Dragon TattooFollow

Everyone and their brother has been telling me I have to read these Dragon Tattoo books. So I finally bought them and settled down to be amazed. What decided me was my sister-in-law, who I consider a pretty smart lady, telling me that she was sad that she couldn’t read any more of the Tattoo books since Stieg Larsson was dead.

So I start the first book. I pushed through the first 75 or so pages, bored almost to tears, and the book finally got a little interesting. My favorite book in the series… but I’m not sure that’s saying much, really.

I start the second book, a little excited, since SpoilerSalander broke out of her shell a little and decided she was in love with Blomkvist, only to be hurt by his ongoing affair with Berger. I got more and more frustrated as the most interesting character, Lisbeth, was MIA in two thirds of the damn book. And the ending… well let’s just say if I didn’t have the third book readily available, I probably would’ve found Stieg Larsson’s dead body and put a cap in his ass for good measure. The book wasn’t great, but it didn’t suck.

On to the third book. Technically, I haven’t finished it yet. I still have about 30 pages to go. And I feel like I am punishing myself for reading it.

In the course of these three books, I have come to realize a few things.

1. Stieg Larsson is impressed by people’s resumes and insists on putting them down on paper in his books. Honestly, I don’t give a sh*t what grammar school so-and-so went to. They work for the SIS now? Great. That’s all I need to know.

2. Stieg Larsson thinks that a person’s grocery list is integral to plot progression.

3. People in Sweden love something called “Billy’s Pan Pizza.”

4. All of the men in Sweden fall into two catagoris: (a) men who are the paragon of all that is good and right in the world, and (b) misogynist pigs who like to use the word whore to describe every woman who crosses them.

5. Every woman wants to sleep with Mikael Blomkvist.

Seriously, these books are not something I’d recommend to anyone I liked.

Just in sweden?

I have a feeling that this will be one of the rare cases of "the movie is better than the book."

A much better way to put it, thank you!

Heh. I really liked the books. I got the first 2 for Christmas presents and finished both by New Year's Eve. So of course on New Year's Day, I had to wake Ray's ass up early and had him take me to Wal-Mart to get the 3rd book because I didn't want to wait for it to be published in paperback (and I never buy hardcover).

Some of it did tend to plod along. But I still enjoyed the plot. And the idea of a tiny girl kicking ass just really appealed to me.

Oh, and since Daniel Craig signed on to play Blomkvist, I'm definately planning to watch the US movies of these books.

Edited, Jan 27th 2011 2:53pm by Thumbelyna

What other options are there? Braile books?

No movie will ever inspire me to read a book because I'll become bored and skip half the book since I already know the plot. Just seeing a movie sucks a lot of motivation out of me to even read something. I need to actually make an effort to read the book first if I want to read and see the story.

Edited, Jan 27th 2011 9:44pm by xypin

WOOOSH.


...but no, seriously, I really was confused. I thought there was some third book-format option besides hardcover and paperback that I was missing because I'm retarded like that and braile was the only thing to come to mind. I blame Thumb for poorly wording her statement!


Because I almost feel some sort of emotion for derailing the thread, I'll say something on topic. I read the first book and thought it was interesting. It was better than the OP claims, but I have no plans on buying the second and third book. In the end, I had wished the book focused more on Lisbeth than Mikael. Since I've read the first book, next on the list is to watch the Swedish movies with subs.

I like to read, but I have a problem with reading too fast and running out of books available. so if I see a movie and it has books, i'll usually go read them too if the movie was in any way decent, opeating on the theory that the books are usually better than the movie. I know i am somewhat odd in that respect though.

This. I re-read Stephen King all the time. And there are a number of fantasy novels I'll read and re-read. If it's a series, though, I'm sort of weird in that I have to read all of the books, or I feel bad for leaving the characters stuck and not able to finish out their story...

Ok, that's not sort of weird. It's very weird.

I definitely can't start in the middle if I'm re-reading a series. The exception is that I could read Wizard and Glass without reading teh whole Dark Tower series again.

It's ridiculous. I like my characters complex like real people.

But I see why that appeals to the American reader. As a whole, we ain't too bright.

The problem if you have a problem with the books is that the star of the series is really Swedish politics and crime, in particular the worming of WW2 war criminals into the fabric of Swedish society right up into the present day.

This was meant to be a ten book series, a fictionalisation of Larsson's research as a reporter, exposing real crime and corruption in Sweden, fictionalised probably so he could avoid law suits, probably also to make more money than a non-fiction series would make, and who knows, maybe he just felt the muse?

Lisbeth, Blomkvist, and everyone, are just emotional hooks to make you feel outrage over the based-on-reality crime and politics. If you aren't much into Sweden, WW2, and politics, then there will be too much filler for you. In which case the Swedish films are good on their own, since they have to strip the story right down. I personally really liked the first film, haven't seen the others, and have read 2 and half of the books.

It's going to be a matter of taste with the Swedish films. The first one is a mystery-action, but it's just not Hollywood. By Hollywood standards there's no action at all. The actress who played Lisbeth I found mesmerising. It was a fantastic portrait, even though the book Lisbeth has totally different racial features and is at least a foot shorter. (The book Lisbeth has native Nordic genes that by European standards give her a "Down's Syndrome" look, if you aren't thinking Arctic Circle "Fin", "Lap" "Eskimo", "Slavic", or "Japanese" looks. Book Lisbeth's Down's Syndrome appearance is one of the reasons she is so easily not listened to, disregarded, and institutionalised as a child.)

Edited, Feb 7th 2011 8:04am by Aripyanfar

I liked Lisbeth. Traumatised, locked up, abused, physically small, an unrecognised genius, she finally starts fighting back. It might not be the most healthy way to fight back, but then she hasn't been given the best education in life skills. She starts turning the tables on the men who have taken advantage of their legal positions of power over her; taking down four of them in more or less spectacular and horrid ways over the course of her formative years, in the early stages of her story.

In reality I'm all for the law to handle justice, but when the legal system breaks down, it's kinda satisfying for vigilante justice to triumph in fantasy land. It certainly makes for tense and cathartic drama visually.

Edited, Feb 7th 2011 12:58pm by Aripyanfar