October 28, 2010: Page Turners 7 p.m.

Book: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Discussion:

We had an excellent turnout this month to discuss an excellent book. Twenty-one readers attended this month’s discussion of Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and the majority of the group enjoyed it. Eighteen Page Turners gave the novel a thumbs up vote, two voted thumbs sideways, and one abstained. This bodes well for next year, as we will be reading the second in Larsson’s Millennium trilogy, The Girl Who Played with Fire, in July.

Though most of the group members thoroughly enjoyed the selection, a few shortcomings were identified. One was the overabundance of coffee and cigarettes. One of the Page Turners remarked that our European counterparts still smoke more than we do, which may account for the frequent tobacco references. A second drawback was the superfluity of content. More than one group member thought the book could have been streamlined, although it was said that the final hundred pages were much easier to get through. This brought up the oscillation of pacing in the book. At some points the story would move very quickly, only to slow down, and then suddenly speed up again, depending on the action. Some of this action struck a chord with a few readers as well, there being a proliferation of sex and violence in the story.

As the voting on the book demonstrates, this month’s readers found a lot to like about the book, in spite of the enumerated shortcomings. Most of these had to do with the characterization, although one group member commented that she enjoyed the translation of the book despite not normally being a fan of translated works. The Page Turners also found the statistics communicated at the beginning of each section of the book interesting. We wondered if those statistics were accurate and decided that since Larsson was a journalist they probably were. Yet, it was the characterization that made the book, the character of Lisbeth in particular. Though the group hated the violence directed towards Salander, they loved how she fought against it. One reader called her punishment of guardian Bjurman “wonderful”. We also discussed the idea of Lisbeth having Asperger’s syndrome. It has been suggested in several reviews and summaries that this was the case. One Page Turner related her experience with Asperger’s and based on that felt confident that Lisbeth exhibited several signs of the syndrome, in addition to many other gifts.

We also commented on the characters of Gottfried and Martin, the father-son homicide team. Readers were surprised that there was not just one murderer spanning a period of fifty years, but two, the latter being initiated into killing by his father. We all agreed that both of these men were pretty sick, and the group members did not judge Harriet too harshly for pushing her father into the lake.

The final character we discussed in-depth was Mikael. Mikael was a strong character, in fact, readers frequently question who really serves as the protagonist of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, him or Lisbeth. Based on the later novels, I would say it is Lisbeth, although the first book does an excellent job of solidifying the two as a team, which provides the basis for their interactions in the later works. One Page Turner commented that she thought Mikael was a little over done in his role as a ladies’ man. Every female in the book seemed to want him, but she doubted he was “that sexy”. She hypothesized that Mikael represented Larsson’s fantasy for himself, the dashing journalist turning heads with every scoop.

We could not end a discussion of this book without talking about Larsson himself. By now almost every reader knows that he had planned to make Millennium into a ten book series, but died after only turning in the first three books. The circumstances surrounding his death are also widely known, Larsson collapsed from a heart attack after running up several flights of stairs at his office while the elevator was out. Due to the delicate nature of some of his journalistic work, some question whether or not there was more to the story. Many readers also know that Larsson had a long-time partner who he lived with but never married. It is rumored that the partner has a fourth or fifth book in the series in her possession but may not release it due to issues with the estate. Whatever the real story is, we were certain that either a fourth or fifth novel would find a huge audience.

As the meeting concluded, we discussed the film versions of Larsson’s books. A few of us had seen one or more of the Swedish versions, and with the library ordering copies of the DVDs many more are sure to view them as well. We await the American version of the first movie with wonder and bated breath.

As usual, flyers for upcoming programming and copies of next month’s selection, The Help by Kathryn Stockett, were made available. The reading list for 2011 was also revealed. Copies of the list will be available at all upcoming meetings.