The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson (2008)
I have very mixed feelings about this book. It has been on the best seller list and gotten rave reviews, but that doesn’t make it good literature. Larsson creates a very bleak picture of life in Sweden. The dominant theme is abuse of women by men. Interestingly, in Sweden, the book was entitled Men Who Hate Women.
The prologue of the novel begins with a mystery. An elderly industrialist (whom we later learn is Henrik Vanger) receives a framed pressed flower on his birthday, just as he has received for his birthday for the past 40 years. The recipient is unknown. The flower is a gentle reminder of the gifts his beloved grand-niece, Harriet, had given him before her disappearance and supposed murder in 1966.
The book next shifts to journalist and magazine publisher Mikael Blomkvist. He had just been found guilty of libel. Disgraced, Blomkvist ostensibly removes himself from his magazine and is offered a job by Vanger. Vanger wants Blomkvist to investigate Harriet’s disappearance. The cover story that Blomkvist, however, is a history of the Vanger family. Harriet had disappeared from an island, so Vanger believes there is a limited number of suspects. Indeed, Vanger believes that a family member is responsible for Harriet’s murder.
Blomkvist takes the job because of the carrot Vanger dangles. He promises to deliver the executive who was the target of Blomkvist’s libel suit.
Finally, we meet Lisbeth Salander, the title character ~ Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. She is an anti-social young woman with a photographic memory who freelances for a security company. She has amazing computer skills, many of which are illegal, which aid her in her security work. We get brief glimpses of her family life ~ her 48-year old mother is in a nursing home. Lisbeth visits her often, but the mother often confuses Lisbeth with her sister. Lisbeth has no close network of friends, and because she has had bad encounters with the police, she doesn’t seek legal assistance after she was brutally raped by her guardian.
Lisbeth had been initially hired to delve into Blomkvist’s past. Suddenly, the investigation was called off. Later, Blomkvist needs assistance in his Vanger investigation, so Lisbeth is called to assist him discover Harriet’s disappearance.
In a convoluted plot, Harriet’s murder seems to be connected to a number of murders that took place throughout Sweden in the 1950s and 1960s. As family members are interviewed, events lead Blomkvist to believe that maybe there is a copy-cat killer.
This is where the plot begins to unravel. A series of unlikely events occur, and, as if the book were the prelude to a movie script, there is a climatic scene where Blomkvist and the villain come to blows. Fear not, the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo comes to Blomkvist’s rescue.
The resolution to the mystery is horrifying and one that came totally from left field. It didn’t fit with the initial portion of the book.
Larsson depicts how cruelly and sadistly the men treat women they encounter. Many women are tortured and raped. Blomkvist, however, isn’t cruel, physically, but has a lot of casual sex with nearly every women he meets. Even though he is more than twice her age, Blomkvist engages in a sexual relationship with Lisbeth, even after he knows how fragile she is emptionally. On wonders what scars his attitude toward such casual sex leaves on both Blomkvist and his women.
Once the Vanger mystery has been solved, Larsson turns to Blomkvist’s revenge on the executive who bested him in the libel suit. At this point in the novel, the plot totally falls flat. The reader doesn’t really care about the outcome. Lisbeth has virtually disappeared.
Although the book kept my attention, in the end, I found it lacking and unsatisfactory.
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is the first book in a trilogy by Larsson. After reading this novel, I am not ready to run out and read the rest in this series.
Read: July 27, 2010
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