The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson. Book 10

Yup, I've joined the legions of Stieglies.

Another Kindle purchase - since I'm holed up in bed with a rotten chest infection, I don't have much else to do but read and update these entries.

One weird thing about the Kindle is that although it tells me percentage-wise how far in I am to the novel, I have no idea in 'real' terms how much I've read. How big is this book??? If I'm confused 3% of the way in, how far in is that? I'm used to judging these things by the visual size of a book - I wonder if I'll have less of a problem with this the more I use it?

Mr Larsson. Sadly passed away in November 2004, leaving only 3 of his apparently planned 10 Millennium novels.

I just started reading Christopher Hitchens' article on Stieg, but it went into later plots and as I may well read the other two books in the trilogy, I had to stop, which is a pity as I do like a bit of the Hitch.

Boy oh boy, can you tell that Stieg was a bit of a political man from this book. He REALLY doesn't like Nazis - and with good reason (not that you need much of a reason other than knowing what they stand for). He'd been threatened by them personally, as has his partner.

How's this? Stieg's original name is Stig, but he changed it to avoid confusion with a friend of his, Stig Larsson, who was a popular author. I guess Stig's feeling a little bit embarrassed now, eh?

Stieg was a bit of an SF fan (a HUGE SF fan would be more appropriate), which doesn't really show through in this book - his knowledge of crime fiction definitely does and I'm wondering if one of the characters in this book isn't a small tribute to Dorothy L Sayer's, Harriet Vane character. He mentions Sayers in the book and having a central figure in the book who is not what she appears to be named Harriet Vanger seems just a little 'suss' to me.

He spent much of his time in political matters and started the more than worthwhile group, Swedish Expo Foundation, aimed at reducing the influence of racist white-power organisations among young people. It's apparently quite an open thing in Sweden.

The guy was passionate about humanity, that much is clear from his legacy.

He also felt strongly about violence towards women, which really shows through in this book.

The book's correct title is, Men Who Hate Women.

I have to say firstly, that I don't care much for the translation. Who, in this day and age, for a thoroughly modern book, uses the word 'anon'?? Come on! And not just once, but several times. This really makes me uncomfortable with how much of the original 'feel' of the novel is coming through. In an interview with Stieg's widow, she commented that the translated novel was also toned down a bit. Hmmm.

This book took quite a bit of getting into.

We were subjected to continuous repetition of family histories so that we were able to identify all the characters in the plot. This got fairly tedious and if it wasn't for that fact that I was too sick to do anything else but read, I would have put the book down.

I don't rate the male main character as much as I do Salander. She's a firecracker! A tiny little slip of a thing with a lot of depth.

It wasn't until halfway through that I began to want to know whodunnit. I do think I like that you have to wait until half-way into things for the two main characters to join forces. It did leave Salander a little out of things though. Stieg was busy setting up her background and personality, which in the long run is more important I guess since the books are about her (I don't know if Mikhael appears in the other two...), but it meant the main plot of the book didn't really get her attention until late into play.

But from halfway in, the book becomes a whirlwind of unanswered questions that need resolving.

I also like that, although pretty much everything gets tied up at the end, there is still the very much unanswered mystery of Salander herself. We find things out about her gradually, it's almost a strip-tease.

I think one of the reasons she is such a popular character amongst women is because she appears physically weak but intellectually, she's a bit of a frikken genius. (it's kind of like 'Good Will Hunting' syndrome for women) She's not classically attractive but she gets more than her fair share of sex. She's also socially disaffected which locks right in on Gen X and under. I found myself getting a bit annoyed at how much I was falling for this obviously 'marketed' character. But we barely know anything about her past, just vague references to 'the All Evil',and that's how it stays - a teaser for the next book.

She is introduced well. To the world, she's an idiot, but we soon discover she's far from it, but she presents this image on purpose. She's an entirely capable character. She cares for her ailing mother, she rides a motorbike she built from scratch (wish I'd done that with my Vespa, then I'd know how to fix it without the extortionate pricetag!), she's the best computer hacker in Sweden, she gets revenge on her own terms and saves the day - of course - I never doubted she would for one second.

And this book is very much about revenge. Mikhael wants revenge for the legal arse-whipping he got for being stooged by a dodgy finance mogul he was trying to expose. Sound confusing? Yes it is.

I'm enjoying being able to make notes wherever I want on my Kindle. I have noted at one point, early in, that I just have no idea what's going on or what these two guys are talking about and the reason behind it. It really does take a long time to get going. There are disparate threads everywhere, but eventually they come together.

He gets asked to spend a year researching the family tree of a rival financial giant but the real purpose of the research is to find out what happened to Harriet Vangard, the niece of the head of the Vangard Company. In return, the head of the Vangard family promises Mikhael the information he needs to bring down the dodgy financial mogul mentioned earlier. Sound intricate? Yes it is.

Salander works for a high-tech security firm. She investigates people and comes up with results better than anyone the company's owner, Armansky, has ever come across. This is actually a weak point within the novel. She comes up with info on people that no one knows and Armansky just doesn't know how she does it. Durr. Um, hacking anyone? So we still think she's just this amazing researcher who can find out stuff until about just under halfway into the book when Mikhael Blomqvist realises the only way she could have gotten a certain piece of info about him was by hacking. Yeah, I'm sorry but what else was she doing? It's just naive to pretend we hadn't figured that out the second Salander can provide private details about people that no one else had come up with. Come on! We know she's a computer whiz, of course the girl is hacking.

So that gripe aside, I love the relationships in this book. We've got people being honest and open about sex and what they want. Blomqvist has a friend who is married but she and he are completely open in their sexual relationship that has spanned decades. If anyone else doesn't like it, they can go jump. Nice work there and much needed for the US and Australian audiences, I think. People manage to just have sex in this book and they work through the emotional outcomes. There's no accusations and guilt and screaming - just talking about it all. That was great.

But - he really does get into a lot of raping and murder and incest and the like. Page turning and best-seller material that it is. Is that needed when you've got two such charismatic people as your leads? I might have to think about that further - I imagine that there is more of the same in the other two novels.

One other thing is Stieg's obvious preaching about violence towards women and the spread of Nazism. I am NOT saying both aren't disgusting and repulsive and that there needs to be more publicity about both. I'm saying that he gives stats on percentages of violence of men towards women but not of women towards women or women towards men.

There is a plethora of unsympathetic male characters and only one female (who dies).

Stieg really seems to like women as Blomqvist, the male lead is irresistible to the ladies.

Salander pretty much detests all men, except of course, the devilishly seductive Blomqvist. It's a huge theme in this book but I get the feeling he's only included it to balance out the violence and hatred he's allocated to the killers in the book.

This is turning into an epic.

It's a great page turner - after the halfway point. It's got elements of Christie and Sayers - Wiki likens Salander to 'Modesty Blaise', which I haven't read, but is now on my list. He also apparently based her a lot on Pippi Longstocking which I think is fair.

I do want to read more about what she does with her life, so there may be another Stieg appearing here in the next couple of months.