By Liz
Book Review: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Official FC Rating:
I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect when I started reading
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I
saw the movie a couple years ago and was blown away by it, but, not
surprisingly, I heard from many that the book was way better. So, when I came across
cheap copies of The Girl with the Dragon
Tattoo and the second book in the series, The Girl who Played with Fire, in an antique store, I snatched them
up.
Explained simply, the novel is a
murder mystery. Mikael Blomkvist, our protagonist, is publisher and co-founder
of the magazine, Millennium, and is charged
with libel against a billionaire industrialist, Wennerstrӧm. Because this case
is widely publicized throughout the country, Blomkvist catches the eye of
Henrik Vanger, a competing CEO of Wennerstrӧm’s. Vanger lures Blomkvist to
investigate the cold case of his missing niece, Harriet Vanger, by promising
him that he has evidence against Wennerstrӧm that Blomkvist can use. As the
investigation into Harriet’s disappearance gets too challenging for Blomkvist
to handle himself, he ends up partnering with one of the best investigative
researchers and hackers in Sweden, Lisbeth Salander. The closer the two get to
solving the mystery, the closer they also find themselves to imminent danger.
Let me start explaining my feelings about this novel with
this: Lisbeth Salander is all that matters. Lisbeth Salander is everything. I
mean it- she’s one of my favorite female characters I’ve read in a novel in my
adult years, and she’s undoubtedly the best thing about The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and, I assume, the rest of the Millennium
Series by Stieg Larsson. “Bad ass” is probably the best way to describe
Salander, but to break that down, she’s incredibly intelligent, clever,
unconventional, and takes no shit from any man. Basically, I want to channel
her energy in my daily life.
Salander is significantly more
interesting than Blomkvist. To be frank, Blomvist is pretty boring, and I
couldn’t figure out his allure. Nearly every female character he has some sort
of close relationship with sleeps with him. Sure, there are some redeeming
qualities about Blomkvist, but I genuinely get the sense that this character is
a “Gary Stu,” the male equivalent of the “Mary Sue.” Blomkvist is described as
kind, sensitive, intelligent, handsome, and, obviously, a ladies man.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
is frequently described as a feminist novel. Undoubtedly, this was the intent
of Stieg Larsson, and I don’t disagree that the novel is in many ways
empowering. The original Swedish title of the novel is “Men Who Hate Women.”
The novel is also filled with various statistics about violence against women
in Sweden. It was made clear that Salander has faced sexual violence in her
past and is generally untrusting of men because of this. Without spoiling too much,
Salander is faced, again, with sexual harassment and assault by a man with
power over her in the novel. Despite the novel addressing this horrendous
aspect of the patriarchy, I wouldn’t say the writing is all that feminist.
As I mentioned earlier, it’s
problematic that Blomkvist is the “good guy” trope and every woman consequently
wants to sleep with him. Additionally, the female characters that are featured
the most in the novel have no strong friendships with other women or each
other. In fact, because each of the main female characters have slept with
Blomkvist, there is this gross jealousy that ends up taking place between them.
For a novel that’s supposed to be about the empowerment of women, there isn’t a
lot of solidarity seen between the women in the novel.
The physical descriptions of the
women are much more in depth than any for the men, in my opinion. I could
really picture the women, but not nearly as much with most of the men,
including Blomkvist. The women are also, of course, described by a man’s
narrative in most cases and thus described in a moderately sexual manner.
Feminist critique aside, I loved
this novel. I enjoyed the detail and how I was able to envision the characters
and the scenery. The plot was really exciting. Because it had been a while
since I had seen the movie, I couldn’t remember entirely who was responsible for
Harriet’s disappearance, so new information and plot twists were thrilling. In
written form I was able to retain more details about the case and the various
suspects. Some people told me that the book was really confusing for them and
hard to follow, which wasn’t the case for me, but that could be because I saw
the movie first.
And because I know people will be
dying to know which I liked better, I definitely have to say that I liked the
book more. That being said, I really do think they did a great job with the
movie! The hardest thing about seeing a movie version of the book before reading
it is being able to envision your own images of the characters and scenes
instead. In the case of this book though, I thought the casting was pretty
great. Rooney Mara was cast as Lisbeth Salander, and I really think in both
appearance and acting Rooney was an excellent fit. Rooney wasn’t a perfect
physical match to the description of Salander, so I was able to picture her a
little differently. Daniel Craig was cast as Mikael Blomkvist, which, given how
mediocrely the character was described physically, was probably a fine fit, but
personally I think Daniel Craig is so blah looking. If Blomkvist was described
better maybe I could have done a better job creating my own mental image, but, try as I might, god damn Daniel
Craig’s face kept popping into my head.
In conclusion, this book gets 5
stars because of Lisbeth Salander mostly, but also because the book was too
good to put down. I’m hoping I enjoy The
Girl who Played with Fire just as much!
