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Millennium #1-3
The Millennium Trilogy
Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy is now available in a complete hardcover set.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Harriet Vanger, a scion of one of Sweden’s wealthiest families disappeared without a trace more than forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle continues to try to discover what happened to her. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist recently sidelined by a libel conviction, to investigate. Blomkvist is aided by the pierced and tattooed computer prodigy Lisbeth Salander. Together they tap into a vein of unfathomable iniquity and astonishing corruption on their way to discovering the truth of Harriet Vanger’s fate.
The Girl Who Played with Fire
Mikael Blomkvist, now the crusading publisher of the magazine Millennium, has decided to run a story that will expose an extensive sex trafficking operation. On the eve of its publication, the two reporters responsible for the article are murdered, and the fingerprints found on the murder weapon belong to his friend Lisbeth Salander. Blomkvist, convinced of Salander’s innocence, plunges into an investigation of the murders. Meanwhile, Salander herself is drawn into a murderous game of cat and mouse, which forces her to face her dark past.
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
Lisbeth Salander lies in critical condition, a bullet wound to her head, in the intensive care unit of a Swedish city hospital. She’s fighting for her life in more ways than one: if and when she recovers, she’ll be taken back to Stockholm to stand trial for three murders. With the help of Mikael Blomkvist, she will not only have to prove her innocence, but also identify and denounce those in authority who have allowed the vulnerable, like herself, to suffer abuse and violence. On her own, she will plot revenge—against the man who tried to kill her, and against the corrupt government institutions that very nearly destroyed her life.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Harriet Vanger, a scion of one of Sweden’s wealthiest families disappeared without a trace more than forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle continues to try to discover what happened to her. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist recently sidelined by a libel conviction, to investigate. Blomkvist is aided by the pierced and tattooed computer prodigy Lisbeth Salander. Together they tap into a vein of unfathomable iniquity and astonishing corruption on their way to discovering the truth of Harriet Vanger’s fate.
The Girl Who Played with Fire
Mikael Blomkvist, now the crusading publisher of the magazine Millennium, has decided to run a story that will expose an extensive sex trafficking operation. On the eve of its publication, the two reporters responsible for the article are murdered, and the fingerprints found on the murder weapon belong to his friend Lisbeth Salander. Blomkvist, convinced of Salander’s innocence, plunges into an investigation of the murders. Meanwhile, Salander herself is drawn into a murderous game of cat and mouse, which forces her to face her dark past.
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
Lisbeth Salander lies in critical condition, a bullet wound to her head, in the intensive care unit of a Swedish city hospital. She’s fighting for her life in more ways than one: if and when she recovers, she’ll be taken back to Stockholm to stand trial for three murders. With the help of Mikael Blomkvist, she will not only have to prove her innocence, but also identify and denounce those in authority who have allowed the vulnerable, like herself, to suffer abuse and violence. On her own, she will plot revenge—against the man who tried to kill her, and against the corrupt government institutions that very nearly destroyed her life.
1531 pages, Hardcover
First published November 7, 2005
About the author
Stieg Larsson
86 books15.8k followersStieg Larsson (born as Karl Stig-Erland Larsson) was a Swedish journalist and writer who passed away in 2004.
As a journalist and editor of the magazine Expo , Larsson was active in documenting and exposing Swedish extreme right and racist organisations. When he died at the age of 50, Larsson left three unpublished thrillers and unfinished manuscripts for more. The first three books ( The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo , The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest ) have since been printed as the Millenium series. These books are all bestsellers in Sweden and in several other countries, including the United States and Canada.
Witnessed a rape when he was 15, and was helpless to stop it. This event haunted him for the rest of his life. The girl being raped was named Lisbeth, which he later used as the name of the heroine on his Millenium trilogy. Sexual violence against women is also a recurring theme in his work.
Personal quote:
To exact revenge for yourself or your friends is not only a right, it's an absolute duty.
As a journalist and editor of the magazine Expo , Larsson was active in documenting and exposing Swedish extreme right and racist organisations. When he died at the age of 50, Larsson left three unpublished thrillers and unfinished manuscripts for more. The first three books ( The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo , The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest ) have since been printed as the Millenium series. These books are all bestsellers in Sweden and in several other countries, including the United States and Canada.
Witnessed a rape when he was 15, and was helpless to stop it. This event haunted him for the rest of his life. The girl being raped was named Lisbeth, which he later used as the name of the heroine on his Millenium trilogy. Sexual violence against women is also a recurring theme in his work.
Personal quote:
To exact revenge for yourself or your friends is not only a right, it's an absolute duty.
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August 19, 2010
One year when I was in grad school, a fellow student in my program sent a ranty, invective-laden email to the entire department. (This was notable, and sticks in my memory, because usually it was the tenured faculty who wrote these tirades.) His rant had been spurred by the announcement of a new scholarship program intended to encourage more women to pursue advanced degrees in technical disciplines. His argument (as near as I (a) could figure out at the time, and (b) can remember now, since it's been a few years) wasn't simply that he felt gender-based scholarships were a form of affirmative action and that he opposed this. His argument -- sent to the entire department -- was that this sort of program was part of a secret agenda directed against all men everywhere, and that by letting this kind of thing stand, the department was tacitly supporting the complete emasculation and disempowerment of males in general. And so forth.
I had a private exchange with him, because I really couldn't believe that he meant what he'd said. (Because I'm naive.) I pointed out that his claims were insane, and offensive, and did he realize he sounded like a kook? The details of our entire exchange are unimportant, but suffice it to say that I didn't come away feeling differently about his kookiness. Especially after he tried to "help" me see that I'd been brainwashed about gender issues. Huh. So I disregarded him from then on. But his email signature noted that he was, at the time, the Executive Vice-President of the National Coalition of Free Men. A bit of digging led me to find some of his online essays, including one gem wherein he tossed around references to our culture's "headlong flight" into "Nazi-like gendercide" (which are verbatim quotes, so yes, he Godwined himself). He also compared his "spiritual and political war against masculophobia" to the cause of Mahatma Gandhi.
So, yeah, this dude had some issues. I don't know anything about the "NCFM" and can't draw opinions about its overall membership, but do I feel confident, based on several exchanges with him, that this particular guy hated women.
This past June, a news brief in the Santa Fe Reporter noted that a member of New Mexico's congressional delegation came under fire from men's rights groups for supporting the Violence Against Women Act. (According to the Reporter, this Act was proposed by Amnesty International and aims to "increase aid for women abroad and to establish State Department offices dedicated to their protection".) Among the groups attacking Representative Lujan's position on the VAWA was Abusegate, which has anonymous backers and which is closely affiliated with Men's News Daily. Another Abusegate affiliate maintains lists of companies guilty of "male bashing". (Such as KFC's pink bucket campaign against breast cancer. I assume Yoplait's similar "Save Lids to Save Lives" program has also landed them on the dreaded list.)
Anyway, the piece in the Reporter ran under the title, "Abuser's Lobby Demands Apology". Which, you know? Yeah. Kinda true.
I mention all this as a loooong and discursive means of pointing out that the original Swedish title of Stieg Larsson's first novel is "Men Who
Hate Women." To English audiences this book is, of course, "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo", which is fine, but loses the whole point of the first book. I prefer the original title, because it sets a tone for the entire trilogy. I also prefer the original title because in some places the trilogy struck me as a meditation on gender relationships. (On the other hand, I think all three English titles taken together make for a better collective, at the price of perhaps overemphasizing Lisbeth Salander's role in the first book. She's the centerpiece of the second and third novels, but not the first.)
That long and discursive introduction is also my way of skating around the fact that it's been a few months since I read these books, so I've already forgotten some of the plot details. (Which is why I'm taking the easy way out by writing up my thoughts of the trilogy as a whole, rather than each individual book.)
The thing that immediately struck me when I started "Dragon Tattoo" was that the book -- especially the first hundred pages or so -- read very much like a first draft from somebody who didn't have much previous experience writing fiction novels. (I can say this because I recognize many of the same infelicities of language and technique from early drafts of my own novels. And maybe the final drafts, too.) In other words, it's clunky. Not fatally so, but a few sharp-eyed beta readers could have done wonders for ironing out these books. (The style improves steadily through the trilogy, but not without hiccups.) And that's a shame, because there's a really good story here, and some terrific characters, but they're hobbled by the presentation. Larsson had important and entertaining things to say, but he just didn't say them as clearly as he might have.
These books completely ignore the usual rules of thumb pertaining to the "proper" use of point of view, and blatantly disregard the standard wisdom about starting with backstory (namely, don't). The plotting (particularly in "Fire" and "Hornet's Nest") relies upon coincidence more than it should. And the vast majority of the protagonists' character development is told rather than shown or demonstrated.
I find that last point particularly interesting because the thing most people point to when raving about these books are the characters. Particularly Lisbeth Salander, the emotionally borderline, supersmart, "punk pixie" computer hacker. And yeah, she's a very interesting character. Thing of it is, Larsson spends page after page in "Dragon Tattoo" telling us how interesting she is before we ever actually see her, you know, be interesting. It nearly turned me off further reading. Which would have been a shame, because I would have missed out on a good story.
"Dragon Tattoo" is a self-contained story hinging on the investigation of a forty year old "cold case". I found the mystery fascinating (I don't
read many mysteries) and I thought Larsson introduced the central mystery to absolutely terrific effect in a brief, four-page prologue. But it takes a while to get back to what's presented in the prologue, because the next hundred or so pages wander all over the place before settling down.
(All three of the Millenium books are considerably longer than they needed to be. As I said, they read like first drafts. And pretty damn good first drafts, for all that, but damn how I wish they could have been tighter.)
But. On the other hand, these books are huge international megabestsellers. So what does that mean? I think it means one doesn't have to write to please other writers in order to become mind-bogglingly successful. And in fact, when you get right down to it, who cares what other writers think? It's the readers who want to fall inside a good story, who feel connections with the characters, who'll make a writer's career. So who cares if the first half of "Dragon Tattoo" reads like Larsson couldn't settle on his PoV characters? Who cares if "Fire" and "Hornet's Nest" are hobbled by a completely unnecessary subplot that only serves to bloat the books? (And which might never have been part of the story if, in fact, the books had exhibited more control over PoV in the first place.)
These are fiction novels and they did what they were supposed to do. They entertained me, and they made me think, and they made me uncomfortable in places.
Once I got past my initial snobbery, I found the stories damn interesting and the characters compelling. I like Lisbeth Salander because she's smart, tough as coffin nails, and doesn't mess around. I like Mikael Blomkvist because he's dogged and determined. I like it when they team up to take down people who seriously deserve it.
And, because I'd grown attached to them, I was pulled right along when Salander dances on a frying pan in "Fire" and dives headfirst into the furnace in "Hornet's Nest". (And, because I didn't start reading the trilogy until just before the third novel was published here in America, I wasn't put out by the fact that "Fire" is not a self-contained story like "Dragon Tattoo". Also, people had warned me about this. The second Millennium book ends on a painful cliffhanger, and I'm glad I didn't have to wait for the resolution.)
These books made my commute considerably shorter. And if they ever do finish that fragment of the fourth Millennium book Larsson started before his death, I'll buy it. Because even if the writing isn't terrific, the story is bound to hook my interest.
I had a private exchange with him, because I really couldn't believe that he meant what he'd said. (Because I'm naive.) I pointed out that his claims were insane, and offensive, and did he realize he sounded like a kook? The details of our entire exchange are unimportant, but suffice it to say that I didn't come away feeling differently about his kookiness. Especially after he tried to "help" me see that I'd been brainwashed about gender issues. Huh. So I disregarded him from then on. But his email signature noted that he was, at the time, the Executive Vice-President of the National Coalition of Free Men. A bit of digging led me to find some of his online essays, including one gem wherein he tossed around references to our culture's "headlong flight" into "Nazi-like gendercide" (which are verbatim quotes, so yes, he Godwined himself). He also compared his "spiritual and political war against masculophobia" to the cause of Mahatma Gandhi.
So, yeah, this dude had some issues. I don't know anything about the "NCFM" and can't draw opinions about its overall membership, but do I feel confident, based on several exchanges with him, that this particular guy hated women.
This past June, a news brief in the Santa Fe Reporter noted that a member of New Mexico's congressional delegation came under fire from men's rights groups for supporting the Violence Against Women Act. (According to the Reporter, this Act was proposed by Amnesty International and aims to "increase aid for women abroad and to establish State Department offices dedicated to their protection".) Among the groups attacking Representative Lujan's position on the VAWA was Abusegate, which has anonymous backers and which is closely affiliated with Men's News Daily. Another Abusegate affiliate maintains lists of companies guilty of "male bashing". (Such as KFC's pink bucket campaign against breast cancer. I assume Yoplait's similar "Save Lids to Save Lives" program has also landed them on the dreaded list.)
Anyway, the piece in the Reporter ran under the title, "Abuser's Lobby Demands Apology". Which, you know? Yeah. Kinda true.
I mention all this as a loooong and discursive means of pointing out that the original Swedish title of Stieg Larsson's first novel is "Men Who
Hate Women." To English audiences this book is, of course, "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo", which is fine, but loses the whole point of the first book. I prefer the original title, because it sets a tone for the entire trilogy. I also prefer the original title because in some places the trilogy struck me as a meditation on gender relationships. (On the other hand, I think all three English titles taken together make for a better collective, at the price of perhaps overemphasizing Lisbeth Salander's role in the first book. She's the centerpiece of the second and third novels, but not the first.)
That long and discursive introduction is also my way of skating around the fact that it's been a few months since I read these books, so I've already forgotten some of the plot details. (Which is why I'm taking the easy way out by writing up my thoughts of the trilogy as a whole, rather than each individual book.)
The thing that immediately struck me when I started "Dragon Tattoo" was that the book -- especially the first hundred pages or so -- read very much like a first draft from somebody who didn't have much previous experience writing fiction novels. (I can say this because I recognize many of the same infelicities of language and technique from early drafts of my own novels. And maybe the final drafts, too.) In other words, it's clunky. Not fatally so, but a few sharp-eyed beta readers could have done wonders for ironing out these books. (The style improves steadily through the trilogy, but not without hiccups.) And that's a shame, because there's a really good story here, and some terrific characters, but they're hobbled by the presentation. Larsson had important and entertaining things to say, but he just didn't say them as clearly as he might have.
These books completely ignore the usual rules of thumb pertaining to the "proper" use of point of view, and blatantly disregard the standard wisdom about starting with backstory (namely, don't). The plotting (particularly in "Fire" and "Hornet's Nest") relies upon coincidence more than it should. And the vast majority of the protagonists' character development is told rather than shown or demonstrated.
I find that last point particularly interesting because the thing most people point to when raving about these books are the characters. Particularly Lisbeth Salander, the emotionally borderline, supersmart, "punk pixie" computer hacker. And yeah, she's a very interesting character. Thing of it is, Larsson spends page after page in "Dragon Tattoo" telling us how interesting she is before we ever actually see her, you know, be interesting. It nearly turned me off further reading. Which would have been a shame, because I would have missed out on a good story.
"Dragon Tattoo" is a self-contained story hinging on the investigation of a forty year old "cold case". I found the mystery fascinating (I don't
read many mysteries) and I thought Larsson introduced the central mystery to absolutely terrific effect in a brief, four-page prologue. But it takes a while to get back to what's presented in the prologue, because the next hundred or so pages wander all over the place before settling down.
(All three of the Millenium books are considerably longer than they needed to be. As I said, they read like first drafts. And pretty damn good first drafts, for all that, but damn how I wish they could have been tighter.)
But. On the other hand, these books are huge international megabestsellers. So what does that mean? I think it means one doesn't have to write to please other writers in order to become mind-bogglingly successful. And in fact, when you get right down to it, who cares what other writers think? It's the readers who want to fall inside a good story, who feel connections with the characters, who'll make a writer's career. So who cares if the first half of "Dragon Tattoo" reads like Larsson couldn't settle on his PoV characters? Who cares if "Fire" and "Hornet's Nest" are hobbled by a completely unnecessary subplot that only serves to bloat the books? (And which might never have been part of the story if, in fact, the books had exhibited more control over PoV in the first place.)
These are fiction novels and they did what they were supposed to do. They entertained me, and they made me think, and they made me uncomfortable in places.
Once I got past my initial snobbery, I found the stories damn interesting and the characters compelling. I like Lisbeth Salander because she's smart, tough as coffin nails, and doesn't mess around. I like Mikael Blomkvist because he's dogged and determined. I like it when they team up to take down people who seriously deserve it.
And, because I'd grown attached to them, I was pulled right along when Salander dances on a frying pan in "Fire" and dives headfirst into the furnace in "Hornet's Nest". (And, because I didn't start reading the trilogy until just before the third novel was published here in America, I wasn't put out by the fact that "Fire" is not a self-contained story like "Dragon Tattoo". Also, people had warned me about this. The second Millennium book ends on a painful cliffhanger, and I'm glad I didn't have to wait for the resolution.)
These books made my commute considerably shorter. And if they ever do finish that fragment of the fourth Millennium book Larsson started before his death, I'll buy it. Because even if the writing isn't terrific, the story is bound to hook my interest.
August 12, 2012
I finished the last book with a sharp pang: I had read them all. There were no more to read. I felt a sense of loss.
Stieg Larrson simply wrote three of the most compulsively readable, engaging books I've read in decades. The characters were fantastic, complex and multi-dimensional and intriguing, flawed but heroic. I cared about Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist. I liked them and I was rooting for them.
When I discussed the books with my mother, who reads continually, she said, "When Lisbeth got her revenge, I stood up and cheered!"
I could see my mother at her kitchen table with a cup of coffee, standing up to holler as Lisbeth took her vengeance. It's that kind of novel. It moves you to your feet.
The books are suspenseful: the engine of the plot works robustly. I always look for that in a novel. Does the story move forward? Does it build suspense and tension? Yes, yes, yes for this trilogy.
One of my rules for writing novels is that every story is an argument for a specific value. The value at the heart of the Millennium trilogy is suggested by its original title "Men who hate women." It has something to do with sexual politics, with the power dynamic between men and women, a power that, at its basest level, comes out of physical strength alone, without making reference to intelligence or character. But that's at the most base, least evolved level.
Tiny, waifish Salander with her multiple piercings and autistic affect gives the lie to the importance of physical size. She is a trained fighter. She is a resourceful person with hidden gifts. She doesn't give up and she takes her power into herself. She isn't traditionally beautiful, she isn't seductive or pleasing, and she doesn't fit the stereotypical sitcom image of the good girl we all root for.
But we all root for her. She stays in the reader's imagination for long after the back cover closes over the pages.
According to Wikipedia, Larrson witnessed the gang-rape of a young woman when he was young, and it haunted him. It led him into thinking deeply about gender relations, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy is a meditation on the power dynamics between the genders, and how men feel about women, especially strong women, women who defy traditional roles and categorizations.
Basically, insecure men want to hurt women they can't control.
It's not an accident that Blomkvist's magazine profiles sex trafficking in the second book, "The Girl who Played with Fire." Men who hate women see them as objects for their use.
At one point, I think in the last book, Larrson refers to Salander as 'the girl who hated men who hate women.' I'm paraphrasing because I was too caught up in the story to remember exactly, though I took note of that phrase. Lisbeth Salander personifies defiance of the approved female roles. She just isn't going to be objectified.
So the trilogy was deeply pleasurable on many levels. It worked as a riveting story with characters who grabbed you and didn't let go no matter what. It also worked on the intellectual level, with ideas that matter.
Read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy. I recommend it. It will satisfy you and make you think, both at the same time.
Stieg Larrson simply wrote three of the most compulsively readable, engaging books I've read in decades. The characters were fantastic, complex and multi-dimensional and intriguing, flawed but heroic. I cared about Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist. I liked them and I was rooting for them.
When I discussed the books with my mother, who reads continually, she said, "When Lisbeth got her revenge, I stood up and cheered!"
I could see my mother at her kitchen table with a cup of coffee, standing up to holler as Lisbeth took her vengeance. It's that kind of novel. It moves you to your feet.
The books are suspenseful: the engine of the plot works robustly. I always look for that in a novel. Does the story move forward? Does it build suspense and tension? Yes, yes, yes for this trilogy.
One of my rules for writing novels is that every story is an argument for a specific value. The value at the heart of the Millennium trilogy is suggested by its original title "Men who hate women." It has something to do with sexual politics, with the power dynamic between men and women, a power that, at its basest level, comes out of physical strength alone, without making reference to intelligence or character. But that's at the most base, least evolved level.
Tiny, waifish Salander with her multiple piercings and autistic affect gives the lie to the importance of physical size. She is a trained fighter. She is a resourceful person with hidden gifts. She doesn't give up and she takes her power into herself. She isn't traditionally beautiful, she isn't seductive or pleasing, and she doesn't fit the stereotypical sitcom image of the good girl we all root for.
But we all root for her. She stays in the reader's imagination for long after the back cover closes over the pages.
According to Wikipedia, Larrson witnessed the gang-rape of a young woman when he was young, and it haunted him. It led him into thinking deeply about gender relations, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy is a meditation on the power dynamics between the genders, and how men feel about women, especially strong women, women who defy traditional roles and categorizations.
Basically, insecure men want to hurt women they can't control.
It's not an accident that Blomkvist's magazine profiles sex trafficking in the second book, "The Girl who Played with Fire." Men who hate women see them as objects for their use.
At one point, I think in the last book, Larrson refers to Salander as 'the girl who hated men who hate women.' I'm paraphrasing because I was too caught up in the story to remember exactly, though I took note of that phrase. Lisbeth Salander personifies defiance of the approved female roles. She just isn't going to be objectified.
So the trilogy was deeply pleasurable on many levels. It worked as a riveting story with characters who grabbed you and didn't let go no matter what. It also worked on the intellectual level, with ideas that matter.
Read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy. I recommend it. It will satisfy you and make you think, both at the same time.
January 17, 2012
I'm giving the Millennium Trilogy four stars with a caveat: I'm positive I would have enjoyed these books even more if I could have read the originals in Swedish, and if I had a firm grasp of Swedish politics and economic policy. That I read all three books is a testament to their overall strength and that of the story. If it wasn't interesting I wouldn't have invested the effort. And it's not all about politics, wealth and privilege. These books are hard-boiled, crime dramas wrapped in a journalistic wrapper.
I loved the two main characters, Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander, the economics journalist who's made it his life's mission to expose the rich and powerful looters of the world, and Lisbeth Salander, possibly the most 'put through the meat grinder' character I've ever read. Job had it easy compared to the Trials of Lisabeth Salander. She is victimized throughout the books, but she is no man's victim. Each torment is noted, stored away and seared into her tapestry of vengeance. No one is forgiven or forgotten.
Mikael Blomkvist is a holy crusader who's more than willing to go to jail for his beliefs. He believes in a society based on equality and justice and lives to expose the hypocrisy and crimes of the privileged class. He's also very casual about who he sleeps with and makes no excuses for his bad behavior. His feelings for Salander give him a chance at a personal redemption of sorts, not that he can win her love, but he might win her trust. Ultimately his validation must come through her and for her. Blomkvist and Salander are an improbable and an incompatible couple yet somehow they are fated to steer each other's destiny. Who is saving who is an arc that runs over the three books and keeps both characters fresh and at odds with each other.
These books are violent. The treatment of women is ghastly to the point of misogynistic. I'd be tempted to call Larsson on it, but is the world so different from the horrors he portrays? No, it's not. Terrible things happen to women all the time, but here the author makes you look at them and understand that justice is not about what's right or wrong but who holds the power. By the end of the last book I wished that these characters actually existed. The world is in dire need of more Blomkvist and Salander's. Some things must be put to right.
I loved the two main characters, Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander, the economics journalist who's made it his life's mission to expose the rich and powerful looters of the world, and Lisbeth Salander, possibly the most 'put through the meat grinder' character I've ever read. Job had it easy compared to the Trials of Lisabeth Salander. She is victimized throughout the books, but she is no man's victim. Each torment is noted, stored away and seared into her tapestry of vengeance. No one is forgiven or forgotten.
Mikael Blomkvist is a holy crusader who's more than willing to go to jail for his beliefs. He believes in a society based on equality and justice and lives to expose the hypocrisy and crimes of the privileged class. He's also very casual about who he sleeps with and makes no excuses for his bad behavior. His feelings for Salander give him a chance at a personal redemption of sorts, not that he can win her love, but he might win her trust. Ultimately his validation must come through her and for her. Blomkvist and Salander are an improbable and an incompatible couple yet somehow they are fated to steer each other's destiny. Who is saving who is an arc that runs over the three books and keeps both characters fresh and at odds with each other.
These books are violent. The treatment of women is ghastly to the point of misogynistic. I'd be tempted to call Larsson on it, but is the world so different from the horrors he portrays? No, it's not. Terrible things happen to women all the time, but here the author makes you look at them and understand that justice is not about what's right or wrong but who holds the power. By the end of the last book I wished that these characters actually existed. The world is in dire need of more Blomkvist and Salander's. Some things must be put to right.
December 7, 2018
This is one of the best crime thriller trilogies ever written and such a sad twist that Stieg Larsson didn't get to see the success his books had.
A lot of people have seen the movies and understand the storyline but I would recommend reading the books as they offer much more depth to the characters with their personal demons and principles, particularly experienced by Lisbeth Salander. The plot is excellent and while each book can more or less stand on its own, there is the real expansive plot at play across the trilogy, where the past can never be laid to rest. The story is fast-paced and adventurous, and also brutal and upsetting.
The job that Salander does just seems to suit her character so perfectly - slightly removed and introverted, yet highly capable and focused. I loved her she is high maintenance. Mikael Blomkvist, the journalist, is another wonderful character with his own flaws and like Lisbeth is highly motivated to uncover the truth.
A lot of people have seen the movies and understand the storyline but I would recommend reading the books as they offer much more depth to the characters with their personal demons and principles, particularly experienced by Lisbeth Salander. The plot is excellent and while each book can more or less stand on its own, there is the real expansive plot at play across the trilogy, where the past can never be laid to rest. The story is fast-paced and adventurous, and also brutal and upsetting.
The job that Salander does just seems to suit her character so perfectly - slightly removed and introverted, yet highly capable and focused. I loved her she is high maintenance. Mikael Blomkvist, the journalist, is another wonderful character with his own flaws and like Lisbeth is highly motivated to uncover the truth.
December 12, 2010
I started The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo back in February of this year, and for the first time in years, I read right through this and the other two books in the Trilogy (The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest). So I must give these books my highest recommendation. Why? Mainly because Stieg Larsson has created the most unforgettable character in fiction since who knows when. For me, probably since Elizabeth Bennett. Will you like these books? If you like very complicated, detailed characters (and many many of them), a complicated espionage story, and fairly good writing that is both plot and character driven, I think you will. Since I am absolutely NO fan of The Twilight books, J.D. Rowling books, Nicholas Sparks or Dan Brown, if you liked these books, you may not particularly like these books, but who knows? You might. 48 million and counting are devouring these books around the world. (And don't miss the films - the undubbed Swedish versions, not the soon to be completed US version which I am expecting to be typically zipped up American movies without the subtle deliberate context of European films.)
March 12, 2010
I have to say I liked it, because it sucked me and I read the three books in little more than two weeks. And they are long books.
But as some agents did say on Twitter some time ago, if this book was first published in the States, it would have been trimmed and it'd be better. The three of them are too long.
On the other hand, Lisbeth Salander character is one of the best characters I've read lately. You become instantly attached to her and want her to succeed.
In general, Larsson treats better women than men. Lots of women are great characters in the trilogy. Didn't root for male first character though. It lacked strengh or something.
But as some agents did say on Twitter some time ago, if this book was first published in the States, it would have been trimmed and it'd be better. The three of them are too long.
On the other hand, Lisbeth Salander character is one of the best characters I've read lately. You become instantly attached to her and want her to succeed.
In general, Larsson treats better women than men. Lots of women are great characters in the trilogy. Didn't root for male first character though. It lacked strengh or something.
December 6, 2012
I began Girl with the Dragon Tattoo with the goal of understanding what there was about this book that made it so popular. I was gritting my teeth, convinced that getting through the book would be a most unpleasant labor. But then I found myself turning pages, not able to put it down, suprised, pleased, impressed.
And so I soldiered on to the second and third books of the series, and I loved them. But to answer my original question: what is it about these books that makes them so popular? Well, I can at least say why I like them so much. In a word, it's characters. Lisbeth is one of the all-time best fictional characters I've ever encountered and it is her story that carries everything through. By the third book there is no doubt that the whole series is really about her. She's unique, well-thought-through, mysterious, yet consistent and totally believable.
Almost every other character with a few notable exceptions is similarly well-constructed. There are a few stick figures - minor villians mostly. As for the plots, you could make a case that books two and three are just one long story, but Dragon Tattoo is a distinct story, though it ties closely into the next book. I liked the Dragon Tattoo plot the best, the other story is a bit far-fetched at times, but often engrossing and believable.
Two other things that make these books great are the attention to detail and the incredible sense of place. Larson paints vivid pictures of all the locales, including the Caribbean island Lisbeth spends some time on. The plot details are just that - details that sell the story, that make you believe it's happening as you read it.
If you are one of the eight people in the world who haven't read these books yet, I do recommend that you get right on it! You won't be sorry.
And so I soldiered on to the second and third books of the series, and I loved them. But to answer my original question: what is it about these books that makes them so popular? Well, I can at least say why I like them so much. In a word, it's characters. Lisbeth is one of the all-time best fictional characters I've ever encountered and it is her story that carries everything through. By the third book there is no doubt that the whole series is really about her. She's unique, well-thought-through, mysterious, yet consistent and totally believable.
Almost every other character with a few notable exceptions is similarly well-constructed. There are a few stick figures - minor villians mostly. As for the plots, you could make a case that books two and three are just one long story, but Dragon Tattoo is a distinct story, though it ties closely into the next book. I liked the Dragon Tattoo plot the best, the other story is a bit far-fetched at times, but often engrossing and believable.
Two other things that make these books great are the attention to detail and the incredible sense of place. Larson paints vivid pictures of all the locales, including the Caribbean island Lisbeth spends some time on. The plot details are just that - details that sell the story, that make you believe it's happening as you read it.
If you are one of the eight people in the world who haven't read these books yet, I do recommend that you get right on it! You won't be sorry.
August 13, 2013
I don't know what to say about this Triology or not a triology but an incompleted series. I have loved this all in all but at the same time I have regretted reading it as well. It has kept me awake at nights but at the same time bored me. It has left me wanting to read more but at the same time left a bad taste in my mouth. There are so many contradicting emotions this series has left me with.
This has to be the most weird series or the most weird set of books anyone can read. Its so filled up with flaws that at the start you can't understand what the hype is about but the more you read the more you can't resist giving it 5 stars as well.
The Hype and Introduction
The hype that surrounds these books is probably understandable. Especially in Sweden where these things (abusing women) really happen. Swedish people can feel all the concept brought around in these books.
Let me tell you that this is a series and it would be totally wrong for anybody to rate each book differently or to make a certain good or bad opinion just after reading 1 book. Every book is incomplete at the end and continues into its next part.
The 1st book is just a start. It by no means a great sensation. It just leads into the introduction of characters through a sub-plot of the actual series. The plot is irrelevant of the whole series but it is very interesting mystery and a good development of the characters for the rest of the series to follow. Many might say just after reading this book that it is over-hyped, I also had the same feeling when I read further into the series the opinions started to change and I realized that this is actually a proper series and not individual threads.
The second book is where this series actually starts. The story gradually morphs into a tale of sexual prejudice, abuse of power, and governmental conspiracy. This book starts to thrill, get into your nerves, forces you to stay awake at night. The same thing continues into the third with much more excitement and thrill. The third book is also incomplete as Larsson had planned a 10 book series and could only finish 3.
Why you love it?
The character development is the essence of this book and is the most striking thing about these books. Larsson make you dwell so much deep into the characters that you can feel each and every character's each and every emotion and activity. You can have sympathy for Lisbeth, like Blomkvist's friendly and smart behavior, hate Sapo's secret force and so on with every character not matter how small or big roles they played. I have never seen a better character development and feel for the characters in any other book.
Besides Character Development there are many other lovable things as well.
The Thrill - It takes some time in every book to get into. The first 100-200 can be very boring. But once you get into it there's no stopping. You will be forced to stay awake at nights, turn page after page until you complete it. The more you read the more you will like it.
The Plot - Larsson has done an exceptional work in this department. Not only is the plot very believable but he mixes up so many characters and so many things into a single plot that it becomes impossible to keep a proper track of things. Lisbeth the heroine, Blomkvist the hero, Erika the supporter, Different levels of police, millennium staff, murder, mystery, thrill, suspense etc... etc... so many thing involved. That makes it a must read.
I am utmost sure that Larsson has created memorable characters and plot which I even if I try my hardest would not be able to forget.
Why you regret it? What went wrong? What messed it up all?
As I mentioned above the book is most weird one could ever read. It had a great, great characters, overall a mesmerizing series. Then what it was that messed it all up that some people talk about it being over-hyped and what it was that made you feel regret reading it. I guess there are two separate answers to these questions and both are equally important.
Firstly I want to talk about what went wrong or what messed it up all.
I have never seen a 5 Star book with so many flaws and I am pretty sure that I won't see any 5 start with more flaws than this. This all goes down to 1 reason and that is COMMERCIALISM. The publishers and the marketers are the sole ones to ruined these books. Just to make some good, quick money they have damaged this heavily.
TRANSLATION - They say that poor translation can ruin a good story. This book is a perfect example of it. It was originally written in Swedish and then converted into English worldwide. Now let me tell you that Reg Keeland is no mug of a translator. He has done translation for years and most of the books english versions have been quite successful. So the reason for bad translation are again the marketers and publishers. If you search the internet you would find it that Reg Keeland whenever he's used this pseudonym has been because he's not satisfied with the time he's been given for the editing by the publishers/marketers (he's original name is Steve Murray and he uses that as well when he has his terms clear with the publishers but when its not he uses a pseudonym). The same thing has happened in this case.
EDITING The commercials people have done a great in messing up this as well. Editing if it has been done at all has been really really poor. If it hasn't been done then its even more to feel sorry for Larsson. There are parts in the series where you feel the story just goes on passively without any interest. Those parts feel a little bit stretch and take the original excitement of the book to some extent. All this is down to editing. Larsson was a journalist not a writer so these books needed a very good editor but the marketers have again not allowed this to happen.
Bit parts and pieces in the series are rather quite awkward. Not fatally so, but a few sharp-eyed beta readers could have done wonders for ironing out these books. (The style improves steadily through the trilogy, but not without hiccups.) And that's a shame, because there's a really good story here, and some terrific characters. Again a editorial mistake not allowed to rectify by the marketers
There were many other reasons which have messed it up all, I won't go into much details about that since all is down to Commercialism. They have done a perfect to fuck this more than a 5 star worth book down to a lot less degree. So the people who complain about the hype are not totally wrong.
TITLE The original titles of these books were different. For the first book it was "Men Who Hate Women" and I think the original Swedish titles would have suited all the books rather much better even though it would not have been that catchy. The stories are rather surrounded around the Swedish titles than the English ones. This thing was discussed when Larsson was alive and despite serious protests he wasn't allowed The Swedish Titles.
Why do you regret reading it
One reason you regret these books is it was actually planned out to be a 10 book series and Larsson had wanted it to write in that way. But since he died midway he could only finish 3 of them. Because of just 3 books planned out of 10 the triology doesn't fit well into parts. After reading the end of every book it leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Each book got better than the previous one. The first was good, the second was lovable and the third set a different level for crime books and the 4th never came. You could just wonder how good all would have been had all 10 books been published. Also another thing happened since only 3 books were published is that many things were left unsaid or incomplete, that upsets a to quite an extent.
The main reason for the regret is if you feel so sorry for Larsson after reading it. I have never ever seen any book in which one can get so realistically involved. As you read you would probably come to know that Larsson was on his way to change the world, atleast Sweden or Europe if not the whole world & also go on to become one of the greatest writers of all time but unfortunately he couldn't do it. I felt so sorry for Larsson at the end that I was almost brought to tears. And adding salt to injury the marketers fucked it off even more. I wish Larsson had completed all 10, I am not content with 3 moreover I feel regret that I read this because I was so deeply involved in this that I couldn't read 7 more sensations
This was clearly not how Larsson had planned to end the series. The ending left so much scope for other stories to come after it.
Conclusions
These are not just normal books, they are thought provoking , burning your chest, making you feel raged. These books are violent. The treatment of women is ghastly to the point of misogynistic. I'd be tempted to call Larsson on it, but is the world so different from the horrors he portrays? No, it's not. Terrible things happen to women all the time, but here the author makes you look at them and understand that justice is not about what's right or wrong but who holds the power and common man like me & most of you just cannot do anything about no matter how much we feel like doing so. By the end of the last book I wished that these characters actually existed. The world is in dire need of more Blomkvist and Salander's. Some things must be put to right.
The memorable characters Larsson created will forever be etched into the mind of us readers. I am sure that I will never forget you as long as I live. I don't have words to describe how good the writing was, all i can do is bow down to Mr. Larsson. I am also pretty sure that after reading this I won't be able to give any other crime fiction book 5 stars because then this book would also fall into the same category as the others. This series has set a different category, a different bar for everything else to come. It's first Millennium, then 5 stars, then 4 and so on.
THE MARKETERS, PUBLISHERS AND ALL OTHERS INVOLVED IN COMMERCIALISM OF THIS SERIES COMPLETELY FUCK OFF. I wish I could grab hold of them kill them badly if I was allowed to do that.
To be updated.......
This has to be the most weird series or the most weird set of books anyone can read. Its so filled up with flaws that at the start you can't understand what the hype is about but the more you read the more you can't resist giving it 5 stars as well.
The Hype and Introduction
The hype that surrounds these books is probably understandable. Especially in Sweden where these things (abusing women) really happen. Swedish people can feel all the concept brought around in these books.
Let me tell you that this is a series and it would be totally wrong for anybody to rate each book differently or to make a certain good or bad opinion just after reading 1 book. Every book is incomplete at the end and continues into its next part.
The 1st book is just a start. It by no means a great sensation. It just leads into the introduction of characters through a sub-plot of the actual series. The plot is irrelevant of the whole series but it is very interesting mystery and a good development of the characters for the rest of the series to follow. Many might say just after reading this book that it is over-hyped, I also had the same feeling when I read further into the series the opinions started to change and I realized that this is actually a proper series and not individual threads.
The second book is where this series actually starts. The story gradually morphs into a tale of sexual prejudice, abuse of power, and governmental conspiracy. This book starts to thrill, get into your nerves, forces you to stay awake at night. The same thing continues into the third with much more excitement and thrill. The third book is also incomplete as Larsson had planned a 10 book series and could only finish 3.
Why you love it?
The character development is the essence of this book and is the most striking thing about these books. Larsson make you dwell so much deep into the characters that you can feel each and every character's each and every emotion and activity. You can have sympathy for Lisbeth, like Blomkvist's friendly and smart behavior, hate Sapo's secret force and so on with every character not matter how small or big roles they played. I have never seen a better character development and feel for the characters in any other book.
Besides Character Development there are many other lovable things as well.
The Thrill - It takes some time in every book to get into. The first 100-200 can be very boring. But once you get into it there's no stopping. You will be forced to stay awake at nights, turn page after page until you complete it. The more you read the more you will like it.
The Plot - Larsson has done an exceptional work in this department. Not only is the plot very believable but he mixes up so many characters and so many things into a single plot that it becomes impossible to keep a proper track of things. Lisbeth the heroine, Blomkvist the hero, Erika the supporter, Different levels of police, millennium staff, murder, mystery, thrill, suspense etc... etc... so many thing involved. That makes it a must read.
I am utmost sure that Larsson has created memorable characters and plot which I even if I try my hardest would not be able to forget.
Why you regret it? What went wrong? What messed it up all?
As I mentioned above the book is most weird one could ever read. It had a great, great characters, overall a mesmerizing series. Then what it was that messed it all up that some people talk about it being over-hyped and what it was that made you feel regret reading it. I guess there are two separate answers to these questions and both are equally important.
Firstly I want to talk about what went wrong or what messed it up all.
I have never seen a 5 Star book with so many flaws and I am pretty sure that I won't see any 5 start with more flaws than this. This all goes down to 1 reason and that is COMMERCIALISM. The publishers and the marketers are the sole ones to ruined these books. Just to make some good, quick money they have damaged this heavily.
TRANSLATION - They say that poor translation can ruin a good story. This book is a perfect example of it. It was originally written in Swedish and then converted into English worldwide. Now let me tell you that Reg Keeland is no mug of a translator. He has done translation for years and most of the books english versions have been quite successful. So the reason for bad translation are again the marketers and publishers. If you search the internet you would find it that Reg Keeland whenever he's used this pseudonym has been because he's not satisfied with the time he's been given for the editing by the publishers/marketers (he's original name is Steve Murray and he uses that as well when he has his terms clear with the publishers but when its not he uses a pseudonym). The same thing has happened in this case.
EDITING The commercials people have done a great in messing up this as well. Editing if it has been done at all has been really really poor. If it hasn't been done then its even more to feel sorry for Larsson. There are parts in the series where you feel the story just goes on passively without any interest. Those parts feel a little bit stretch and take the original excitement of the book to some extent. All this is down to editing. Larsson was a journalist not a writer so these books needed a very good editor but the marketers have again not allowed this to happen.
Bit parts and pieces in the series are rather quite awkward. Not fatally so, but a few sharp-eyed beta readers could have done wonders for ironing out these books. (The style improves steadily through the trilogy, but not without hiccups.) And that's a shame, because there's a really good story here, and some terrific characters. Again a editorial mistake not allowed to rectify by the marketers
There were many other reasons which have messed it up all, I won't go into much details about that since all is down to Commercialism. They have done a perfect to fuck this more than a 5 star worth book down to a lot less degree. So the people who complain about the hype are not totally wrong.
TITLE The original titles of these books were different. For the first book it was "Men Who Hate Women" and I think the original Swedish titles would have suited all the books rather much better even though it would not have been that catchy. The stories are rather surrounded around the Swedish titles than the English ones. This thing was discussed when Larsson was alive and despite serious protests he wasn't allowed The Swedish Titles.
Why do you regret reading it
One reason you regret these books is it was actually planned out to be a 10 book series and Larsson had wanted it to write in that way. But since he died midway he could only finish 3 of them. Because of just 3 books planned out of 10 the triology doesn't fit well into parts. After reading the end of every book it leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Each book got better than the previous one. The first was good, the second was lovable and the third set a different level for crime books and the 4th never came. You could just wonder how good all would have been had all 10 books been published. Also another thing happened since only 3 books were published is that many things were left unsaid or incomplete, that upsets a to quite an extent.
The main reason for the regret is if you feel so sorry for Larsson after reading it. I have never ever seen any book in which one can get so realistically involved. As you read you would probably come to know that Larsson was on his way to change the world, atleast Sweden or Europe if not the whole world & also go on to become one of the greatest writers of all time but unfortunately he couldn't do it. I felt so sorry for Larsson at the end that I was almost brought to tears. And adding salt to injury the marketers fucked it off even more. I wish Larsson had completed all 10, I am not content with 3 moreover I feel regret that I read this because I was so deeply involved in this that I couldn't read 7 more sensations
This was clearly not how Larsson had planned to end the series. The ending left so much scope for other stories to come after it.
Conclusions
These are not just normal books, they are thought provoking , burning your chest, making you feel raged. These books are violent. The treatment of women is ghastly to the point of misogynistic. I'd be tempted to call Larsson on it, but is the world so different from the horrors he portrays? No, it's not. Terrible things happen to women all the time, but here the author makes you look at them and understand that justice is not about what's right or wrong but who holds the power and common man like me & most of you just cannot do anything about no matter how much we feel like doing so. By the end of the last book I wished that these characters actually existed. The world is in dire need of more Blomkvist and Salander's. Some things must be put to right.
The memorable characters Larsson created will forever be etched into the mind of us readers. I am sure that I will never forget you as long as I live. I don't have words to describe how good the writing was, all i can do is bow down to Mr. Larsson. I am also pretty sure that after reading this I won't be able to give any other crime fiction book 5 stars because then this book would also fall into the same category as the others. This series has set a different category, a different bar for everything else to come. It's first Millennium, then 5 stars, then 4 and so on.
THE MARKETERS, PUBLISHERS AND ALL OTHERS INVOLVED IN COMMERCIALISM OF THIS SERIES COMPLETELY FUCK OFF. I wish I could grab hold of them kill them badly if I was allowed to do that.
To be updated.......
February 8, 2020
I’m going against my better judgement here and reviewing a trilogy as a whole, rather than as individual books. I didn’t truly find enough difference between the stories to promote an in-depth look at each, and so here I sit, reviewing the series that took the literary world by storm.
I think I will annoy a great many people when I say that not only did I not love these books, but I didn’t even particularly like them. The stories were undoubtedly gripping, but overall I found them shallow. They profess to tackle significant issues regarding sexual violence, especially violence against women. Still, I feel they addressed them in a way that was just as exploitative as the actions Stieg Larsson so professes to hate. The books are pure voyeurism, and the characters were fundamentally unlikeable and completely two dimensional. We never got to know them as people, simply as the concepts they were meant to represent.
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo introduces us to characters who will play a role throughout the series. It tells the story of Journalist, Mikhael Blomkvist, and computer hacker Lisbeth Salander. Blomkvist has recently been tried and charged with libel, and with his career on the rocks takes the opportunity to work on the case of the murdered of the niece of business mogul, Henrik Vanger. In return, he will be offered the chance to clear his name. The case brings him in to contact with Lisbeth Salander. They work together (and inexplicably sleep together) to not only solve the case but to uncover a great many other family secrets, only to ultimately (in my opinion) destroy their integrity.
The next two books, The Girl Who Played With Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest, follow the same story arc. It is essentially a story revolving around clearing Lisbeth Salander of murder charges while they research the case of sex trafficking, and political intrigue in Sweden. Naturally, there is more to the stories than this, but I can’t go into too much detail without ruining the suspense of the books.
The suspense, unfortunately, is all the books have going for them. The real tragedies that occur in the novels, the violence, rape, sex trafficking, etc., are lost entirely in pages of pointless rambling about the sexuality and sexual exploits of the series’ protagonists. The victims of these horrible, dehumanizing crimes, are lost and hardly mentioned, then replaced instead with descriptions of shallow characters, with shallow lives, who have shallow sex, and write shallow articles. The fate of a young Eastern European girl who has been kidnapped and forced into the sex trade is deemed far less critical to the plot than the relationship between a man writing an article on sex trafficking, and his thesis writing girlfriend. They are, after all, ‘the good guys’. Again, the stories of countless women murdered, and tortured in the first book are deemed far less important to the plot than the fact that one woman doesn’t want her secrets told. There is no way this can be redeemed in my eyes. The victims are given no character, and instead, we have to sit through pages of incidental detail about the tiniest moments in the lives of these superficial protagonists and their sex lives.
Larsson’s disgust of sexual violence purportedly inspired the series after he witnessed the gang rape of a young girl when he was 15. He allegedly never forgave himself for failing to help the girl, who’s name was Lisbeth. While this sentiment is admirable, in my opinion the books fail in their objective of absolution. Perhaps these books were meant to be an homage to a woman who was a victim of a terrible crime, but the injustice is furthered by sensationalizing something that affects the lives of so many. Misogyny, sexism, sexual violence - they are all real things. The book doesn’t glorify them, but it gives the reader exactly what the author thinks they want; more of it. Instead of writing sympathetically he – taken from his own website – “knew what ingredients a good detective story should have, and [Larsson] even reluctantly decided to spice it up with a bit of sex as it would probably please his readers.” A bit of sex? These books are some of the most graphically, sexually violent books you will ever read, and that constitutes a bit of sex? Put in there only to “please the readers”? For me, this is raping your characters all over again. If the sex was put in there only to please readers, and what readers want is sexual violence, then the writing thereof is nothing short of exploitative.
The character of Lisbeth herself is interesting, in that she metes out her own form of vigilante justice. She is meant to be a role model, but she is just as typecast and stereotyped as anyone else in the books. The way she dresses, her penchant for fetish style clothes, her genius-level mind, all serve to give an image of a woman who is out of the ordinary; a social outsider. The men in her life judge her, become sexually attracted to her, and in some cases sexually abuse her. There is not a single man in the books who is a friend who is not inexplicably sexually attracted to her, for no other reason than that she is ‘different’. Of course, a sexual relationship has to begin between Blomkvist and Salander, which serves no narrative purpose, and peters out after the end of the first novel as he embarks on several other sexual exploits which in turn serve no narrative purpose. The only man who is her friend and who does not seem to want her sexually is Poison, a fellow computer hacker. But he is described as a fat, socially inept computer geek, with some form of implied agoraphobia who lacks personal hygiene and basic human cleanliness. Therefore, he too fills a stereotype.
Salander is often described as violent, but with her own internal moral compass with its version of North, as if that is meant to make us excuse her behaviour and actions. She is a social outcast because she has made herself one. Her moral compass points to Nietzsche’s Superman Theory all over again. While Salander has been through a lot, she is not above the law, she cannot do whatever she wishes, and she cannot treat people however she wants. While she understandably has issues with authority, these issues are exacerbated by her actions to the point of psychopathic. She is described as sociopathic and socially incompetent, and I am inclined to agree with those sentiments. She is encouraged at every turn, and her illegal activities are hushed up because they prove useful to the journalist protagonists. She is not likeable, she is not a role model, and I don’t think she serves as a good illustration of the power that women can hold, especially in combating sexual violence. Most judicial systems do fail to punish the perpetrators of heinous crimes adequately, but ultimately the real victory goes beyond just punishment. Victims often lack support, so a colossal personal win is how they carve a place for themselves in a world that betrayed them. Some things can never be forgotten, forgiven and excused, but the triumph lies in not letting it ruin, and control your life. In Salander’s case, this is precisely what has happened. Her entire personality and all her actions are driven by her inability to combat her demons and come through her experiences personally victorious.
The plots of the three novels are odd. Each follows the formula of a simple case turning in to something bigger. These novels are different in the cases they pursue, but they become overshadowed by the personal lives of the protagonists. Research into sex trafficking is dominated by the double murder of a journalist and his academic girlfriend, as well as the pickle Lisbeth Salander finds herself in regarding her supposed role in the killings. While eventually, the stories tie in to be part of the one big whole, this is just another case where things turn out just a little too conveniently. Everything is one big coincidence after another, and ultimately the fate of an unnamed Eastern European victim of sex trafficking is deemed less important than Salander’s ultimate revenge and pardon, or Millennium Magazines annual sales.
I could continue and complain about the rambling, detailed, completely unnecessary descriptions of almost every detail, mainly of her ‘gear’. I am not kidding when we find out that she owns an Apple iBook 600 with a 25GB hard drive, and 420MB of RAM (outdated as most of the technology is from 2002), an Apple iMac G3, and the long, incredibly detailed description of her Apple PowerBook G4, which we’re told has an aluminium casing, and “PowerPC 7451 processor with an AltiVec Velocity Engine, 960 MB RAM and a 60 GB hard drive” (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, page 216). I’m a techie, but even I think that these descriptions are unnecessary. They don’t serve the plot in any way; the specs were already outdated by the time the books were released and so failed to impress on any permanent level. If you’re interested in some more detailed descriptions of gadgets, or even just a trip down electronics memory lane, check out this website: The Girl With The Insanely Long Gear List. This doesn’t even begin to mention the significant number of times that IKEA is mentioned. Apparently, no other furniture stores exist in Sweden, because we are subjected to a long product list of IKEA furniture with which the characters furnish their homes and offices. They even using IKEA to give directions, i.e. turn left when you get to the IKEA. Also, I have the feeling that a company called Billy’s was possibly paying Larsson to plug their ‘Pan Pizza’s’ as every time Lisbeth Salander makes herself a meal, instead of just stating that she ate a frozen pizza, it is mentioned every time that is was ‘Billy’s Pan Pizza’. Unnecessary. One day I will go through these books and count ever time those words are mentioned, every time coffee is mentioned, and every time someone talks
about someone that they’ve slept with, especially Blomkvist. I have a feeling I’d reach the word count of one whole novel.
All in all, the books are gripping, the plot drives you forward, you’re interested in what happens, but I still can’t like them. They fly in the face of everything they’re trying to achieve, using sexual violence to increase sales, rather than to raise awareness. These books have been described as feminist, finally giving women several strong, female, literary role models, but I disagree. All I see is a man who chose to exploit women in his own way to gain literary fame, in the guise of writing strong female characters. Characters who, like so many others, eventually do come to rely on the men in their lives. Perhaps that’s the real tragedy; the idea of the ‘us and them’ mentality. It doesn’t need to be. Women don’t need to be fine without men, the same way that men don’t need to be fine without women. We can need each other, not as gendered beings, but as people. Our survival and sanity depend on it.
I think I will annoy a great many people when I say that not only did I not love these books, but I didn’t even particularly like them. The stories were undoubtedly gripping, but overall I found them shallow. They profess to tackle significant issues regarding sexual violence, especially violence against women. Still, I feel they addressed them in a way that was just as exploitative as the actions Stieg Larsson so professes to hate. The books are pure voyeurism, and the characters were fundamentally unlikeable and completely two dimensional. We never got to know them as people, simply as the concepts they were meant to represent.
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo introduces us to characters who will play a role throughout the series. It tells the story of Journalist, Mikhael Blomkvist, and computer hacker Lisbeth Salander. Blomkvist has recently been tried and charged with libel, and with his career on the rocks takes the opportunity to work on the case of the murdered of the niece of business mogul, Henrik Vanger. In return, he will be offered the chance to clear his name. The case brings him in to contact with Lisbeth Salander. They work together (and inexplicably sleep together) to not only solve the case but to uncover a great many other family secrets, only to ultimately (in my opinion) destroy their integrity.
The next two books, The Girl Who Played With Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest, follow the same story arc. It is essentially a story revolving around clearing Lisbeth Salander of murder charges while they research the case of sex trafficking, and political intrigue in Sweden. Naturally, there is more to the stories than this, but I can’t go into too much detail without ruining the suspense of the books.
The suspense, unfortunately, is all the books have going for them. The real tragedies that occur in the novels, the violence, rape, sex trafficking, etc., are lost entirely in pages of pointless rambling about the sexuality and sexual exploits of the series’ protagonists. The victims of these horrible, dehumanizing crimes, are lost and hardly mentioned, then replaced instead with descriptions of shallow characters, with shallow lives, who have shallow sex, and write shallow articles. The fate of a young Eastern European girl who has been kidnapped and forced into the sex trade is deemed far less critical to the plot than the relationship between a man writing an article on sex trafficking, and his thesis writing girlfriend. They are, after all, ‘the good guys’. Again, the stories of countless women murdered, and tortured in the first book are deemed far less important to the plot than the fact that one woman doesn’t want her secrets told. There is no way this can be redeemed in my eyes. The victims are given no character, and instead, we have to sit through pages of incidental detail about the tiniest moments in the lives of these superficial protagonists and their sex lives.
Larsson’s disgust of sexual violence purportedly inspired the series after he witnessed the gang rape of a young girl when he was 15. He allegedly never forgave himself for failing to help the girl, who’s name was Lisbeth. While this sentiment is admirable, in my opinion the books fail in their objective of absolution. Perhaps these books were meant to be an homage to a woman who was a victim of a terrible crime, but the injustice is furthered by sensationalizing something that affects the lives of so many. Misogyny, sexism, sexual violence - they are all real things. The book doesn’t glorify them, but it gives the reader exactly what the author thinks they want; more of it. Instead of writing sympathetically he – taken from his own website – “knew what ingredients a good detective story should have, and [Larsson] even reluctantly decided to spice it up with a bit of sex as it would probably please his readers.” A bit of sex? These books are some of the most graphically, sexually violent books you will ever read, and that constitutes a bit of sex? Put in there only to “please the readers”? For me, this is raping your characters all over again. If the sex was put in there only to please readers, and what readers want is sexual violence, then the writing thereof is nothing short of exploitative.
The character of Lisbeth herself is interesting, in that she metes out her own form of vigilante justice. She is meant to be a role model, but she is just as typecast and stereotyped as anyone else in the books. The way she dresses, her penchant for fetish style clothes, her genius-level mind, all serve to give an image of a woman who is out of the ordinary; a social outsider. The men in her life judge her, become sexually attracted to her, and in some cases sexually abuse her. There is not a single man in the books who is a friend who is not inexplicably sexually attracted to her, for no other reason than that she is ‘different’. Of course, a sexual relationship has to begin between Blomkvist and Salander, which serves no narrative purpose, and peters out after the end of the first novel as he embarks on several other sexual exploits which in turn serve no narrative purpose. The only man who is her friend and who does not seem to want her sexually is Poison, a fellow computer hacker. But he is described as a fat, socially inept computer geek, with some form of implied agoraphobia who lacks personal hygiene and basic human cleanliness. Therefore, he too fills a stereotype.
Salander is often described as violent, but with her own internal moral compass with its version of North, as if that is meant to make us excuse her behaviour and actions. She is a social outcast because she has made herself one. Her moral compass points to Nietzsche’s Superman Theory all over again. While Salander has been through a lot, she is not above the law, she cannot do whatever she wishes, and she cannot treat people however she wants. While she understandably has issues with authority, these issues are exacerbated by her actions to the point of psychopathic. She is described as sociopathic and socially incompetent, and I am inclined to agree with those sentiments. She is encouraged at every turn, and her illegal activities are hushed up because they prove useful to the journalist protagonists. She is not likeable, she is not a role model, and I don’t think she serves as a good illustration of the power that women can hold, especially in combating sexual violence. Most judicial systems do fail to punish the perpetrators of heinous crimes adequately, but ultimately the real victory goes beyond just punishment. Victims often lack support, so a colossal personal win is how they carve a place for themselves in a world that betrayed them. Some things can never be forgotten, forgiven and excused, but the triumph lies in not letting it ruin, and control your life. In Salander’s case, this is precisely what has happened. Her entire personality and all her actions are driven by her inability to combat her demons and come through her experiences personally victorious.
The plots of the three novels are odd. Each follows the formula of a simple case turning in to something bigger. These novels are different in the cases they pursue, but they become overshadowed by the personal lives of the protagonists. Research into sex trafficking is dominated by the double murder of a journalist and his academic girlfriend, as well as the pickle Lisbeth Salander finds herself in regarding her supposed role in the killings. While eventually, the stories tie in to be part of the one big whole, this is just another case where things turn out just a little too conveniently. Everything is one big coincidence after another, and ultimately the fate of an unnamed Eastern European victim of sex trafficking is deemed less important than Salander’s ultimate revenge and pardon, or Millennium Magazines annual sales.
I could continue and complain about the rambling, detailed, completely unnecessary descriptions of almost every detail, mainly of her ‘gear’. I am not kidding when we find out that she owns an Apple iBook 600 with a 25GB hard drive, and 420MB of RAM (outdated as most of the technology is from 2002), an Apple iMac G3, and the long, incredibly detailed description of her Apple PowerBook G4, which we’re told has an aluminium casing, and “PowerPC 7451 processor with an AltiVec Velocity Engine, 960 MB RAM and a 60 GB hard drive” (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, page 216). I’m a techie, but even I think that these descriptions are unnecessary. They don’t serve the plot in any way; the specs were already outdated by the time the books were released and so failed to impress on any permanent level. If you’re interested in some more detailed descriptions of gadgets, or even just a trip down electronics memory lane, check out this website: The Girl With The Insanely Long Gear List. This doesn’t even begin to mention the significant number of times that IKEA is mentioned. Apparently, no other furniture stores exist in Sweden, because we are subjected to a long product list of IKEA furniture with which the characters furnish their homes and offices. They even using IKEA to give directions, i.e. turn left when you get to the IKEA. Also, I have the feeling that a company called Billy’s was possibly paying Larsson to plug their ‘Pan Pizza’s’ as every time Lisbeth Salander makes herself a meal, instead of just stating that she ate a frozen pizza, it is mentioned every time that is was ‘Billy’s Pan Pizza’. Unnecessary. One day I will go through these books and count ever time those words are mentioned, every time coffee is mentioned, and every time someone talks
about someone that they’ve slept with, especially Blomkvist. I have a feeling I’d reach the word count of one whole novel.
All in all, the books are gripping, the plot drives you forward, you’re interested in what happens, but I still can’t like them. They fly in the face of everything they’re trying to achieve, using sexual violence to increase sales, rather than to raise awareness. These books have been described as feminist, finally giving women several strong, female, literary role models, but I disagree. All I see is a man who chose to exploit women in his own way to gain literary fame, in the guise of writing strong female characters. Characters who, like so many others, eventually do come to rely on the men in their lives. Perhaps that’s the real tragedy; the idea of the ‘us and them’ mentality. It doesn’t need to be. Women don’t need to be fine without men, the same way that men don’t need to be fine without women. We can need each other, not as gendered beings, but as people. Our survival and sanity depend on it.
October 8, 2012
These books were so popular that I just had to read them. I found them gripping but also frustrating and, at times, over the top. Too many characters, too many far fetched plots and crazy confrontations. But the stories set a mood that I found addictive. I could not put the books down until I finished them. I can definitely understand their appeal.
March 7, 2018
All I can say is, if I am ever in a bad situation
I would hope I could call on this young lady.
DON'T MESS WITH THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
I would hope I could call on this young lady.
DON'T MESS WITH THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
March 5, 2022
I never reviewed the first two books, so I’ll remedy that by giving a more general review of the trilogy.
First off, I should point out that I resisted the hype for a long time, but finally caved after visiting Stockholm and seeing some incredible Lisbeth Salander street art. I'm glad I went into this with a) a good idea of the city's geography and b) an understanding of Swedish culture and the importance of "fika", otherwise I probably would've been annoyed that all they ever seem to do is make/drink coffee and eat sandwiches/pastries. I don't think you can read ten pages without it coming up.
Larsson was a far-left-wing activist, and this also shows. When there’s a point he wants to make, he’ll beat the reader over the head with it repeatedly. I didn’t mind, because he makes good points about important issues.
Stieg Larsson was also a journalist, and it shows in his report-like writing style. If he were to write a book about a day in my life, it would start off with a page describing me waking up in my MALM IKEA bed wearing a PJ set bought at Primark for 12€, checking my iPhone for new messages, getting up and putting on my IKEA slippers, taking care of my bodily functions, brushing my teeth, washing my face, drinking coffee filled to the cup’s brim with milk and sweetened with two sugars before thinking about what to wear… you see where this is going. He is very descriptive, but not in a poetic sense at all. I don’t know if I’d go as far as saying that it’s bad writing, but it's certainly choppy. It takes some getting used to, but you will, eventually, and it became kind of an endearing quirk. I've since read that the English translation was a rush job commissioned by the Swedish company that adapted the books for the screen, who hoped to hire an English-speaking screenwriter, and that this translation wasn't intended for publication, but it's the one Knopf used when they bought the U.S. publication rights after Larsson's death, and it explains so much in hindsight.
These books weren’t what I thought they would be at all, and they honest to God should not work—but they do. They are oddly addictive, and I understand why they climbed the worldwide Bestseller lists. I didn’t find them particularly suspenseful in the traditional sense, but I guess they must’ve been, because despite being quite the doorstoppers, I’ve read each in less than two weeks. So there’s got to be something that pulls the reader in deep—despite the lack of actual mystery thriller plot. The first book does that well enough, but the subsequent ones are very political in nature—Swedish politics, which I don't think anyone's ever really considered to have global political mystery thriller appeal before this series.
I think Larsson's big selling point is the characters. I mean… this boasts a bisexual goth hacker heroine, and generally just lots of badass, smart, and sexually liberated female characters that don’t take any shit from men. Give me more of that any goddamn day, honestly.
Apparently, if he hadn’t unexpectedly died, there would’ve been seven more volumes in the series, or so he hoped. I have no interest in reading the ones that were written by some random guy against his partner’s will (she got nothing when he died because they never married, and the family he had virtually no contact with got the rights to his unfinished works), so this is it for me.
First off, I should point out that I resisted the hype for a long time, but finally caved after visiting Stockholm and seeing some incredible Lisbeth Salander street art. I'm glad I went into this with a) a good idea of the city's geography and b) an understanding of Swedish culture and the importance of "fika", otherwise I probably would've been annoyed that all they ever seem to do is make/drink coffee and eat sandwiches/pastries. I don't think you can read ten pages without it coming up.
Larsson was a far-left-wing activist, and this also shows. When there’s a point he wants to make, he’ll beat the reader over the head with it repeatedly. I didn’t mind, because he makes good points about important issues.
Stieg Larsson was also a journalist, and it shows in his report-like writing style. If he were to write a book about a day in my life, it would start off with a page describing me waking up in my MALM IKEA bed wearing a PJ set bought at Primark for 12€, checking my iPhone for new messages, getting up and putting on my IKEA slippers, taking care of my bodily functions, brushing my teeth, washing my face, drinking coffee filled to the cup’s brim with milk and sweetened with two sugars before thinking about what to wear… you see where this is going. He is very descriptive, but not in a poetic sense at all. I don’t know if I’d go as far as saying that it’s bad writing, but it's certainly choppy. It takes some getting used to, but you will, eventually, and it became kind of an endearing quirk. I've since read that the English translation was a rush job commissioned by the Swedish company that adapted the books for the screen, who hoped to hire an English-speaking screenwriter, and that this translation wasn't intended for publication, but it's the one Knopf used when they bought the U.S. publication rights after Larsson's death, and it explains so much in hindsight.
These books weren’t what I thought they would be at all, and they honest to God should not work—but they do. They are oddly addictive, and I understand why they climbed the worldwide Bestseller lists. I didn’t find them particularly suspenseful in the traditional sense, but I guess they must’ve been, because despite being quite the doorstoppers, I’ve read each in less than two weeks. So there’s got to be something that pulls the reader in deep—despite the lack of actual mystery thriller plot. The first book does that well enough, but the subsequent ones are very political in nature—Swedish politics, which I don't think anyone's ever really considered to have global political mystery thriller appeal before this series.
I think Larsson's big selling point is the characters. I mean… this boasts a bisexual goth hacker heroine, and generally just lots of badass, smart, and sexually liberated female characters that don’t take any shit from men. Give me more of that any goddamn day, honestly.
Apparently, if he hadn’t unexpectedly died, there would’ve been seven more volumes in the series, or so he hoped. I have no interest in reading the ones that were written by some random guy against his partner’s will (she got nothing when he died because they never married, and the family he had virtually no contact with got the rights to his unfinished works), so this is it for me.
July 21, 2010
I loved these books! I read them on my Nook, and I couldn't click "next page" fast enough, through all three. Lisbeth Salander is a quirky, brilliant girl of about 25 who gets involved with a series of adventures with Mikael Blomqvist, a journalist. In the first book, she helps him investigate the mysterious disappearance of a girl from her wealthy family more than 30 years ago. In the second, they get involved with trying to find a Soviet spy who just happens to be Lisbeth's father. And in the 3rd book Mikael and others try to find a killer for murders for which Lisbeth is blamed.
The translation is sometimes forced ("hooligans"?) and there is a lot of detail about computer stuff that wasn't interesting. Also, reading the three together in series means you have to sit through some "this is what happened previously" in the prior books. But it's all worth it. These books are great "reads." The perfect airplane books, especially if you are traveling abroad and can read them all at once.
Stieg Larsson died after delivering the manuscripts, so there will be no more "Girl Who" books. I am sad but also I think it would be difficult to keep the story going. I'm sure with the success of these books there will be copycats. It remains to be seen whether the copies are as good as the original.
The translation is sometimes forced ("hooligans"?) and there is a lot of detail about computer stuff that wasn't interesting. Also, reading the three together in series means you have to sit through some "this is what happened previously" in the prior books. But it's all worth it. These books are great "reads." The perfect airplane books, especially if you are traveling abroad and can read them all at once.
Stieg Larsson died after delivering the manuscripts, so there will be no more "Girl Who" books. I am sad but also I think it would be difficult to keep the story going. I'm sure with the success of these books there will be copycats. It remains to be seen whether the copies are as good as the original.
June 4, 2010
It's not often that I read a book or book series and am sad when I finish because I just don't want the journey to end. I was really sad at the end of the Millennium series. Larsson wove such an intriguing tale of Lisbeth Salander's life with a mix of political intrigue and conspiracy. I became completely engrossed in the story. The books are long but savory. It's difficult to imagine that Larsson just wrote these three books for fun and relaxation with no intent to publish. I think the thing that saddens me most is his untimely death and knowing he is no longer around to craft the continuing saga of Lisbeth and Michael when I'm still craving for more.
July 20, 2018
¿Quiere saber más de esta trilogía, sin spoilers? Visite:
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http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
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http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
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http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
October 17, 2018
قمة الأدب البوليسي .. حرفياً
May 14, 2018
I read the series over a couple weeks basically continuously, so I will review it as a whole.
I don't have a lot to say, because they're fairly straightforward, highly entertaining thriller novels, and that's ultimately why I admire them so much. The women characters have real depth and agency. While horrible violence against women is indeed depicted in graphic detail, and I understand why some criticize the series for this reason, I am glad that at least the books' message is firmly against misogynistic violence. Lisbeth Salander is someone whom I can relate to while simultaneously being way cooler and more mysterious than I could ever dream to be.
My main complaint with these books is that In fact, I don't know how to read Blomkvist's character as anything but a male fantasy. That, and I find it slightly irritating yet hilarious how often the characters indulge in cigarettes, coffee, and sandwiches.
Good, entertaining books, not too dense. Very entertaining.
I don't have a lot to say, because they're fairly straightforward, highly entertaining thriller novels, and that's ultimately why I admire them so much. The women characters have real depth and agency. While horrible violence against women is indeed depicted in graphic detail, and I understand why some criticize the series for this reason, I am glad that at least the books' message is firmly against misogynistic violence. Lisbeth Salander is someone whom I can relate to while simultaneously being way cooler and more mysterious than I could ever dream to be.
My main complaint with these books is that In fact, I don't know how to read Blomkvist's character as anything but a male fantasy. That, and I find it slightly irritating yet hilarious how often the characters indulge in cigarettes, coffee, and sandwiches.
Good, entertaining books, not too dense. Very entertaining.
February 23, 2013
Even though the thriller is not my favorite genre I liked all the books of the trilogy. The author created a quite different kind of heroine.
She is somebody who is supposed mentally incompetent by law, and in spite of disgraceful family background, she is able to use her intelligence to carry on every part in the puzzles to solve.
There are more interesting characters, some of them really evil and some full of courage but she is the center of attention as well as the plot.
Recommended for those who love this genre.
She is somebody who is supposed mentally incompetent by law, and in spite of disgraceful family background, she is able to use her intelligence to carry on every part in the puzzles to solve.
There are more interesting characters, some of them really evil and some full of courage but she is the center of attention as well as the plot.
Recommended for those who love this genre.
September 21, 2020
Crime-busting with a social, moral and ethical conscience
December 21, 2010
Sets like this have several purposes. One is simply putting a set of related works together, for people who want to acquire all parts, for instance, of a set of books. Another is "value added" by putting together a set.
For those who have not read the Millennium trilogy, this is a nice way of "one stop shopping." Begin with a "murder mystery," "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." Here, we begin with journalist Mikael Blomkvist losing credibility and being humiliated for lack of journalistic integrity, all because of a set up concocted by someone whom he was investigating. We get introduced to Lisbeth Salander, a victim of many kinds of abuse, but independent, extraordinarily talented, and a keen researcher. She partners with Blomkvist to solve a series of murders.
"The Girl Who Played with Fire" follows. Salander has separated herself from Blomkvist and others. She ends up, in essence, being framed for three murders (although by accident). Blomkvist tries to solve the question as to what happened; Salander does her own research to find out what actually happened. We see the dynamic story that results from her relationship to her father, a vicious Soviet defector, Zalachenko. At the end of the novel, in trying to get her revenge against her father, she is grievously wounded.
"The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" follows up where the previous novel ends. Salander has surgery for her multiple wounds, rehabilitates, and is subject to a government effort to put her back in a mental institution--to protect a rogue element within the Swedish security establishment. The book, which is drearily slow and detailed in the middle, ends with a dramatic (albeit not totally believable) courtroom scene, a confrontation between Salander and her murderous half-brother, and a quiet reconciliation (perhaps) with Blomkvist.
The other aspect of a set like this is "value added." There is an extra element here--a piece focusing on Stieg Larsson himself. Many will know that Larsson died of a heart attack before the trilogy was published, thus never experiencing the success of his creation.
So, this set works pretty well on two separate levels.
For those who have not read the Millennium trilogy, this is a nice way of "one stop shopping." Begin with a "murder mystery," "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." Here, we begin with journalist Mikael Blomkvist losing credibility and being humiliated for lack of journalistic integrity, all because of a set up concocted by someone whom he was investigating. We get introduced to Lisbeth Salander, a victim of many kinds of abuse, but independent, extraordinarily talented, and a keen researcher. She partners with Blomkvist to solve a series of murders.
"The Girl Who Played with Fire" follows. Salander has separated herself from Blomkvist and others. She ends up, in essence, being framed for three murders (although by accident). Blomkvist tries to solve the question as to what happened; Salander does her own research to find out what actually happened. We see the dynamic story that results from her relationship to her father, a vicious Soviet defector, Zalachenko. At the end of the novel, in trying to get her revenge against her father, she is grievously wounded.
"The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" follows up where the previous novel ends. Salander has surgery for her multiple wounds, rehabilitates, and is subject to a government effort to put her back in a mental institution--to protect a rogue element within the Swedish security establishment. The book, which is drearily slow and detailed in the middle, ends with a dramatic (albeit not totally believable) courtroom scene, a confrontation between Salander and her murderous half-brother, and a quiet reconciliation (perhaps) with Blomkvist.
The other aspect of a set like this is "value added." There is an extra element here--a piece focusing on Stieg Larsson himself. Many will know that Larsson died of a heart attack before the trilogy was published, thus never experiencing the success of his creation.
So, this set works pretty well on two separate levels.
June 3, 2011
Books were very hard to get into at first, I'll admit. The books drag a lot in the beginning. In the first novel, I nearly put it down until I got the part where he introduced Lisbeth. Then it got interesting. In the second book, it started out the same way as the first; slow pacing and lots of unneeded detail to the personal lives of the characters, like Lisbeth apartment-searching, shopping, etc. I actually put the book down for a couple of weeks before picking it up again. Then BAM - I hit the middle and then it starts to get interesting, via the twist. I actually haven't finished reading the third, but overall, Lisbeth Salander has to be one of the most interesting female characters I've ever read. She doesn't take mess from anyone and if any one of the characters screw her over - which happens a multitude of times over the duration of the series, hence the first book's original title in Swedish, 'Men Who Hate Women' - watch out. There's also a ton of violence and sexual content. The writing leaves much to be desired (which is understandable, considering the author handed the books over to the publisher before dying, leaving the books unedited), but if you're up for a fluffy, twisting thriller, these books are it.
January 5, 2011
I realize this is a lukewarm review at best for a series of novels that has become an international bestseller, and inspired both Stockholm and Hollywood to adapt the story for the silver screen. I blame Stieg Larsson, who had the gall to pound out a hundred thousand pages about a brilliant maladjusted hacker and her difficult friend the brilliant risk-taking investigative journalist, and then die before his editor could say, "Stieg, I get it, it's a vast technological conspiracy with child-molesting Russian mafia at the core. Now let's get rid of chapters 13 through 487, ja?"
Bottom line : great page-turner, wonderful character development, but unfortunately a chip off the Dan Brown block when it comes to plot and, you know, writing. Bonus, though : after you turn the pages in a furious frenzy to find out whose email that kooky Lisbeth Salander will read next, you can use them as kindling. It's a cold winter. Thank you, Stieg.
Bottom line : great page-turner, wonderful character development, but unfortunately a chip off the Dan Brown block when it comes to plot and, you know, writing. Bonus, though : after you turn the pages in a furious frenzy to find out whose email that kooky Lisbeth Salander will read next, you can use them as kindling. It's a cold winter. Thank you, Stieg.
April 23, 2012
I had always wondered about all the hype over Larsson's books and thought what would be so great about it. When my sister bought the trilogy, i decided to read to quench my curiosity. I must say that i was overtly surprised. These books are fantastic. The rock solid storyline keeps you captivated and always on the edge. Every step the characters take, fills you with anticipation and anxiety. It's difficult to put down the book. I finished all the three one after the other, within two weeks and i would advice everyone to do the same(not read within two weeks but take up the books together). There is no other way round it. I do not have enough words to comment on Salander. She is truly an icon and leaves her mark on the reader. Larsson made history by creating her and we should all be grateful for that. Salander would be remembered for her sheer strength, intelligence and attitude. She is an enigma who will haunt us for many years to come.
March 6, 2017
Genius. One of the best series I've read thus far. With such strong characters and great plots its not a wonder why this is one of the most popular series around. I can't imagine anyone being let down by these. I highly recommend.
July 13, 2020
Check out my reviews on the main page of each individual book!
March 15, 2011
The first of three books in the Millennium Series, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, has a slow beginning. The first half presents two separate lives in Sweden: Mikael Blomkvist, a 40-something journalist convicted of libel, and Lisbeth Salander, a 24-year-old eccentric computer hacker working for a security firm. The first half was boring.
Eventually, the book gets better when Blomkvist and Salander join forces to find a murderer of a member of the Vanger family who disappeared 40 years ago. The Vangers, including husbands, wives, adult children, cousins, aunts, and uncles, are all very rich and very strange. Together they own a worldwide corporation, and they mostly hate each other. Blomkvist and Salanlder uncover their deep, dark secrets, discovering secrets much worse than they bargained for, much worse with every page.
The book is billed as a mystery/thriller. But mystery/thriller lovers should be warned: THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO contains only a small portion of what I would call "thriller." That is near the end of the book when Blomkvist, after figuring things out and confronting someone, discovers the hard way (the really, really hard way) that, as bad as what he figured, it was way, way worse. Again, that is near the end of the book.
The majority of DRAGON TATTOO is mystery, not thriller. And too often the mystery is tedious as Blomkvist and Salander search and research old news clippings, picture archives, old snapshots, others' writeups, etc.
I was assured that the other two books are better than the first, so I read the next in the series, THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE.
However, this book is also, I feel, a bore in its first half. Most of it describes Salander ("THE GIRL") in more detail than DRAGON TATTOO did. Frankly, the extra detail made me like her less. I saw her as nothing but a caricature, not someone I could care about.
In the second halfof PLAYED WITH FIRE, Salander, who has managed to get copies of several people’s hard drives, learns that Blomkvist plans to publish the findings of a fine upstanding couple investigating sex trafficking crimes. This interests Salander. So she visits the couple, and the next thing we know, they’re dead.
Salander is accused of murdering them and, within a short time, she is all but convicted of the crime in the eyes of the public and the police in Stockholm. (Don’t forget, this story takes place in Sweden.)
The rest of the book involves Salander hiding out from the law and the few people who think she’s innocent doing the job of the police.
And all the new characters introduced in PLAYED WITH FIRE are more caricatures. I can easily imagine them in a Saturday-morning cartoon, especially the giant who feels no pain and is afraid of the dark and the ponytailed, pot bellied bad guy who's no match for Salander. I could clearly see "ZAP" and "POW" during the batman-like fight scenes between the bad guys and the unbeatable Salander.
The third book in the series, THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST, is a continuation of the story in PLAYED WITH FIRE. HORNET’S NEST does not have a boring first half, and it is, indeed, better than the other two.
In this book, Blomkvist is a tramp, taken to bed by, seemingly, every attractive female who comes along. This even as he organizes “The Knights of the Idiotic Table,��� a group of all the people who want to see a good outcome for Salander. She’s in the hospital, miraculously still alive after being shot in the head. The police are guarding her room because they think she is a murderer. When she recovers, she goes to jail.
But “the knights” are investigating a small group within the Swedish police who they suspect are corrupt. When they get to the bottom of this, Salander will be free. Of course, Salander helps by illegally hacking into the computers of any high-level official. And she does so from her guarded hospital room.
In the meantime one of Bloomkvist’s love (read “sex”) interests, Erica, has an ordeal of her own going on. Not surprisingly, Salander helps her, too, as she illegally hacks into the computers of newspaper reporters and managers, again, from her guarded hospital room.
Of the three books in the series, THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST is the best. But the series as a whole does not deserve all the attention it is getting. Classics, the kind of books everyone remembers years later, the books I’m proud to have in my bookcase, deserve this.
The Millennium Series is up there with former bestsellers like PEYTON PLACE and THE STEPFORD WIVES, the kind of books that get attention for a while. But the Millennium Series is not classic.
Eventually, the book gets better when Blomkvist and Salander join forces to find a murderer of a member of the Vanger family who disappeared 40 years ago. The Vangers, including husbands, wives, adult children, cousins, aunts, and uncles, are all very rich and very strange. Together they own a worldwide corporation, and they mostly hate each other. Blomkvist and Salanlder uncover their deep, dark secrets, discovering secrets much worse than they bargained for, much worse with every page.
The book is billed as a mystery/thriller. But mystery/thriller lovers should be warned: THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO contains only a small portion of what I would call "thriller." That is near the end of the book when Blomkvist, after figuring things out and confronting someone, discovers the hard way (the really, really hard way) that, as bad as what he figured, it was way, way worse. Again, that is near the end of the book.
The majority of DRAGON TATTOO is mystery, not thriller. And too often the mystery is tedious as Blomkvist and Salander search and research old news clippings, picture archives, old snapshots, others' writeups, etc.
I was assured that the other two books are better than the first, so I read the next in the series, THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE.
However, this book is also, I feel, a bore in its first half. Most of it describes Salander ("THE GIRL") in more detail than DRAGON TATTOO did. Frankly, the extra detail made me like her less. I saw her as nothing but a caricature, not someone I could care about.
In the second halfof PLAYED WITH FIRE, Salander, who has managed to get copies of several people’s hard drives, learns that Blomkvist plans to publish the findings of a fine upstanding couple investigating sex trafficking crimes. This interests Salander. So she visits the couple, and the next thing we know, they’re dead.
Salander is accused of murdering them and, within a short time, she is all but convicted of the crime in the eyes of the public and the police in Stockholm. (Don’t forget, this story takes place in Sweden.)
The rest of the book involves Salander hiding out from the law and the few people who think she’s innocent doing the job of the police.
And all the new characters introduced in PLAYED WITH FIRE are more caricatures. I can easily imagine them in a Saturday-morning cartoon, especially the giant who feels no pain and is afraid of the dark and the ponytailed, pot bellied bad guy who's no match for Salander. I could clearly see "ZAP" and "POW" during the batman-like fight scenes between the bad guys and the unbeatable Salander.
The third book in the series, THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST, is a continuation of the story in PLAYED WITH FIRE. HORNET’S NEST does not have a boring first half, and it is, indeed, better than the other two.
In this book, Blomkvist is a tramp, taken to bed by, seemingly, every attractive female who comes along. This even as he organizes “The Knights of the Idiotic Table,��� a group of all the people who want to see a good outcome for Salander. She’s in the hospital, miraculously still alive after being shot in the head. The police are guarding her room because they think she is a murderer. When she recovers, she goes to jail.
But “the knights” are investigating a small group within the Swedish police who they suspect are corrupt. When they get to the bottom of this, Salander will be free. Of course, Salander helps by illegally hacking into the computers of any high-level official. And she does so from her guarded hospital room.
In the meantime one of Bloomkvist’s love (read “sex”) interests, Erica, has an ordeal of her own going on. Not surprisingly, Salander helps her, too, as she illegally hacks into the computers of newspaper reporters and managers, again, from her guarded hospital room.
Of the three books in the series, THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST is the best. But the series as a whole does not deserve all the attention it is getting. Classics, the kind of books everyone remembers years later, the books I’m proud to have in my bookcase, deserve this.
The Millennium Series is up there with former bestsellers like PEYTON PLACE and THE STEPFORD WIVES, the kind of books that get attention for a while. But the Millennium Series is not classic.
Shelved as 'unificati-letti'
August 16, 2019Uomini che odiano le donne ★★★★
La ragazza che giocava con il fuoco ★★★★
La regina dei castelli di carta ★★★
Pur essendomi piaciuta, non intendo andare oltre e leggere i "seguiti"
Il fatto che i libri successivi non siano stati scritti dall'autore originale sono quasi un pretesto, perché in ogni caso ho perso comunque qualsiasi interesse per la storia e i personaggi
La ragazza che giocava con il fuoco ★★★★
La regina dei castelli di carta ★★★
Pur essendomi piaciuta, non intendo andare oltre e leggere i "seguiti"
Il fatto che i libri successivi non siano stati scritti dall'autore originale sono quasi un pretesto, perché in ogni caso ho perso comunque qualsiasi interesse per la storia e i personaggi
January 19, 2011
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo read quickly and really liked it! Some reviewers have critcized the amount of backstory provided at the beginning of this book, but I thought it was all relevant and ultimately added to the whole story. This book was a good introduction to those who would become the central characters of the series.
The Girl Who Played with Fire was a little slower getting started. Of the three titles this was the one I liked the least. It is important for character development and further information about Lisbeth Salander, who becomes the focus of books 2 and 3. We learn where Salander's self-sufficiency originates and more fully understand many of her attitudes.
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest continues the focus on Salander as her supporters prepare for her trial. It seemed odd that a person lying in hospital could still play such a strong and central role in the story.
I very much enjoyed this trilogy and am very sad that Larsson's death leaves us with only these three volumes, at least so far, with only a glimmer of hope that a possible fourth title may appear one day. I appreciated his sensitivity and development of Salander's character. It was nice to read books with strong female characters in central and active roles. It was also uplifting to see them defeat those who were trying to victimize them. An important aspect of Salander's character, pointed out by many, is her refusal to accept the traditional role of victim. It was as if she drew strength from being victimized and "took on the world," so to speak, to reject that characterization both of herself and in the view of others. The large number of characters, while a bit daunting to handle at the outset, does make the story lines in books 2 & 3 seem more realistic. No murder investigation is carried out or resolved by the efforts of a single person, as some murder mysteries would have us believe. This is a series of books that really needs to be read together in publication order to be best appreciated.
The inclusion of the short book On Stieg Larsson was a bonus in helping to gain further insight into Larsson from the perspectives of his editor and friends. Most poignant were the email references to "we have plenty of time" to address this or that and the only deadlines dealt strictly with publication schedules. This serves to remind us how fleeting life can be. Overall an engrossing read and wonderful series to which we have really been only introduced.
July 19, 2012
I read these around the same time as I read the Fifty Shades trilogy and you couldn't ask for two sets of books that are such polar opposites of each other.
I hadn't particularly planned on reading them but happened to see the 2009 film adaptation on TV, late one night, and really enjoyed it. The next day I went out and bought the books.
The first book, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, was my favourite of the three, I found the murder mystery plot more interesting than the political themes of the second and third books, although all of them were gripping and held my attention from start to finish. They are well written, with a wealth of detail - in fact, my only criticism is that at times there was slightly too much attention to trifling matters and a slight tendency to overdo the recapping of previous plot lines; necessary, I suppose, if you are inexplicably reading the books out of order, but a bit frustrating otherwise.
The real genius is in the characterisations; Lisbeth Salander is the most original, refreshing and readable female protagonist I've come across in a long time. She's socially dysfunctional and eccentric in all kinds of ways and is described as looking like an adolescent boy - but she is also intelligent, strong and moralistic. Given the choice between Salander and the beautiful, mawkish Anastasia Steele - it is Salander I would aspire to, every time.
The male protagonist, Mikael Blomkvist, was a bit dull in comparison, but by the end of the trilogy this actually seemed to be the perfect foil to Salander's outlandishness. I found him slightly irritating at times; he was almost preternaturally clever and instinctive, often facilitating an easy way out for some of the plot's trickier twists and turns. I also struggled with his seemingly irresistible fascination to women; his character never came across as exceptionally charming, if anything, he struck me as being somewhat careless with regards to women. Nor was a full description of his looks ever given, which left me to form my own mental image of him; since I'd just watched the Swedish film version I often found myself putting the actor's face to the character in my head - and whilst I'm sure that Michael Nyqvist is a very nice chap, he doesn't have the face, in my opinion, of a man who is snog-bait to the ladies (sorry Michael). But he, as with all the characters, is believably written and adds a great deal of colour and depth to the overall storyline.
On finishing the books, I had enjoyed them so much that I Googled Stieg Larsson with a view to finding other works by him, only to find he had died in 2004. I don't think there is anything quite so sad and disappointing as discovering an author whose work you enjoy and respect and then realising there is nothing more of theirs to be read.
So, in summary: if you like crime thrillers with interesting characters and subject matters that make you stop and think, then I highly recommend these books.
I hadn't particularly planned on reading them but happened to see the 2009 film adaptation on TV, late one night, and really enjoyed it. The next day I went out and bought the books.
The first book, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, was my favourite of the three, I found the murder mystery plot more interesting than the political themes of the second and third books, although all of them were gripping and held my attention from start to finish. They are well written, with a wealth of detail - in fact, my only criticism is that at times there was slightly too much attention to trifling matters and a slight tendency to overdo the recapping of previous plot lines; necessary, I suppose, if you are inexplicably reading the books out of order, but a bit frustrating otherwise.
The real genius is in the characterisations; Lisbeth Salander is the most original, refreshing and readable female protagonist I've come across in a long time. She's socially dysfunctional and eccentric in all kinds of ways and is described as looking like an adolescent boy - but she is also intelligent, strong and moralistic. Given the choice between Salander and the beautiful, mawkish Anastasia Steele - it is Salander I would aspire to, every time.
The male protagonist, Mikael Blomkvist, was a bit dull in comparison, but by the end of the trilogy this actually seemed to be the perfect foil to Salander's outlandishness. I found him slightly irritating at times; he was almost preternaturally clever and instinctive, often facilitating an easy way out for some of the plot's trickier twists and turns. I also struggled with his seemingly irresistible fascination to women; his character never came across as exceptionally charming, if anything, he struck me as being somewhat careless with regards to women. Nor was a full description of his looks ever given, which left me to form my own mental image of him; since I'd just watched the Swedish film version I often found myself putting the actor's face to the character in my head - and whilst I'm sure that Michael Nyqvist is a very nice chap, he doesn't have the face, in my opinion, of a man who is snog-bait to the ladies (sorry Michael). But he, as with all the characters, is believably written and adds a great deal of colour and depth to the overall storyline.
On finishing the books, I had enjoyed them so much that I Googled Stieg Larsson with a view to finding other works by him, only to find he had died in 2004. I don't think there is anything quite so sad and disappointing as discovering an author whose work you enjoy and respect and then realising there is nothing more of theirs to be read.
So, in summary: if you like crime thrillers with interesting characters and subject matters that make you stop and think, then I highly recommend these books.
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