Comparative Literature afficionados will be absolutely drooling over deceased Swedish journalist and social activist Steig Larsson's English debut novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the first in his Milennium series.
Larsson, who died in 2004 of a massive heart attack after delivering three of the Milennium books, leaving a fourth unfinished, writes one absolute head-fuck of a story. Beginning with a disgraced financial journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, who has just been successfully sued for libel, the novel quickly gathers a host of other characters, including Dragan Armanksy, the head of a security company, and the proverbial girl with the inked Leviathan with whom he is a little bit in love. Mikael Blomkvist is hired by ageing, wealthy industrialist Henrick Vanger to investigate the disappearance of his niece Harriet, who vanished nearly forty years previously. Blomkvist digs into the tumultuous history of the entire, scattered Vanger clan, whose underground lives reveal chilling secrets, long-simmering hatreds, links to Nazi extremist groups, and horrifying violence. Though he's reluctant to take the assignment, Vanger bribes him with the opportunity to redeem himself to the world of journalism - he will recieve the concrete evidence he needs to prove himself innocent of the libel case.
As Blomkvist becomes more deeply entrenched in the Vanger family, the case grows more complicated and he needs help. He seeks out Lisbeth Salander, pierced, tattooed, deeply emotionally disturbed and utterly ingenius as a computer hacker and a researcher. Together, the two of them uncover the truth, which is even more disgusting and horrifying than either could imagine.
It's an engrossing mystery. I stayed up all night reading it. It's obvious Larsson's a journalist... the info dump gets a little much at times, and he 'tells' rather than 'shows' much of the story, but he gets into the character's heads so well it feels fairly natural. If I have a major complaint, it's that the element that drew me to the book to begin with - the Nazi connection, is the weakest part of the plot. I see that Larsson was trying to draw a line between Naziism and sadism, but it doesn't quite get there. The Nazi character, one of the Män som hatar kvinnor (Men who Hate Women) of the original Swedish title, really could be anything, a Communist, an anarchist, even just your run-of-the-mill sadist and the plot would not have changed in the least. I was disappointed, especially considering Larsson's journalistic expertise was in Fascist extremist groups.
This is a mind-fuck story. You leave frustrated. The perpetrator of the lesser crime - that of the financial misdealings, recieves a vast amount of his just desserts, while the greater crime goes unspoken to the larger world. It leaves a person wondering exactly what Larsson himself saw as the greater wrong.
Though Lisbeth Salander is supposedly a genius, Larsson pushes it too far at times, throwing her into a plan of vengeance that makes very little sense and seems unlikely considering her inability to function socially. That part is written well. Lisbeth Salander is trapped in the mental-health system, under the care of court-appointed guardians because she's considered mentally incompetent, and she's utterly unable to understand why. Larsson does an incredible job of explaining her damaged mind and charting her growth.
I'm hoping that, since this novel is the first in a trilogy, possibly a quartet, the questions and issues I have with this text will be resolved. However, this is one incredible mystery, and I sincerely hope that Larsson's next text hangs on to the momentum of the first, because flaws and all, this is a good read.
Recommended for a long afternoon when you have time to sit down and focus. Takes some mental energy, but well worth it.
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