by Stieg Larsson
At nearly 600 pages in paperback, this is not a short novel, but it is so absorbing as to make the reading go fast and to cause one to be reluctant to put it down.
It was translated from the original Swedish by Reg Keeland who has done a masterful job in making the text flow and be completely palatable to the English-speaking reader (even us semi-literate ‘Muricans). For one thing, despite the locale being mostly non-metropolitan Sweden, the descriptions of places, architecture, and people lead to a sense of pleasant familiarity to old stay-at-homers like me, and I could quickly accommodate myself to the consonant-ridden names. Further, the pace is fast, fluid, and free from much in the way of extraneous meandering.
This is the first in what was intended to be a series; the author died in 2004 with two books published and a third (and part of a fourth) in manuscript form.
The two protagonists are a disgraced investigative reporter, Blomkvist, whose specialty is financial activities and his collaborator, Salander, the title character, an asocial girl with many personality disorder features. They are commissioned to investigate the long-ago disappearance of an adolescent member of a very prominent family of industrialists, and their research takes them through a labyrinth of twisted and sordid relationships, bizarre behaviors with biblical undertones, and sadistic serial murder.
Larsson fleshes out his many diverse characters with remarkable skill and individuality; despite their multitude it is easy for the reader to keep them separate and distinct throughout the many pages. He also has a gift for description so that the reader actually feels present in the situation and can visualize the scene whether it be a wooden-paneled conference room or a dusty sheep ranch in the Australian outback.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and am already getting into the second. I think the review by USA Today says it well, “imagine the movies of Ingmar Bergman crossed with --- The Silence of the Lamb.”
It was translated from the original Swedish by Reg Keeland who has done a masterful job in making the text flow and be completely palatable to the English-speaking reader (even us semi-literate ‘Muricans). For one thing, despite the locale being mostly non-metropolitan Sweden, the descriptions of places, architecture, and people lead to a sense of pleasant familiarity to old stay-at-homers like me, and I could quickly accommodate myself to the consonant-ridden names. Further, the pace is fast, fluid, and free from much in the way of extraneous meandering.
This is the first in what was intended to be a series; the author died in 2004 with two books published and a third (and part of a fourth) in manuscript form.
The two protagonists are a disgraced investigative reporter, Blomkvist, whose specialty is financial activities and his collaborator, Salander, the title character, an asocial girl with many personality disorder features. They are commissioned to investigate the long-ago disappearance of an adolescent member of a very prominent family of industrialists, and their research takes them through a labyrinth of twisted and sordid relationships, bizarre behaviors with biblical undertones, and sadistic serial murder.
Larsson fleshes out his many diverse characters with remarkable skill and individuality; despite their multitude it is easy for the reader to keep them separate and distinct throughout the many pages. He also has a gift for description so that the reader actually feels present in the situation and can visualize the scene whether it be a wooden-paneled conference room or a dusty sheep ranch in the Australian outback.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and am already getting into the second. I think the review by USA Today says it well, “imagine the movies of Ingmar Bergman crossed with --- The Silence of the Lamb.”
Reviewed by Ken West
1 comment:
Oops! I left the "i" out of "Stieg" on the index and Ken caught me out!
Now it is fixed....
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