There's always debate on the Swedish being suicidal, promoting nudity, and crime. There are people out there who advocate the statistical data of Sweden standing on 15th in European Suicidal Table among the European countries. But Stieg Larsson's international bestseller "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" doesn't do much to help Sweden's image.
Stieg Larsson was a Swedish journalist who died of cardiac arrest long back in 2004. His novel offers a thoroughly ugly view of human nature, especially when it comes to the way Swedish men treat their counterparts. The book was published in 2005. The book gained popularity in no time because of its intriguing characters, a 'locked room' style scenario and a cold case.
Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist is asked by a business tycoon Henrik Vanger to investigate his granddaughter’s probable murder many years ago. Mikael ends up enlisting the help of Lisbeth Salander, a strange young adult with a troubled past and serious personal problems, to solve the mystery. Together, they unravel the dark secrets of the Vanger's at the root of the girl’s disappearance.
The book draws attention to many of the social evils. Abuse of women is indeed terrible. It’s a shame that rapes are not reported in many instances and there is such a stigma of shame for the survivors. Abuse of the disabled by the persons in powerful authoritative positions is also something very terrible. Talking of the protagonists, they are deeply-flawed, yet portrayed as someone to look up to and there is no overall positive character growth. Lisbeth is portrayed as a girl with a dark, troubled past and some anti-social tendencies. Larsson praises her promiscuity as freedom from inhibition. Mikael is clearly supposed to be the good guy. Larsson repeatedly persists on talking about his reputed honesty and thirst for justice. But when you examine his actions, you wonder if he is actually a good guy that Larsson depicts or not. The most difficult part of the book to digest is its abrupt transition. Doing justice to its theme, the book describes the most chilling rapes and inhumane atrocities you could imagine in the most detailed way possible. And then it shifts to scenes of consensual sex of other characters which makes your very confusing.
Another thing to notice is that almost a quarter of the book is finished before 'the girl with the dragon tattoo' actually comes into the spotlight. Until then, she remains in total shadow with Larsson sporadically covering her life as a secondary character. The book also has a lot of graphic violence in its prolific showing of the prevalent rape culture. At the same time, it also shows extra marital affairs in a very different light.
Larsson has a pretty dark, disillusioned view of the world. Governments, businesses, and individuals are shown to be all manipulative, deceptive, and self centered. The original Swedish name of this book is "Men who hate women". As the name already suggests, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is primarily based on the misogyny in Sweden – taking shape of sexism, rape, murder, and any other heinous crime that you can imagine. This theme is supported by financial crime and journalism and a murder mystery. This book is extremely well oriented towards a thriller fiction. But there are a number of loopholes as it seemed to me. When Larsson did show the qualities of Mikael and Lisbeth, he also glorified the immoral acts which should have been avoided. And although he put out a very clear picture of the atrocities towards the women mass, he could have avoided covering all the unnecessary detailed description which cast a very heinous picture of the crime committed.
Aarohi and I take a nap after the long writing session. And finally we're good to go! Our first blog on a book review is finally being published!