About two thirds the way through the novel, the Earth disappears slowly around you and your world is suddenly revolving around Mikael Blomqvist, Salander and the story they are immersed in. I like many readers from around the globe have been in total absorption of "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," a fantastic novel by the late and most assuredly great Stieg Larsson. The book is perhaps the most fantastic thriller since Silence of the Lambs came out in the mid 80's and is certainly the greatest literary export to leave Sweden in quite some time. Though occasionally the writing style of Stieg's true profession ,a researcher and magazine editor, floats much too close to the surface, especially in the beginning. Thereby leaving most readers, including myself, in a stupor. Yet once the prologue has been set the book forms wonderfully around itself. The true beauty of the book is brought out by his undeniably prudent and beautifully constructed characters. Most notably of these, Lisbeth Salander. Lisbeth Salander is the freak you see on the side of the street. The one whom when seen you ask sometimes silently, "What was she thinking?" This book answers this question and so much more. She is a character who we first meet with amiable curiosity. A curiosity we have for the seedy underbelly of the world we have often wondered of but never seen. She is in our mind nothing more than a side show act. Though as we look further into her past and into her future we discover a human who through fear of herself has become lost with words. Thankfully through the magic of literature not her emotions. She according to a passive observer and any casual glance at her psychological history would be deemed, for lack of a better term, crazy. To her sex is more casual than talking and she finds the ability to occupy a person's skin and thoughts unnervingly simple. Yet she thinks in ways that many can only dream to think. She also has a sometimes harsh and often intense innocence about her. To her the world is black and white. There is only punishment for the wrong, punishment she will gladly deliver.
Though many will have to soldier through the first 100 fifty pages that in all likelihood are pure, necessary, prologue. If you reach into the world long enough you will find it harder and harder to leave.
I do need to post one worry I have for the average american reader, or (sadly more likely) an american film adaptation. This worry being the terrific setting. I believe that a film adaptation will try to change the setting from a made up island in Sweden to either a place more familiar or perhaps one more exotic. Both of these options ,to be put bluntly, are complete bullshit. True the setting is one that Americans will find difficult to communicate with but in there lies some of the beauty. It is a place that is both unfamiliar and industrial. Therefore not giving us the benefit of "The Da Vinci Code"'s "OH I'VE BEEN THERE!" effect or "Slumdog Millionaire"'s phenomenal "How beautiful I never imagined how this area of the world might look." effect. Sweden setting also helps in the case of reader's empathy with the confusion of Mikael Blomqvits. For he too is finding himself in an area where the world seems unfamiliar and grotesque.
In short I pray this book reaches American audiences in the same way it reached those of Europe. The writing is beautiful and the characters are more than flesh and blood they have souls and thoughts that any reader can identify, reflect and distort their own images in. This is by far my favorite thriller that I have ever picked up and by far the hardest it's ever been to put down.
No comments:
Post a Comment