A few weeks ago I downloaded The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo from Amazon because I wanted to use my new kindle (for something beside "free" classics) and see what all the fuss was about.
I'm still wondering. Larsson's fictional skills are rudimentary at best. His favorite literary device is the "information dump" - every time he introduces a new characters, no matter how minor, he gives us pages of detailed (and largely irrelevant) back story.
The first third of the book isn't slow; it's stationary. And when Larsson finally gives us something that resembles a mystery, in the middle third of the novel, it's mundane and predictable.
Finally, in the last third of the book, he gets around to the "action" and while it’s slightly more compelling than reading statistics on sheep farming in Australia, and climbing mythical family trees (he even includes a chart) it's overblown and unrealistic.
I can't believe those who praise the novel for its "character development". The characters, who remain unchanged throughout the novel, are cardboard and the dialogue is wooden. The male hero, a "crusading" journalist who will sleep with anyone willing to lie down and spread her legs, regardless of age or social status, is colorless and emotionless. He's kind of a walking libido.
On the other hand, the title character, a five foot, ninety pound social misfit with the computer skills of Steve Jobs, the spying skills of William (Intrepid) Stevenson, and the physical prowess to defeat a gun-wielding serial killer with a golf club, is a comic book superhero.
This mega bestseller is basically a graphic novel without the graphics. Which is one of the reasons it's so popular.
Okay, so if Larsson has given birth to a bloated beast that even those who gave it five stars on Amazon had trouble sticking with through the first 200 pages why is it such a phenomenal best seller?
Because it pushes all the right buttons. Sex, violence and, most importantly, revenge. There is hardly a human being walking the earth who has never felt victimized by a parent, teacher, bully, spouse, policeman, judge, and who has never dreamed of "getting even".
A rare few, like the Mennendes brothers, live out this fantasy.
The rest of us settle for Harry Potter movies and books like The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
The more helpless the victim, and the more abuse that is heaped on him or her, the greater the satisfaction when he/she exacts retribution. Everyone that reviews Dragon Tattoo Girl, whether they praise it or pan it, agrees that the section where Salander turns the tables on her sexually abusive "guardian" is delicious.
The only complaint I read was that the revenge Salander took on the other sexually abusive pervert - who is also a Nazi - is that it was over too quickly.
Or was that remark in relation to the destruction of the Capitalist pig whom she and her partner-in-revenge...
Well, you get the idea: paint by numbers fiction that's money in the bank!
I'm still wondering. Larsson's fictional skills are rudimentary at best. His favorite literary device is the "information dump" - every time he introduces a new characters, no matter how minor, he gives us pages of detailed (and largely irrelevant) back story.
The first third of the book isn't slow; it's stationary. And when Larsson finally gives us something that resembles a mystery, in the middle third of the novel, it's mundane and predictable.
Finally, in the last third of the book, he gets around to the "action" and while it’s slightly more compelling than reading statistics on sheep farming in Australia, and climbing mythical family trees (he even includes a chart) it's overblown and unrealistic.
I can't believe those who praise the novel for its "character development". The characters, who remain unchanged throughout the novel, are cardboard and the dialogue is wooden. The male hero, a "crusading" journalist who will sleep with anyone willing to lie down and spread her legs, regardless of age or social status, is colorless and emotionless. He's kind of a walking libido.
On the other hand, the title character, a five foot, ninety pound social misfit with the computer skills of Steve Jobs, the spying skills of William (Intrepid) Stevenson, and the physical prowess to defeat a gun-wielding serial killer with a golf club, is a comic book superhero.
This mega bestseller is basically a graphic novel without the graphics. Which is one of the reasons it's so popular.
Okay, so if Larsson has given birth to a bloated beast that even those who gave it five stars on Amazon had trouble sticking with through the first 200 pages why is it such a phenomenal best seller?
Because it pushes all the right buttons. Sex, violence and, most importantly, revenge. There is hardly a human being walking the earth who has never felt victimized by a parent, teacher, bully, spouse, policeman, judge, and who has never dreamed of "getting even".
A rare few, like the Mennendes brothers, live out this fantasy.
The rest of us settle for Harry Potter movies and books like The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
The more helpless the victim, and the more abuse that is heaped on him or her, the greater the satisfaction when he/she exacts retribution. Everyone that reviews Dragon Tattoo Girl, whether they praise it or pan it, agrees that the section where Salander turns the tables on her sexually abusive "guardian" is delicious.
The only complaint I read was that the revenge Salander took on the other sexually abusive pervert - who is also a Nazi - is that it was over too quickly.
Or was that remark in relation to the destruction of the Capitalist pig whom she and her partner-in-revenge...
Well, you get the idea: paint by numbers fiction that's money in the bank!
