Sweden conjures up a pleasant image as a nation. Nice people, clean streets, green countryside (outside of winter) and exporters of bank holiday flat packed furniture contentment. The enduring attraction to Larsson’s first part of the Millennium trilogy hints at a much darker place.
Larsson’s Sweden is a more culturally small c conservative place, with more than a suggestion of a socially suffocating a restrictive society. And in Larsson’s world, clearly not all Swedes consent to being part of this part of this country. This is a novel about those outsiders as well as the mystery that grips the reader from the very beginning. The girl of the title, Salander, is clearly the most prominent embodiment of those outsiders, but there are others too.
This novel has echoes of Iain Bank’s Complicity and The Crow Road, and is just as entertaining. At times the writing is a wee bit clunky, but this could be down to the translation. The plot is incredibly addictive.
Possibly this review should have waited until LBR has read parts two and three of the trilogy, but wanted to pose these two rhetorical questions:
• Will Vanger and Wennerstrom continue, and provide further sub-plots?
• Or, is the only connection throughout the trilogy Salander and Blomkvist?
This book gets 3/5.
I noticed the exact same similarities with the Iain Banks novels. I was just discussing it with my sister and had to look it up and see if anyone else noticed.
ReplyDeleteYes it is funny how it has not been a greater discussion point over the book. Still, it must mean that we are part of the priveleedged few that have either read Ian Banks' books or that have noticed. Yay for us I say !
ReplyDeleteI'm another commentor who just finished watching the Dragon Tattoo movie and wanted to see if anyone else was reminded of Iain Banks. I say reminded, but perhaps that's too kind a phrase for plot appropriation. Maybe the book is better than the movie, but I can't help feeling that Larson got a nice big leg up from Banks.
ReplyDeleteI thought the book was miles better than the film (but isnt that always the case?) Also, Im really glad I read the book before I saw the film too.
ReplyDeleteYou should read the book - but I agree, the iain Banks influences are clearly there.