This, dear Reader, was the original title of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Of course, you know this, as you are likely in the deep end of the trilogy along with several million other Canadians. I am. It took me a few hundred pages to get there, but I'm pleasantly in now.
The joy of getting into a thick, hastily printed paperback is unlike any other joy. Akin to finding a box of fudgesicles in the freezer on a blazing hot day and eat them languorously on the deck naked and staring at the uncut lawn. You didn't know you needed to do that until you did it, and you don't regret it while you're doing it and don't regret it after. Such is the pleasure afforded by Steig Larsson's novels.
There was a humourous article printed in the national newspaper last weekend, fondly lampooning the saga. For example, how everyone is always making coffee and unappealing sandwiches (meat/spread + pickle on rye is a recurring theme).
Or the dispassionate, pragmatic way people go about having (consensual) sex with one another, for no other reason than they want to at the time. Might I add people not only in their twenties, but also in their 40s and 50s. Infidelity is explained matter-of-factly as either being a condition of one relationship or the cause of its end, but provokes no floods of tears or hysterical displays.
Or the level of brandname-itis that runs throughout, not in any overtly commercial way but as mere fact. Lisbeth does not go shopping for a computer; she sets her sights on "the new Apple PowerBook G4/1.0 GHz in an aluminum case with a Power PC 7451 processor with an Altivec Velocity Engine, 960 MB RAM and a 60 GB hard drive. It had Bluetooth and built-in CD and DVD burners." It's the Rainman approach to narrative, every detail noted and shared.
It is curious and even a little tedious until the action picks up, and then you realize you've been lulled into a highly suggestible state. The rythym you've fallen into is thoroughly engrossing, like listening to someone with a calm demeanor and soft voice telling you how they exacted gruesome revenge upon those who had wronged them.
Of course, Ms. Salander is the heart of the novel, a cryptic little heroine with a flat chest and tattoos. Blomkvist is fine, but hardly a character which could drive the series. Nope, it's weird little Lisbeth that we love and identify with and admire for not feeling sorry for herself or being a victim, even as we are allowed to glimpse her self-doubt and fear. We are not told what she feels; we are told what she does and how she reacts and to a certain extent, why. It's refreshing.
She's not a flake nor a victim, not a sidekick or an ass-kicking heroine. I'm only just finished the first novel, but so far she not "on a journey" or had any revelations about who she really is, really. She has not gone shopping to make herself feel better; she goes shopping to get things she needs. And the other main characters only grocery shop, it seems. Message being that you can't make sandwiches from nothing.
Even if the series is several years old by now, it seems a timely antidote to the fictional women that dominate our cinema screens. There's the sexily scowling, invincible heroine taking on all evil-doers with physically impossible (and apparently painless) stunts; the domestically-demanding, skirted Wife/Girlfriend who just loves to go shopping with the gals when she's not berating her Manchild; and her sister, the independent city gal who is supposed to be defined by her job though we never see her do it or hear her refer to it in any detail, as she's too busy gushing on about how all the good men are taken, etc. A jockey-sized, borderline autistic computer-hacker is just what we need.
Having gone to see La Belle Jolie in the instantly forgettable Salt on matinee impulse with Honey the other day, I walked out saying how it'd be nice to see a movie heroine who looks like she's been in a few fights. How about a stocky, fit middle-aged broad with a few scars, maybe even a broken nose or chipped teeth? No make-up, thoughtlessly tied pony-tail, sensible shoes, clothes that allow her to move uninhibited, and most of all, believable fighting chops that leave her sweating and panting and probably too sore to slip into a Galiano gown to drink champagne all night. That's right: someone who looks like a middle-aged, possibly lesbian yoga enthusiast. Why not? It shall have to be my creation.
In the meantime, I'm a trifle miffed that the Swedish movie version of TGWTDT, which I've heard is excellent and had rented to do prime wallowing veg-out to tonight, is not actually in my possession. The wrong DVD was placed in the case, so I can either watch season 1 of Mad Men or start book 2. I start book 2.
Signing off from her place in her 2010 queen-sized, Tempur-Pedic OriginalBed with crumpled white cotton sheets and bright green pillow cases,
GR
ps Holy shit, my bed's Swedish!
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