When telling people which book I was reading for the book club I was surprised by the number of people who had already read it. Kind of like when you book a holiday to somewhere you have never heard of and suddenly everyone as been. Nobody had a bad word to say about it which is pretty rare so I was really looking forward to reading it.
My auntie very kindly gave me a copy so I didn't need to buy it however it was widely available in Asda, Sainsburys (I told you we didn't buy food only books in Cramlington supermarkets) and Amazon stocked it quite cheaply.
It was quite a large book - 500 odd pages but was a paperback, with short paragraphs and relatively short chapters. It was one of three, the others being The Girl who Played with Fire and The Girl who kicked the Hornets Nest known collectively as the Millennium Trilogy.
I was intrigued to find out that Larsson died suddenly and unexpectedly in 2004. He lived an interesting life that can perhaps be said to be reflected in this book in particular. For example he worked for several magazines including as an editor like the books main character Mikael Blomkvist and had an interest in politics resulting in death threats.
Anyway enough preamble what about the book?
In a nutshell its about a swedish journalist (Blomkvist) who in the course of trying to nail the bad guy (Wennerstrom) gets caught up in investigating the disappearance of an elderly swedish businessman's (Vanger) grandaughter. I powered through it and hate to say I was disappointed. Maybe because I had heard so much hype I was expecting more. The beginning of the book seemed like a totally different book to the actual story. You were made to think you were going to read a post Berlin Wall dodgy dealing book where Wennerstrom typically got his comeuppance.
Not the case however! Blomkvist received a prison sentence (not usual for the good guy) and off we were transported to a little swedish town and bombarded with swedish name after swedish name after swedish name as Vangers unnecessarily large family were introduced. Blomkvist obviously tried to allow the reader time to process who was who by repeating names and connections to Vanger often and even producing a family tree at the beginning of the book however characters were not allowed the chance to develop so quite frankly the reader didn't care about remembering them.
The book then took a turn of pace again when Salander (apparently the girl with the dragon tattoo) turned up. From this point the book became interesting as it focused on gathering evidence around Harriets disappearance. I even thought at one point we were going to go all Dan Brown when bible quotations started to be bandied about but it steered back at the last moment. A brief but effective torture section emerged to be followed by a rather swift and unsatisfactorily exit of the 'killer'.
This wasn't the end of the book however. We still apparently had to deal with Wennerstrom and so we were back to feeling like it was two books sandwiched into one. I still haven't worked out how the two fit together. Perhaps being one of three this book merely paved the way for all to become clear at a later date. From what I can understand from the next two books however I don't think this is the case.
Oh and I guessed the truth about Harriet from the flower. Not to give too much away their.
It wasn't all bad however. The middle section where clues were coming thick and fast was genuinely page turning and the developing relationship between Salander and Blomkvist makes interesting scope for the next two books.
Enough of me however what did everyone else think?
For a start people actually turned up which was a relief and on the whole everyone seemed to love the book. In fact I was definitely the only one who wasn't overly keen. I was pleased as didn't want to kick off the bookclub with a book that everyone hated. They might never turn up again!
Everyone (including me) did agree on various points. For example, why was the book actually called The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo? Salander didn't really turn up until half way through and although she was a big character the book just wasn't about her.
Everyone thought that the book didn't read as well as it should have in that the Wennerstrom and Vanger parts just didn't gel. The general consencous was that it was an easy read once you got past the Vanger family tree but that the introduction of so many characters after being submerged in eastern European financial companies with lengthy acronyms was mind boggling and unnecessary.
Overall the book was a success. Most people said they would be reading The Girl who Played with Fire with one person having started to read it already. There was also talk of watching the film which was filmed in Swedish but has English subtitles. Me think I will give it a miss but as I like to see things through to the end wont totally write out reading the next one. Keep reading!
Next book by the way is The Road by Cormac McCarthy so keep your eyes peeled for the next post.
My auntie very kindly gave me a copy so I didn't need to buy it however it was widely available in Asda, Sainsburys (I told you we didn't buy food only books in Cramlington supermarkets) and Amazon stocked it quite cheaply.
It was quite a large book - 500 odd pages but was a paperback, with short paragraphs and relatively short chapters. It was one of three, the others being The Girl who Played with Fire and The Girl who kicked the Hornets Nest known collectively as the Millennium Trilogy.
I was intrigued to find out that Larsson died suddenly and unexpectedly in 2004. He lived an interesting life that can perhaps be said to be reflected in this book in particular. For example he worked for several magazines including as an editor like the books main character Mikael Blomkvist and had an interest in politics resulting in death threats.
Anyway enough preamble what about the book?
In a nutshell its about a swedish journalist (Blomkvist) who in the course of trying to nail the bad guy (Wennerstrom) gets caught up in investigating the disappearance of an elderly swedish businessman's (Vanger) grandaughter. I powered through it and hate to say I was disappointed. Maybe because I had heard so much hype I was expecting more. The beginning of the book seemed like a totally different book to the actual story. You were made to think you were going to read a post Berlin Wall dodgy dealing book where Wennerstrom typically got his comeuppance.
Not the case however! Blomkvist received a prison sentence (not usual for the good guy) and off we were transported to a little swedish town and bombarded with swedish name after swedish name after swedish name as Vangers unnecessarily large family were introduced. Blomkvist obviously tried to allow the reader time to process who was who by repeating names and connections to Vanger often and even producing a family tree at the beginning of the book however characters were not allowed the chance to develop so quite frankly the reader didn't care about remembering them.
The book then took a turn of pace again when Salander (apparently the girl with the dragon tattoo) turned up. From this point the book became interesting as it focused on gathering evidence around Harriets disappearance. I even thought at one point we were going to go all Dan Brown when bible quotations started to be bandied about but it steered back at the last moment. A brief but effective torture section emerged to be followed by a rather swift and unsatisfactorily exit of the 'killer'.
This wasn't the end of the book however. We still apparently had to deal with Wennerstrom and so we were back to feeling like it was two books sandwiched into one. I still haven't worked out how the two fit together. Perhaps being one of three this book merely paved the way for all to become clear at a later date. From what I can understand from the next two books however I don't think this is the case.
Oh and I guessed the truth about Harriet from the flower. Not to give too much away their.
It wasn't all bad however. The middle section where clues were coming thick and fast was genuinely page turning and the developing relationship between Salander and Blomkvist makes interesting scope for the next two books.
Enough of me however what did everyone else think?
For a start people actually turned up which was a relief and on the whole everyone seemed to love the book. In fact I was definitely the only one who wasn't overly keen. I was pleased as didn't want to kick off the bookclub with a book that everyone hated. They might never turn up again!
Everyone (including me) did agree on various points. For example, why was the book actually called The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo? Salander didn't really turn up until half way through and although she was a big character the book just wasn't about her.
Everyone thought that the book didn't read as well as it should have in that the Wennerstrom and Vanger parts just didn't gel. The general consencous was that it was an easy read once you got past the Vanger family tree but that the introduction of so many characters after being submerged in eastern European financial companies with lengthy acronyms was mind boggling and unnecessary.
Overall the book was a success. Most people said they would be reading The Girl who Played with Fire with one person having started to read it already. There was also talk of watching the film which was filmed in Swedish but has English subtitles. Me think I will give it a miss but as I like to see things through to the end wont totally write out reading the next one. Keep reading!
Next book by the way is The Road by Cormac McCarthy so keep your eyes peeled for the next post.
I am a member of the bookclub, but couldn't make it to the first meating, but i still went out and bought The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. I personally looked at that book a number of times so i was looking forward to reading it. However when i first started reading it i found it slow and hard going, then suddenly a few chapters in the book becomes very good and was a real page turner. I will definately be getting his other books in the trilogy.
ReplyDeleteThis book as i said is a book i would normally be interested in, so was happy that this was the first choice in the bookclub. However the second book we have choose is not one i would go for, but this was the whole reason i wanted to go to a bookclub so to open my mind to other types of books and different styles of writing. So i am looking forward to reading The Road as this is something new for me.
See everyone at bookclub.
I have since read The Girl who played with Fire and rate it way higher than Dragon. Without going into too much detail it too has a completely different beginning part of the book to the actual story. I think it may have been to introduce the reader to Salander however this is book number 2 we already know what she is like! There is a bit of a cliff hanger ending and the third one apparently kicks off right where this one ends so will definately give it a read.
ReplyDeletePS Stick with the math its not essential to the storey and you get it over with pretty quick :)