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inulro12. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson
The library finally sent me the book everyone's been going on about.
I have mixed feelings. The central mystery, what happened to Harriet Vanger in 1966, is very good indeed.
BUT
I found the title character annoying, and unrealistic, and thus the resolution of the secondary mystery (bringing down a business empire by hacking) all a bit deus-ex-machina, as though the author couldn't be bothered to show the real investigative techniques that he did for the main mystery all over again. The kick-ass deeds of Salander come across about as realistic as (and indeed seems inspired by) Lara Croft.
Nit pick that you probably have to be in my line of work to pick up: She doesn't have Asperger's. She's been brutalised and terrorised and is completely broken - this often manifests in similar traits to autism, but it's not the same thing at all.
I think you're supposed to feel that Larsson was being really brave or making some sort of feminist statement by having such a person as the lead character, but it really felt exploitative and sensationalist to me. She's a cartoon character, when the rest of the book is about social realism. Usually I can get past these things but in this case I just couldn't.
Having said that, I'll probably take the other two out of the library sooner or later, because I'm sad like that. But not for a while.
The library finally sent me the book everyone's been going on about.
I have mixed feelings. The central mystery, what happened to Harriet Vanger in 1966, is very good indeed.
BUT
I found the title character annoying, and unrealistic, and thus the resolution of the secondary mystery (bringing down a business empire by hacking) all a bit deus-ex-machina, as though the author couldn't be bothered to show the real investigative techniques that he did for the main mystery all over again. The kick-ass deeds of Salander come across about as realistic as (and indeed seems inspired by) Lara Croft.
Nit pick that you probably have to be in my line of work to pick up: She doesn't have Asperger's. She's been brutalised and terrorised and is completely broken - this often manifests in similar traits to autism, but it's not the same thing at all.
I think you're supposed to feel that Larsson was being really brave or making some sort of feminist statement by having such a person as the lead character, but it really felt exploitative and sensationalist to me. She's a cartoon character, when the rest of the book is about social realism. Usually I can get past these things but in this case I just couldn't.
Having said that, I'll probably take the other two out of the library sooner or later, because I'm sad like that. But not for a while.
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Date: 2010-02-17 01:30 pm (UTC)