Avril Joy

I have just finished reading Steig Larsson’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. In Swedish its original title was Men Who Hate Women – not such a good title – but one that confirms he was a man after my own heart, very much concerned with the problems of violence against women.*  The book is a great read in parts, although interestingly, far from perfect.

The beginning is too slow and too complex, sometimes resulting in readers giving up (as I did on my first attempt) – the family connections and complexities are difficult to follow, too many names, at times too much information, the end like the beginning is too protracted, but for all that the heart of the novel fizzes like a stick of dynamite between the two.

As an aspiring crime writer I wonder what can I learn from this novel? It isn’t a page turner, pace is very slow at the outset and it takes half the novel before financial journalist and free lance private investigator Mikael Blomkvist discovers the first clue to the disappearance of Harriet Vanger, or before his story connects with the second party in this classic duo – Lisbeth Salander.

It isn’t as strong as it might be on atmosphere or place but it is strong on plot, giving a new twist to the old fashioned ‘locked room mystery in island format,’ (Blomkvist’s words)  and making a number of direct references to Larsson’s literary heroines, including; Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers and Val McDermid.

But what really makes the whole thing work are the protagonists, compelling and complex characters, in particular the eponymous heroine – Lisbeth Salander – a damaged and vulnerable individual. We care about her, we want to know what happens to this twenty four year old, anorexic, computer hacker, with a photographic memory, a goth like appearance, multiple piercings, tattoos and an unexplained past… need I say more?

Mikael Blomkvist is equally sympathetically drawn, if less obviously so. He has, one suspects, many of the characteristics of Larsson himself and he suffers the classic failed marriage and doubts about his parenting abilities. I found him very attractive.

And I find the success of this novel very heartening – it just goes to show you can break some of the rules and get away with it – and it doesn’t, or we as writers don’t, have to be perfect!

* I really can’t agree with those who charge Larsson with misogyny. Whist the violence against women depicted in the book is explicit, it is never graphic, although I understand the film is quite different .

‘Stieg Larsson (1954-2004) grew up in the Swedish coastal town of Umea and was a graphic designer before becoming a journalist and leading investigator of far-right political groups. He founded and edited the left-wing magazine Expo, and wrote crime novels in the evenings to relax. He presented his publisher with three novels in 2004 before he died. In 2008, he was the second best-selling author in the world, after Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner. In Britain, Larsson is published by the independent Quercus, whose dedicated staff could be found in the early days handing out copies to bookish strangers in parks’  Iain Hollingshead –The Telegraph.