Wed 14 Mar 2012
Review: STIEG LARSSON – The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[14] Comments
STIEG LARSSON – The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. Alfred A. Knopf, hardcover, May 2010. Vintage, trade paperback/mass market paperback, February 2012.
It was a long wait, nearly eighteen months since I read The Girl Who Played with Fire, the second book in the Lisbeth Salander series, and I wasn’t sure how quickly I’d get up to speed on this one – which finally came out in paperback only late last month – beginning as it does exactly where the previous one left off, with Salander being flown into a hospital after being shot in the head and buried alive at the end of the other one.
Or was it the other way around? Not that it makes a bit of difference as far as the situation she’s in.
It should come as no surprise that she survives, but she does spend most of Hornet’s Nest recovering – and preparing herself for the criminal trial she faces as soon as she’s released, along with the threat of being returned to a mental institution and the “care†of psychologist Dr. Peter Teleborian, whom she well knows as being responsible for her previous confinement.
She didn’t give in then, and she doesn’t give in now. She also has the unwanted (but not unneeded) help of journalist Mikael Blomkvist and his sister, attorney Annika Giannini. There is, in fact, an entire cadre of friends she has, some she knows about, others whom she doesn’t. But without a will of iron, she’d have been crushed long ago.
The hornet’s nest that’s referred to in the title is the huge scandal that will erupt when her side of the story is told, one that goes to the highest echelon of the Swedish government and the biggest scandal in the country’s history. Worse than Watergate in the US? Perhaps.
I don’t suppose that anything I may say will persuade you to read this book or not. If you read and enjoyed the first two books in the series, you will do as I did and start reading this one as soon as you come home from the store with it.
If you found the first two books lacking and didn’t finish them, there’s no sense your reading this one. If you haven’t even started the first one, what are you waiting for?
It may not to be your taste, and yes, there are flaws aplenty in Larsson’s writing, but on the other hand, there must be a reason for the success of this series, and I wish I could put my finger on it any more successfully than I have so far. All I can say to the naysayers, is that Larsson had the knack of telling a stories that will knock the socks right off your feet, if you allow it.
Book three in the series is well over 800 pages long in paperback, and it took me two weeks of reading 30 to 50 pages a night – until I came to the last 250 pages, which I read in a very short two hour period without even getting up to stretch. This book is wicked good, the most entertaining book I’ve read in two or three years, and even more, (almost) all of the various threads of the plot are tied up very nicely at the end. Bravo!
March 14th, 2012 at 7:36 am
They did an excellent job with the three Swedish movies starring Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander. I haven’t seen the American version of DRAGON TATTOO but don’t feel I need to; I guess the rest of the public pretty much felt the same.
March 14th, 2012 at 10:49 am
I’ve seen only the first of Noomi Rapace films, but I put off watching the next two until after reading HORNET’S NEST.
I thought the first one was as nearly as perfect a book adaptation to film as there could possibly be. It was amazing to see scenes from the book as clearly as I’d visualized them, except for the island, which I’d reversed in my mind, left to right.
I believe that the first Swedish film has been re-released in an expanded format. If I remember correctly it was first made as a multi-part television production which was trimmed down when converted into a single movie, with several threads of the plot eliminated.
As for the US version of TATTOO, I do not know what happened there. I thought the reviews were OK, but for whatever reason, the American public did not go out to see it. I believe it will be out on DVD in a week or so. I will have see it for myself.
But the word is that the US producers are very unlikely to do the other two.
March 14th, 2012 at 12:24 pm
As I understand it, the books were hurriedly translated into English, apparently to serve mostly as treatments for the potential films here, and the first and third retitled not only irrelevantly but condescendingly (in every other language, the first volume managed to make bestseller lists as MEN WHO HATE WOMEN; Anglophone readers were apparently seen as too stupid to catch up with the notion that a trilogy (or a four-volume series) might have rather disparate titles for every volume…and so the protagonist of the novels should be condescended to as a girl in the titles of the first and third books as they appear in English (the “girl” in the second volume, which retains its original title in English, was Salander as a child).
Jackie Kashian has an interesting take on why, despite finding them compelling reading, she ultimately detests the books: http://jackiekashian.tumblr.com/post/17305708851
March 14th, 2012 at 4:31 pm
I imagine everyone who’s read the books has their own take on them. Here’s a portion of what Jackie Kashian says:
“Because the, most popular, opinion about the story is that it’s “feminist†and “empowering to women.†And I have never thought so. And I finally figured out why.”
“I’m a dork. Nerd. Geek. Whatever. So I read a lot of superhero/sci fi/speculative fiction. This was sold to me as “she’s a hero; she gets revenge on the bad guys who tortured her as a foster kid.†Yeah. No heroes do that. They always PASS on revenge. That’s what makes them heroes. They are offered revenge and they rise above it.”
I don’t go along with much of this. I never read the books as being about ‘feminism’ or ’empowering to women,’ so it’s difficult to respond.
Salander is badly flawed as a person, no doubt about it. I think her story is one of resisting, fighting back and making sure the bad things that happen (and have happened) to her don’t happen again. And yet I don’t think Salander thinks of herself as a feminist. Should I, as a reader? You tell me.
Empowering to women? Salander reacts strongly to violence against women, but to her, it’s personal. She’s true to herself and no one else.
Either way, what’s wrong with revenge? Especially if the only alternative is that there is none, other than being crushed like a bug in a bureaucratic coverup.
But where Jackie Kashian completely loses me is her last paragraph:
“But I can’t help but think of Steig Laarson sitting in his room, writing extensive. Graphic. Rape scenes with a child. And then an adult. Without thinking. What a fucking creep. I, seriously, picture him with a giant hard on. And then, publically, saying, “I’m a feminist.†THAT is what makes me hate those books/movies. And I say… rape that book.”
I find this terribly disgusting. Sorry.
March 14th, 2012 at 4:31 pm
In response to Jackie Kashian, if the revenge factor was missing, there would be no plot. There is something to be said for Liz Salander taking steps to not be (or remain) a victim. The American movie based on the first book was unsatisfactory because it left out important details and left crucial elements unresolved or unexplained. I may not have noticed these lapses if I had not read the book first.
March 14th, 2012 at 5:14 pm
I don’t agree with all of Jackie’s critique (I couldn’t if I wanted to, since I haven’t read the books, but have seen all three of the Swedish films and gather what I can from them), and I do think she’s letting what other people say about the books (that it’s a feminist revenge story) perhaps color the way she sees them (I don’t know what the books themselves say, particularly in Swedish). But I do get a vibe off the films that is somewhat similar to the vibe I get from Andrew Vachss’s work…where the line between what one hates and wants to expose and what one wallows in becomes blurred at times.
March 14th, 2012 at 5:30 pm
Todd
That’s an interesting point, comparing the Salander films to Vachss’s work. But I think that while Vachss may have repeated himself several times too often, he is 100% sincere in what he’s trying to tell us about the bad things that go on in the world. I know what you mean about fine lines that become blurred, but I’ve never felt that he does what he does only to sell books, which may be a good enough definition of “wallowing” to suffice.
March 14th, 2012 at 5:18 pm
Alfred
It’s a long book, so there would have to be something left out, but even the smallest details can prove to be crucial, as you say. I’ll go farther and suggest that viewers can sense when something’s missing, even those (in this case) who haven’t read the book.
March 14th, 2012 at 5:21 pm
I’ve been looking at the original post, especially that bottom-most photo I found. This obviously was taken during Salander’s trial scene, as she’s being defended by Blomkvist’s sister, Annika Giannini.
It would be impossible for any movie director to come any closer to the way I pictured that scene than this. Salander is hostile, defensive, maybe even frightened, but still her attitude is I can’t give up now, I can’t let them get away with this.
March 14th, 2012 at 5:55 pm
Or, in these cases, oversimplifying to make everything that much more cut and dried. Sadly enough, the oversimplification too often leaves the reader/auditor wondering, Okay, why hasn’t this already been fixed?
March 14th, 2012 at 6:09 pm
#4. Heroes don’t do revenge. Has she ever heard of The Batman?
March 14th, 2012 at 6:29 pm
She has. She’s a comics person. But she’s also living in the real world.
March 14th, 2012 at 6:55 pm
What’s wrong with revenge, at least in the real world, as asked but not answered above, is that two wrongs still don’t make a right. Too often, however desirable it might be emotionally, it simply causes more of the same problem it was meant to solve. But, then, we get into the distinctions between revenge and redress, and correction, and resistance…
March 14th, 2012 at 8:02 pm
Todd
I’m the one who asked, somewhat rhetorically, what’s wrong with revenge?
I don’t think that revenge is in itself a mortal wrong, as maybe you suggested in your first sentence, but quite a few of Salander’s actions, I’d have to agree, are certainly illegal — the mutilation of her rapist guardian in book one, for one, and hacking into various villains’ computers for another.
I don’t think Salander worried about any emotional backlash, though, nor did she make any claims for being a hero for any actions she did.
But getting back to the word ‘revenge,’ your last sentence is really where we’re at:
“…we get into the distinctions between revenge and redress, and correction, and resistance…”
This is an excellent point. I agree. The differences between these words and what they mean are crucial. The readers’ of Larsson’s books can read the opinions of other all they want, but when it comes down to it, they each have little choice but to decide on their own.