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watercolorstain 's review for:
The Millennium Trilogy
by Stieg Larsson
I never reviewed the first two books, so I’ll remedy that by giving a more general review of the trilogy.
First off, I should point out that I resisted the hype for a long time, but finally caved after visiting Stockholm and seeing some incredible Lisbeth Salander street art. I'm glad I went into this with a) a good idea of the city's geography and b) an understanding of Swedish culture and the importance of "fika", otherwise I probably would've been annoyed that all they ever seem to do is make/drink coffee and eat sandwiches/pastries. I don't think you can read ten pages without it coming up.
Larsson was a far-left-wing activist, and this also shows. When there’s a point he wants to make, he’ll beat the reader over the head with it repeatedly. I didn’t mind, because he makes good points about important issues.
Stieg Larsson was also a journalist, and it shows in his report-like writing style. If he were to write a book about a day in my life, it would start off with a page describing me waking up in my MALM IKEA bed wearing a PJ set bought at Primark for 12€, checking my iPhone for new messages, getting up and putting on my IKEA slippers, taking care of my bodily functions, brushing my teeth, washing my face, drinking coffee filled to the cup’s brim with milk and sweetened with two sugars before thinking about what to wear… you see where this is going. He is very descriptive, but not in a poetic sense at all. I don’t know if I’d go as far as saying that it’s bad writing, but it's certainly choppy. It takes some getting used to, but you will, eventually, and it became kind of an endearing quirk. I've since read that the English translation was a rush job commissioned by the Swedish company that adapted the books for the screen, who hoped to hire an English-speaking screenwriter, and that this translation wasn't intended for publication, but it's the one Knopf used when they bought the U.S. publication rights after Larsson's death, and it explains so much in hindsight.
These books weren’t what I thought they would be at all, and they honest to God should not work—but they do. They are oddly addictive, and I understand why they climbed the worldwide Bestseller lists. I didn’t find them particularly suspenseful in the traditional sense, but I guess they must’ve been, because despite being quite the doorstoppers, I’ve read each in less than two weeks. So there’s got to be something that pulls the reader in deep—despite the lack of actual mystery thriller plot. The first book does that well enough, but the subsequent ones are very political in nature—Swedish politics, which I don't think anyone's ever really considered to have global political mystery thriller appeal before this series.
I think Larsson's big selling point is the characters. I mean… this boasts a bisexual goth hacker heroine, and generally just lots of badass, smart, and sexually liberated female characters that don’t take any shit from men. Give me more of that any goddamn day, honestly.
Apparently, if he hadn’t unexpectedly died, there would’ve been seven more volumes in the series, or so he hoped. I have no interest in reading the ones that were written by some random guy against his partner’s will (she got nothing when he died because they never married, and the family he had virtually no contact with got the rights to his unfinished works), so this is it for me.
First off, I should point out that I resisted the hype for a long time, but finally caved after visiting Stockholm and seeing some incredible Lisbeth Salander street art. I'm glad I went into this with a) a good idea of the city's geography and b) an understanding of Swedish culture and the importance of "fika", otherwise I probably would've been annoyed that all they ever seem to do is make/drink coffee and eat sandwiches/pastries. I don't think you can read ten pages without it coming up.
Larsson was a far-left-wing activist, and this also shows. When there’s a point he wants to make, he’ll beat the reader over the head with it repeatedly. I didn’t mind, because he makes good points about important issues.
Stieg Larsson was also a journalist, and it shows in his report-like writing style. If he were to write a book about a day in my life, it would start off with a page describing me waking up in my MALM IKEA bed wearing a PJ set bought at Primark for 12€, checking my iPhone for new messages, getting up and putting on my IKEA slippers, taking care of my bodily functions, brushing my teeth, washing my face, drinking coffee filled to the cup’s brim with milk and sweetened with two sugars before thinking about what to wear… you see where this is going. He is very descriptive, but not in a poetic sense at all. I don’t know if I’d go as far as saying that it’s bad writing, but it's certainly choppy. It takes some getting used to, but you will, eventually, and it became kind of an endearing quirk. I've since read that the English translation was a rush job commissioned by the Swedish company that adapted the books for the screen, who hoped to hire an English-speaking screenwriter, and that this translation wasn't intended for publication, but it's the one Knopf used when they bought the U.S. publication rights after Larsson's death, and it explains so much in hindsight.
These books weren’t what I thought they would be at all, and they honest to God should not work—but they do. They are oddly addictive, and I understand why they climbed the worldwide Bestseller lists. I didn’t find them particularly suspenseful in the traditional sense, but I guess they must’ve been, because despite being quite the doorstoppers, I’ve read each in less than two weeks. So there’s got to be something that pulls the reader in deep—despite the lack of actual mystery thriller plot. The first book does that well enough, but the subsequent ones are very political in nature—Swedish politics, which I don't think anyone's ever really considered to have global political mystery thriller appeal before this series.
I think Larsson's big selling point is the characters. I mean… this boasts a bisexual goth hacker heroine, and generally just lots of badass, smart, and sexually liberated female characters that don’t take any shit from men. Give me more of that any goddamn day, honestly.
Apparently, if he hadn’t unexpectedly died, there would’ve been seven more volumes in the series, or so he hoped. I have no interest in reading the ones that were written by some random guy against his partner’s will (she got nothing when he died because they never married, and the family he had virtually no contact with got the rights to his unfinished works), so this is it for me.