The Girl Who Fell Asleep Reading the Millennium Trilogy

'Literary Phenomenon' - a phrase to repulse, especially, as in this case, it isn't true: there is nothing literary about The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. It may be the translation from Swedish, but everyone who has recommended it to me is an English speaker. The prose is clunky, the dialogue poor, and characters bland - save Lisbeth. But punky, dysfunctional, violent and amoral Lisbeth is not exactly a heroine and calling her and Mikeal Blomkvist the best known detectives since... [insert varying famous couples] is ridiculous. The books have only been published three years and the films have only been made a year - when I began this, the last of the trilogy wasn't yet on general release. So you cannot something 'best known' when it has no chance to prove its longevity.

The book is not exciting or pacy. I was recommended to read them as a writer, to see why readers of all ages were raving about these stories. It takes til page 82 for the inciting incident which sets the story off and page 100 for the premise of the story to be set. This should be done within the first chapter - in a third of the time. Despite short sections of prose marked off by stars, this is not the same effect as fast cutting in a film. There is no desire to speed read ahead - except to get the chunky book done with and back to the library. There are long descriptions in dialogue to explain the fiddly plot, peppered with amounts of Swedish knonor and dates. It might be what financial journalism seeks, but it does not make for a good novel.

The plot was predictable and unbelievable. I knew immediately that Harriet still lived and sent Henrik the flowers. No-one was well delineated or felt real to me emotionally, especially not Mikael. His relationships also felt shallow, in some attempt to depict modern love, with the shag but let's not get committed supposedly empowered woman, who then falls for him - why?! - and then cannot cope.

And the ending was so stupid: after laboriously trying up all the threads - of which there were too many - it ends with Lisbeth realising her love for Mikael and chucking his expensive present in the bin on seeing him with on/off lover Erika.

Is that Larsson's idea of a cliff hanger for the next book? For I have no wish to continue, and seeing that the Girl Who Played With Fire begins with more S and M, I decided I could find other ways to fill my Sunday afternoon.

I am also not convinced that this is a social commentary. If I had not done research that suggests otherwise, the text just seems to be a thriller with a high amount of horror. The statistics about women being assaulted are mismatched to the kind of violence uncovered in the story. Whereas the statistics suggest domestic abuse and date rape, the plot is about the worse kind of - I'll say it again - horror possible to inflict.

One wonders if the story is actually true. Some mock, but I am with those who say that a man who spoke out against corruption that earned him powerful enemies did not really die of a heart attack, and that these works of fiction seem to point to disguised true situations. I almost want them to be true, because to have invented them is sick, as sick as the characters who perpetrate them. Such deeds should never be presented for entertainment, and it was only my belief that these are not that made me embark on the trilogy.

I decided that the first film is too horrible to watch, having checked the Board of British Film classification's website and spoken to people who have watched it. I have no desire to see Lisbeth subjected to a drawn out particularly unpleasant sadistic rape - nor, equally disturbingly - her revenge. There is nothing in the story which shows that the author disagrees with her doing likewise to her legal guardian, and there is a tacit expectation that the audience should be pleased at Lisbeth, not appalled and deeply disappointed.

I also have no wish to see the bodies or anything of the ordeals of the women killed by Martin Vanger, or how Martin nearly rapes and kills Mikael. The story ends like Bluebeard's chamber (also on release at the cinema) conflating the final conundrum in The Reader. The Vanger corp gives money to a cause related to the suffering they have perpetuated. Whereas The Reader critics recoiled (I didn't - see my review), I've read nothing that expresses any concern about that part in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Are women less taboo victims than Jews?

I had hoped for more of a discussion about the ethics of journalism, but the poor conversations had in the novel did not constitute an intelligent debate; the same was true of the notions of retribution and justice. Is Stieg (it is so tempting to append him 'of the Dump') trying to say his journalism is of the higher moral kind, and set an example?

That he and his partner Eva expected high sales of the books is arrogant. When questioned about this on Swedish TV, Eva came across as cold and uncomfortable with her interviewer. Eva claimed that she and Stieg read all their lives and knew what a good book was so they recognised that in their own work. I am surprised that so many have bought them, for there is nothing phenomenal about them.

A short paragraph towards the end of the book seems to sum up Stieg's writing of his novel, although it is about Mikael's writing of a factual book: in some places, poor and stylistically uneven, but animated by a fury (p522). If I am right, then the fury of justice is commendable, and perhaps we can overlook the flaws in the writing to the point being made. But the point alas is shadowy and comes out like violent entertainment more than the worthy purposes for which I hope they were planned.

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The Girl Who Played With Fire

Almost alone in an old fashioned seaside cinema, I found out what the celluloid answer to these novels look like. Exciting - yes - more fun to watch than to read. And it didn't begin with Lisbeth taped up, like the book did, although one does have to relive those unpleasant rape scenes from the first story (in less detail). But again, it ended in a strange manner and I saw little social commentary or reason to like Mikael. The strange addiction and interest comes from Lisbeth, but I stand my initial reaction to her as a role model.

I decided I wanted to fill my mind with something else, but knew I would be leaping on the final instalment when it is released at the cinema. *

I did see The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest on its opening weekend, in a large trendy art house auditorium in the Midlands. What I most remember about this truly thrilling thriller is being incredulous at the amount of people who walked in front of the screen to the toilet - even within the first half hour. During the court scenes, I was shouting to myself "show the tape" - knowing that Lisbeth and her lawyer held a trump card to quash her enemies. The threads of plot are tied up but the relationships are not, and Erika, Lisbeth and Mikael are left jobless and alone.

I did finally decide to see the first film, on DVD where I could be in control of viewing when the nasty bits came. The rape was not as bad as the serial killer bodies, and I again was more disturbed by Lisbeth's revenge on her guardian and her tattooing him than her original subjection. The pacing is much better than the novel - by 11 minutes Mikael is off on a train (do they run on Christmas day in Sweden?) to find out what Henrik Vanger wants. We hear less of how Lisbeth's relationship with her boss Dragan, who has little role in any of the films. Erika isn't married and we miss out (without regret) the Mikael's fling with one of the Vanger sisters, and the arguments that Erika and Mikael have.

The trilogy ends with revenge. Unlike the new George Clooney film which I also saw this week - The American - we understand why our protagonist is as she is; but we never understand Lisbeth's father and half brother.

My worst fears about Lisbeth are compounded by seeing an interview with the [actress who played her] excellent Noomi Rapace, who seemed to confirm that we should see Lisbeth's eye for eye actions as empowering and balancing. Although Mikael seems shocked by Lisbeth watching Martin Vanger burn in his car, the differing morals and moments of relational poignancy of the first story never resurface. I am left wanting to sate further viewing (I couldn't stand much of the other two books) but with an uneasy feeling that their ultimate moral message is very much against my own convictions.