig, and those who aren't are borderline incompetent; while the women, who are few and far between, spend all their time acting like gullible mugs. It's all well and good to tell us how smart and independent and savvy the women are, but when their every action belies that assertion, you're doing something wrong.

That last paragraph leaves something of a sour taste, because it would be obvious to a blind pheasant who only reads Urdu that Larsson has some pretty hefty anger towards what he sees as social injustices, whether motivated by misogyny or otherwise. His message is a good one. It's just a shame he isn't a better writer, and the whole thing comes off smacking of naivete.

The Girl Who Played With Fire is full of narrative dead ends as well. To give one, very prominent, example; the whole opening of the book. Not to put to fine a point on it, but it's entirely pointless. Salander is living it up in a secluded paradise with some of the money she nicked in book one when she figures out that one of the other guests at the hotel is planning to kill his wife. A storm hits, and Salander uses it as cover to kill him first.

Now, had this been used as a means of saying "Look, she's willing to kill, so she might be guilty of these crimes she's accused of" I could understand it, but that's never even intimated. Had the police discovered her crime, or at least suspected it, and used it to bolster their theories about her, I could have understood it. Neither of those things happen though, and you're left to wonder why Larsson bothered writing any of it.

From the beginning of the book, to the end of the book; it just stops. Absolutely nothing is resolved; he villains are still out and about being villainous, Salander is still on the run accused of murders she didn't commit (but not accused of the one she did) and while Blomkvist has figured out a fair amount of the story he's in absolutely no position to do anything about it. Come back for book 3 suckers!

In fact, you could spend almost as long relaying the books flaws as Larsson spent creating them. It would be pointless though, and not a little churlish; because you see, the book is eminently readable and immensely addictive. The flaws niggle and the flaws annoy, but they don't stop you reading. I'd like to tell you why but... I don't know. What meager critical faculties I might once have possessed have admitted defeat at the hands of this book and all I can say is... it's objectively rubbish, but if you read it, you'll probably enjoy it.

As I typed this post I came to a realisation that I didn't reach while actually reading; Larsson is a Star Wars fan! A standalone first story, followed by a sequel that digs into the lead's past, makes a massive reveal about their paternity, leaves another major character incapacitated, has no real ending to speak of and is pointless without the 3rd part. The Girl Who Played With Fire is The Empire Strikes Back! Only not as good, obviously.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

There are some truths which can not, however hard we try to delude ourselves otherwise, be denied. In my case, one such undeniable truth is that it will take approx 5 years for any significant literary pop-culture phenomenon to make it's way past my my fiercely defended ramparts of established series/authors, and force it's way into my reading consciousness. It's why Order of the Phoenix was on it's way before I'd heard of Harry Potter, it's why I haven't read The Hunger Games, and it's why I have just now gotten around to reading the first of Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy; The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

You've doubtless read the praise. In all likelihood you've read the book, or at least seen one of the movie versions. Most people have. Which makes it difficult for someone to read it now without a nagging sensation of "you must like it, or you aren't normal. " Something so universally praised must be excellent, right? Everyone can't be wrong, surely?

Well, everyone can be., and everyone often is. In the case of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo though... Let's just say that the majority does sometimes get it right.

First things first. Yes, it takes a while to get going, with a lot of quite dry set up regarding the (very) extended family around which the stories main thread revolves. And yes, the epilogue is far too long; if you've wrapped up your A plot and need another 100 pages to tie up your B plot, you're doing something wrong. Those two points alone lose the book points, at least in my view. One explanation for these faults, which could have been fixed with a little editorial tinkering, could be Larsson's untimely and regrettable death shortly after handing in the manuscripts. His death precluded any collaborative editing, and to aggressively edit without his input may have been deemed disrespectful.*

But the mystery at the heart of the book; the disappearance of a young girl in 1966 which has haunted her family, especially it's patriarch, ever since; is compelling enough to make all but the most demanding reader forgive the book those flaws. To untangle the mystery is to unearth all the secrets her wealthy family strove for so long to keep buried, and as secrets go, there are some doozies here.

Enter disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist, fresh off a libel conviction, and needing something to occupy his time. Blomkvist is an odd creation, I must admit. Certainly the biggest romantic relationship in his life is one that would raise quite a few eyebrows, although since none of the other characters seem too bothered by it
that may be a cultural thing, given the novels Swedish setting; or it could just be a quirk of Larsson's sexual politics.**

Which is not to say that Blomkvist is an unpleasant lead. In all other respects he's the archetypal lead; smart, savvy, witty, charming, resourceful, honest, and totally unwilling to give up once he realises just what he's dealing with.

Of course, no-one is coming to these books for him. The draw, hence the title, is the enigmatic Lisbeth Salander; she of the big lizard. It's here that Larsson plays his master stroke, because this is a character so psychologically complex, so removed from anything we would normally expect in a hero, that the passages detailing her life; as unrelated to the main mystery as they are, are nevertheless among the most compelling in the book.

Easy comparisons could be made to the likes of Dexter Morgan; certainly she fits more closely to that breed of dark anti-hero than she does any traditional heroic role; but where his sociopathy is played, in many instances, for pitch black humour; and I'd wager doesn't bear a great deal of resemblance to any realistic conditions; Salander's detached way of life, and inability to function within normal societal parameters is presented not to amuse, but to inform. She is as she is, at least in part, because the system failed her; and her recognition of that failure, even if the system itself doesn't see it, forces her ever deeper into her shell of self reliance. Few characters can crack that shell, and it's not always a good thing when they do.

Incidentally, the 'guardianship' system under which Salander lives, if it exists in Sweden as Larsson describes it here, is as deeply flawed and open to abuse a system as I think I've ever heard of, and must surely contravene any number of the basic human rights of those placed in it's care. Larsson alludes to the fact that the relatively small number of complaints about this system could well be due to the fact that the subjects have little power with which to complain and you can't help thinking, sadly, that he is probably right.

Anyway, back to the book. The resolution to the mystery, when it comes, is both obvious, and a shocker, if that makes sense, in that it's the most logical explanation with the always helpful hindsight, but certainly not one that I got close to; my 2 theories, which I formulated at different junctures, both turned out to be about as far from correct as it's possible to get; and the villain one of the nastier examples I've come across in recent years.

All in all then, a book I thoroughly enjoyed and would recommend wholeheartedly, where it not for the aforementioned slow start and drawn out ending. As it is, I still think everyone should read it, just go in forewarned.



*I do not claim this theory as fact. Nor, in fact do I claim it as my own; it's far too insightful to have come from me. It was postulated by @McFlooze on twitter; a young lady well worth a follow.

**It wouldn't be the first time recently that I've read a book in which a character behaves ridiculously without arousing comment, leading to the unmistakable conclusion that the author 'doesn't think it's ridiculous'. Kathy Reichs, I'm looking at you, with your whole Ryan and his long lost ex thing.