Sun 13 Feb 2011
Reviewed by Geoff Bradley: STIEG LARRSON “The Millenium Trilogy.”
Posted by Steve under Reviews[4] Comments
STIEG LARRSON – The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2008), The Girl Who Played With Fire (2009), The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (2009).
I have read and heard much about this, the first of the much lauded Swedish trilogy. I had determined to resist, though, mainly because I couldn’t face embarking on a 1845 page marathon. But one day we were in a charity shop and there was the first of them and so I bought it.
I have to say though, that it took me a while to get into the book. If I used a fifty-page rule — and knew nothing about the book — I would probably have given it up. Indeed it was some 200 pages before I was picking the book up eagerly and wanting to know what was going to happen next.
The story involves an investigating journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, who has been found guilty of libel and is hired, on the promise of information that will clears him, to investigate the disappearance in 1966 of a 16 year old girl from a small town in northern Sweden.
To help him in his task he hires the girl of the title, Lisbeth Salander, a young — probably autistic — girl who is a computer wiz, and together they attempt to unravel the mystery.
The story comes to climax with about 70 pages to go and in some ways, though these final pages round the story off nicely, the rest is a little anticlimactic.
So my verdict is that this is a good, not great, book (where have I heard that before) but good enough for me to move straight on to the second.
The second and third books are really just one continuous story starting a year or so after the conclusion of the fIrst book. Salander has withdrawn trom contact with Blomkvist who is supervising an expose on the sex trade to be published in his journal, Millenium.
When the writer of the piece and his girlfriend are murdered Salander is the prime suspect and goes into hiding. Blomkvist begins investigating to clear her name, but Salander investigates with deeper motives stretching back into her history.
I have to confess I got very involved with this story and towards the end of the third book I was eager to continue reading at every possible moment. There are, I think, one or two plot devices which are rather far-fetched, but overall the books (especially books 2 and 3) are a delight, and I’m glad I read them.
February 13th, 2011 at 6:50 pm
I didn’t bother this time with the publishing information that I usually include at the beginning of a review. I don’t think there’s a bookstore in the world that you can go into and not find these books for sale, either new or used.
The three books in this trilogy are a publishing phenomenon, there’s no doubt about it, and everyone who’s read them is passing the word along to someone else.
I’m like Geoff, though, and it takes me a while to decide to dive into long books, and like Geoff, when I did, the first 100 pages of the first one were rather slow going.
I didn’t mind that, because detective work, especially when it consists of looking into a possible crime that took place some 40 years earlier, has to be slow and tedious work.
But there comes a point after which the book absolutely cannot be put down. I was up to three in the morning for three days straight.
I’m still only less than half way through the second one of the three, but once again, after the two murders are committed, the pace is notched into high gear, and I’ve been reading 50 pages now and then, as often as I can, in nearly unquenchable gulps.
February 13th, 2011 at 10:24 pm
The truth is, this isn’t so much a trilogy (though the first book pretty much could stand alone) as one long novel — a Victorian triple decker. Like you and Geoff, I resisted these, then gave in, then dived in head first and did not want to re emerge.
Aside from the writing, characters, and plot there is also a lot of literary play in these books with references to everyone from Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers to Enid Blyton that you don’t have to get in order to enjoy the book, but which enhance the experience if you do.
For once the critics got it right.
February 14th, 2011 at 10:10 am
I am interested in reading the review of book 3. Does it end the story, since book 4 is being fought over by family and girlfriend. Book 5 has been found by the girl friend I believe. And there are reports of even more may exist.
February 16th, 2011 at 10:36 pm
Michael
THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST rounds off elements introduced in the first two books — primarily the government conspiracy angle, some of Salander’s history and her fate, and some of Blomkvist’s personal and professional life. Without giving away any of the plot I’ll only say that the book ends with Salander finally inviting Blomkvist into her life — implying at least that she has grown and healed a bit capable now of at least one more or less normal relationship.
That isn’t to say there isn’t plenty to build a fourth or fifth book from. New characters are introduced in the third novel as are new problems, and while they are satisfactorily resolved its clear there are still possibilities for new story arcs featuring the characters.
If the question is whether or not the trilogy is complete, I would say yes, but it does not bring everything to an end. Salander is still Salander, and Blomkvist still has his passion for the truth and his magazine.
Larrson is a good enough writer and the characters rounded enough that there are always new stories that can arrise from them. My real question is more about the nature of the other two books — are they complete in themselves, a new trilogy, or companion pieces developing from the first three books?
But the third book does bring the trilogy to a satisfactory close for the reader tying up most of the loose threads from the first two volumes.