The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo Review

5 out of 5 stars

-          Superbly written

-          Entertaining

-          Hard to put down

-          Strong Female protagonist

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is one of many international bestsellers that I over looked a first; I thought it was something different.  I don’t mean different in a good way, I mean that because of the title I judged it to be a pseudo-romance novel at first; I was wrong. Not only is this book worthy of the acclaim it has garnered but it has gone on my recommendation list for anyone looking for a good read

A little back story for you, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is another Swedish title that I have read in the span of the last four to five months its original title was Män som hatar kvinnor translated literally to Men Who Hate Women was written by journalist Stieg Larsson; sadly the author died of a heart attack in 2004 and all editions have been published posthumously.  I say this is sad because Larsson had the ability to become a great crime author in my opinion, but I’m getting ahead of myself.  Stieg worked on his first book, nay his first two books tirelessly from 1997 onward; these were not his first attempts into fiction though, he first tried for Science Fiction publishing a Swedish fanzine Sfären in 1972; he also attended many science fiction conventions and was well known in the science fiction community of Sweden. Larsson was born Stig Larsson but changed his name to avoid confusion with his friend who was also an author.  Larsson was also a well known Communist, having been active in the political activities for the majority of his adult life.

It shows in his work as he paints a picture of a well working, but seedy Sweden where the businesses are in control.  He also carries many of his convictions about investigative journalism with him; which to me are about right on the money.  But I digress, I’ve given you basically a biography of the man but what about the book?

The story is centered on Mikael Blomkvist an investigative journalist and editor of a magazine known as Millennium.  At the start of the book he has been convicted of libel against one of the industrial figureheads Hans-Erik Wennerström, this conviction throws him and his colleagues at Millennium into a whirlwind, when suddenly Blomkvist is contacted by Henrik Vagner, the aging former CEO of Vagner Enterprises.  The elderly man has a job for Mikael, a two tiered job; make a family chronicle of the Vagner family, but his primary job is to find out what happened to Henrik’s niece Harriet.  What follows is a tale of industrial sabotage, bad blood, and murder.  Mikael get’s so deep into the mystery of what happened to the Heiress that he has to hire Private Investigator Lisbeth Salander to help him unearth the uneasy truth about the Vagner family, and hopefully clear his name of the Wennerström affair

I can’t tell you how much I love this book; I mean it’s perfect in many ways.  Complex characters, with detail that seems to leap off the page;  a strong heroine with a damaged past; Larsson didn’t pull out any punches in his debut novel.  I couldn’t put it down, and the more I read the more I admired how he took what could have been a dreary title and turned it into a vibrant life of its own.  Forget the fact that the man was a communist, and that the title takes place in a pretty much socialized democracy and you could easily see this taking place in any number of locales.  That is what Larsson was good at; making you want to know these characters, want to read their story and want to solve it along with the protagonist.  To me that is a great writer; something so rare now or days, that I am a mourner of this man well after the fact.  If you want a great complex story, this is it.  I can’t tell you much more about it than I’ve already said.

I can tell you that this is a dark story; so no matter how much I laud over it being a great tale, it is not for everyone.  If you can’t face the fact that the human race is ugly, or deal with grotesque descriptions of murder scenes or sexual assault don’t pick this up.  But, if you can and you want a great crime read go buy it now.

Alright, I lied, I love this book so much that I want to spend a little time discussing the characters; specifically the two main characters of the story.  Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander.

I’m going to start out with Salander because she is by far my favorite of the two; don’t get me wrong I love Blomkvist too but really the main attraction for me is the strong female protagonist.  The funny thing is you don’t even start out from her point of view you get to know her through the eyes of her boss,  Dragan Armansky; the director of Milton Securities.  He deduces her as a punk who has no business being in or respect for her line of work.  He truthfully takes her on at the behest of a friend and soon finds out that he is wrong.  That Salander, despite her small stature, antisocial attitude and just all around strangeness is a hard worker.  Lisbeth Salander was actually inspired by two things, the first name was the name of a girl that the author had seen get gang raped and stood by helplessly as it was happening.  This event in his life changed him in a lot of ways, one of which lead him to write these books.  The other thing that inspired him was, and you’re going to find this funny Pippi Longstocking.  While I find that funny, it does fit; Salander is a misfit, she’s grown up but detached and it’s obvious that some tragedy that has befallen her. Her interaction with her boss is that of a quasi-father figure she spends most of the book unsure and yet wise in her ways.  In many ways while this is Blomkvist story Salander steals the show as an out and out tragic figure

Mikael Blomkvist, is obviously inspired by Larsson’s life as he is a reporter, but naive in the ways of the world; he has an obvious moral compass and holds all of his colleagues too it. He is publisher of Millennium and has published many books on financial reporting.  While he starts out as naive he obviously comes into his own by the end of the book, having dealt with the hardships of Vagner Corporation and the investigation he embarks on, you see him struggling to cope with the ugly truth that is his field.  You spend much of the narrative listening to what is happening; but it seems that the introduction of Salander, and some minor characters help him unravel this Gordian knot that is placed before him.

As I have said; go out buy this book if this review doesn’t make you at least a little curious.  I don’t know what will.

In the next month or so I’m going to switch my focus from these foreign authors to give you something, a little more unknown; because while there are plenty of well known authors out there, there are also a number of small time authors out there that deserve your attention.  That’s why within the next few weeks you will see:

-          An interview with Michael D’Ambrosio

-           And a review of the first volume in his Fractured Time Trilogy: Fractured Time

I thank you for reading Why The Fuck is This Being Published and I hope to catch you with ink on your hands.