Stieg Larsson, Lisbeth Salander and the books you are seeing everywhere!

So I have recently been drawn in to Steig Larson’s Millenium trilogy.  Living in New York, you can’t help but see people reading it all around you on the subway.  I got interested after reading a review of the first movie (The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo).  I went to see the movie in an art house theatre and I was hooked.  It is amazing how quickly you forget you are even reading subtitles, when the movie is good enough.  This led me to begin reading the books.

I read the first book mostly so I could get more in depth information on one character: Lisbeth Salandar.  She is a strikingly complex and yet simple creature.  Her world is black and white, good and evil.  Not surprisingly, she doesn’t deal well, or expectedly, with the grey.  As readers, we get insight into her thought processes which are often unclear in the movie, as she tries to navigate a world that doesn’t follow her rules.  This is not to say that the actor isn’t good (Noomi Rapace is awesome!), but to define her too much in the movie would destroy the image of her as an unexplainable character.  Also, part of the joy of the book is the alternating perspectives.  It  keeps the mystery alive and helps the reader to understand how Blomkvist  and the world percieve her, which direclty affects how they interact with her and she with them.  She does change a little over the first two books (I am still on the library’s waiting list for The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest), and I love how cryptic and resourceful she is.  Hands down my new favorite heroine.

Just a warning to the uninitiated, you will also learn a lot about Swedish history, possibly geography (if you start to look up locations, as I did), and culture.  Also, Mr. Larsson has a habit of describing even some of the most obscure characters, but never in a way that drags and sometimes in a way that becomes important later.

Word of warning for the movies.  They are more of a summary than a blow by blow, but to be fair, these books are around 700 pages each.  Also, they do get a few details wrong and are explicit in both violence and sex, so be carfeul who you bring with you (the easily offended can stay home).  Despite this, they are great movies and I encourage you to go and discover them for yourself.  The third movie has already been released in Sweden and should be released in 3-6 months, if they follow the pattern of the first two movies.  Last note…No American remake!  Everything that makes these movies great is sure to be lost when American producers try to make it bigger and more sanitized all at the same time.  The charm is in the stark landscapes, the great acting, the quiet moments of isolation and the startling violence.

Read these books.  Fall in love with the surprising and predictable Lisbeth Salander, and then watch the movies, for the abbrieviated fun of seeing the book come to life.