I'm now officially two-thirds of the way through Steig Larsson's "Millennium Trilogy." I borrowed The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo from my mom and bought The Girl Who Played With Fire* at Target. Today at a discount store I found The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest in hardback, but even at the discount rate it was still more expensive than the paperback edition will eventually be. So I didn't buy it.
Which is how I knew that these books, while entertaining, aren't really that great.
It all boils down to one thing: Larsson really could've used an editor. I don't know how much of his writing he got in front of an actual publisher before he died, but I firmly believe that these books would've been far better had he had the opportunity to re-write, condense and refine under someone else's direction.
For instance, each of the first two books takes nearly 200 pages to really get started. Before that, you have to wade through a ton of exposition. A compellingly written exposition dump is still an exposition dump. And then there's my bigger problem, which is that literally every single female character in both books at some point hooks up with the male protagonist, who's quite the boob guy.
Larsson's title for the first book was Men Who Hate Women, which is appropriate. (Seriously - it's beyond disturbing.) So maybe with Blomkvist he's trying to set up a man who really really super-loves women. And breasts. And stroking those breasts. A lot. And then telling us aaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllll about it. We also get to hear a lot about IKEA's stock and the square-footage of every single living space occupied by even the most minor characters.
Setting the scene is one thing, but I don't particularly care what a character spends on his or her lunch. A good editor could've pared at least some of that down and focused what are some good stories about a couple of unique characters.
* Edward McKay was thrilled to buy this from me. Apparently they're flying off the shelves at my favorite used-book store. I was also thrilled to use the store credit to subsidize my long-awaited purchase of "GoodFellas." So, everybody's happy.
2 comments:
After reading the first in the trilogy, I have ZERO desire to continue. You are right that it is disturbing, but I found the book to be needlessly and excessively misogynistic. I agree that Larsson needed an editor. I also think that the entire "mystery" wrapped up a little too quickly and nicely for my tastes. Given my repulsion of this book/trilogy (and yes, I'm extrapolating based on only 1/3 "evidence"), I'm not sure what it says about me or the general reading public that these books are so popular...
I think Tiger Beatdown nailed it:
http://tigerbeatdown.com/2010/07/29/the-girl-with-the-lots-of-creepy-disturbing-torture-that-pissed-me-off-on-stieg-larsson/
Post a Comment