Swedish actor Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander
The character to the left is my new favorite literary heroine, Lisbeth Salander. Well, actually, the picture is of Swedish actress Noomi Rapace as the character Lisbeth Salander from the Swedish film Män som hatar kvinnor (“Men who hate women”) or as it was published in English ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo‘. I picked up a copy of that book on a recent trip to Costco. I had heard of it, but knew little about the book. I finished reading it (all 590 pages) in 3 days. Lisbeth is an amazing character. Despite being only 4′ 10″ tall and weighing 90 pounds, she can fight off the biggest man, has a photographic memory, a chess mind to rival Bobby Fisher, sleeps with girls or boys indiscriminately and is a wizard with a computer, considered one of the 65 best ‘hackers’ in the world. Of course Lisbeth is pretty anti-social and has numerous dark secrets from her past she prefers to keep hidden. While that may sound like a bit too much, if you can suspend your disbelief this is an exciting book to read.
The author of ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ is Swedish journalist Stieg Larsson. Larsson’s story is almost as fascinating as the characters in his books. A crusading journalist and activist in Sweden, he founded and worked for the Expo magazine, not unlike his fictional Millennium magazine in the books. He started writing his novels in his spare time. In 2003, with 2 completed manuscripts and a third almost done, he found a publisher in Sweden. Before the first book was published, Larsson dropped dead from a heart attack. Conspiracy theorist have had a field day with Larsson’s death. This is not too surprising considering the books deal with the darker aspects of Swedish culture and politics and have a distinctly paranoid view of them. To read more about Larsson, there is an interesting Vanity Fair article about him. And of course you can always read his Wikipedia entry. Note, take Wikipedia entries with a grain of salt, but do check out the reference material.
The three books that Larsson completed before his death are called ‘The Millennium Trilogy’. They get their name from the fictional Swedish magazine that the primary character in the books, Mikael Blomkvist founded and where he is the publisher. The first book, ‘ The girl with the Dragon Tattoo‘, is a stand-alone crime drama. It introduces us to Blomkvist and Salander as they work together to solve a 40 year old mystery about the missing niece of a famous industrialist. The book is well done, with a satisfying ending that leaves you wanting to know more about the primary characters. After reading the book, I had the opportunity to see the Swedish film of the novel. Here is the trailer for it:
The second book in the series is ‘The Girl Who Played with Fire‘. In this novel, Larsson explains much more about Lisbeth’s background and history. this book is also a crime thriller with the primary mystery the murder of three people in one night. And, Lisbeth is the main suspect. The ending of this book is a cliff-hanger, with Lisbeth’s fate very much in doubt. It leaves you wanting to immediately read the third book, ‘The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest‘. Unfortunately, this book has not been published in the US yet! Arrgggh! Fortunately, one doesn’t need Lisbeth’s hacker skills to find a copy of the book via the internet. So, I have now read all three. The final book does bring some redemption and closure to Lisbeth’s story. But after reading it, you are left with the feeling that there is much more in store for Lisbeth and Mikael. It left me hungry to read more about them. When Larsson died, he reportedly left outlines for a total of ten books in the series. Sadly, we will have to be content with the three he finished before his death.
Movies have been made from all three of the books in Sweden. I have not seen either of the second or third in the series, but their trailers are on Youtube. Here is the trailer for ‘The Girl Who Played with Fire’, and a teaser for the final movie, ‘The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest’. They are in Swedish, but you’ll get the idea.
