The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

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Mon, 2011-01-03 13:49

500_Apples

I am wondering what babble feminists and others think of the Millenium trilogy by the Swedish writer Stieg Larsson. I am currently reading book two (The Girl Who Played with Fire) and it is possibly the most agressively feminist novel I've ever read, except possibly Glasshouse by Charles Stross. Through the third person omniscient narrator we get lucid and detailed explanations/explorations of the way the characters either engage in sexism or deal with it in a manner that is unapologetic. The reason this is worth its own thread is that these murder mysteries are some of the most popular novels out right now. The three books are 9th, 16th, and 5th on Amazon, as such the language and ideas presented could easily percolate into the mainstream narrative on issues such as sexual harassment.

*****

BTW, for those contemplating picking them up, they do very well as riveting detective novels. Aside from gender, Larsson also demonstrates his vision on issues such as capitalism, the state and the police, LGBT, naziism, and modern psychiatry. I'll probably see more when I get to the third book.

Mon, 2011-01-03 14:06

Maysie

I haven't read it.

But I read this review.

Melanie Newman: The F Word

Quote:
Stieg Larsson should be a feminist hero. A Swedish journalist, he founded the magazine Expo, which is dedicated to fighting racism, and campaigned for years against extreme right-wing organisations.

The Swedish title of his first novel, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is Men Who Hate Women. As Joan Smith says in her Sunday Times review, [published in 2008] the title reflects the author's other "great preoccupation": violence against women.

Quote:

But I have difficulty squaring Larsson’s proclaimed distress at misogyny with his explicit descriptions of sexual violence, his breast-obsessed heroine and babe-magnet hero.

Quote:

In short, male novelists have for decades been selling graphic capture-rape-torture-kill novels by chucking in ‘strong’ female characters for balance, and have even gained plaudits for highlighting violence against women in the process.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which in the words of The Times’Christina Koning, “combines a contemporary feminist polemic with a good old-fashioned thriller” promised something different.

Quote:

Sections of the book are prefaced by statistics on assaults on women in Sweden. The female characters in the book are successful in their jobs and the novel subverts the usual order of the trapped-in-a-room-with-madman scene by having the heroine rescue the hero. But these nods to feminism are not enough to compensate for the book’s graphic and gratuitous violence against women

Quote:

At the start of the second book, we discover that Salander has had breast implants put in and that “six months later she could not walk past a mirror without stopping and feeling glad that she had improved the quality of her life”. Why a young woman who has been repeatedly violated by men would want to draw more attention to her breasts is not explained. Neither is the basis on which her quality of life is improved.

Salander does not go to a crisis centre after the rape: “crisis centres existed in her eyes for victims and she had never regarded herself as a victim”. Instead she takes violent revenge on her rapist in the first book and turns into a kind of international super-hero-crime-fighter-cum-maths genius in the second, beating up bikers twice her size. She is, of course, totally unrealistic, as Joan Smith acknowledges, describing her as “not so much a character as a revenge fantasy come to life, powering her way through the novel like the heroine of a computer game”.

So many male visions of female potency resemble cartoons; the kick-boxing girl has become a 21st century literary cliché. In James Lee Burke’sThe Tin Roof Blowdow, another thriller with pretensions to social commentary, a young woman is harassed by a sleazy man while out with her father. She later arranges to meet the pervert alone, and in an absurd scene karate-kicks him to the floor.

Mon, 2011-01-03 14:26

500_Apples

There are a lot of different reactions to sexual harassment in the books. Some women fleed, some just died without being given a choice. Salander chose not to go to the rape crisis center because she has a problem with authority, as authority has not been kind to her. She's not against them, she does donate money to them and has other characters do so throughout the novels. In the same overall section of the book, the narrator also goes on as to why Salander is not going to the police. It would have been completely out of character for Lisbeth Salander to get someone else to help her out and to trust complete strangers.

It's really hard to imagine how anyone can see this as a revenge fantasy. I was, if anything else, cringing at the pertinent passages.

Mon, 2011-01-03 15:24

RosaL

I got bored and didn't finish the book. But maybe I should try again. What I don't understand is why he mentions the brand name of everything his characters use.

Mon, 2011-01-03 15:48

Unionist

Has anyone seen the movie?

Mon, 2011-01-03 16:19

RosaL

Unionist wrote:

Has anyone seen the movie?

There are some real opportunities for product placement there

Mon, 2011-01-03 16:51

ElizaQ

Unionist wrote:

Has anyone seen the movie?

I've seen part of it. I didn't really know anything about the books before I taped it, except that it was popular and that the movie got some critical acclaim.

I fell asleep. I'm not sure that was just the movies fault though. It's subtitled and I tried watching it late when I was tired so found it hard to keep up with what was going on. I kept zoning away from the actual words and missing the plot.

I still have it though. Maybe I should give it another go.

Mon, 2011-01-03 18:07

laine lowe laine lowe's picture

Speaking of the film, this is tragic news:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/03/per-oscarsson-dead

Mon, 2011-01-03 19:30

CMOT Dibbler

May I join the discussion?

Mon, 2011-01-03 21:31

#10

KenS

Salander is:

Absolutely brilliant. Not superhuman. Just as brilliant as people get. Added to that she is uncanny in seeing and rembering patterns. and very methodical.

Pretty competent fighter. Not exceptional, and she is very small. And determined. So she is good, but often is in overmatched fights.

Extremely moral, and loyal [to a very limited number of people]

An emotional cripple. Not surprising for someone who as a child who has suffered as much abuse and betrayal [the details of which you dont know until well into the second book, but dont need to]. She has serious problems with love and trust. And she has a regular enjoyment of sex, but the difficulties with love and trust put limitations on that.

Then there is the garden variety self conciousness about what she looks like and attractiveness. Which leads to the little boob jobs mentioned [she was flat chested]. But doesnt have generalized self worth issues. Knows she is brilliant. Proud of who she is, though not likeing to reveal some of her more freakish qualities even if they are impressive to others. Etc.

Totally driven by revenge. To the degree of being unhinged. Which further exacerbates the already serious love and trust issues- with people she does love or trust as much as she is capable.

Mon, 2011-01-03 21:37

#11

Jabberwock

I felt Larsson was truly outraged by the underlying misogyny he observed in his society, and that this comes across very clearly in the novels. I disagree that he sensationalizes violence. In fact, I found the scenes of violence to be bearable because of the somewhat clinical treatment they receive. As well, the rape scenes stand out for me in that he makes it clear that rape is and act of violence, not lust. Many writers unintentionally eroticize rape (ie in Follett's Pillars of the Earth).

Tue, 2011-01-04 11:29

#12

Timebandit Timebandit's picture

I liked all three Larsson novels. I didn't feel they were misogynist at all. Quite the reverse, actually.

I find it funny that a feminist reviewer would be irritated that a female character didn't play by the rules - ie: if you are sexually assaulted you must do a, b and then c. A narrow view of the female psyche, if there is such a boiled down thing. In a way, she almost essentializes the experience of sexual assault. Very odd.

And it's a work of fiction, featuring an extraordinary character, an outlier in so many ways. Worried that it's not realistic? Go read non-fiction. Larsson sets up the "clown logic" (the internal logic of the created fictional world) very clearly and does not violate that logic or the logic of his main character.

Thu, 2011-01-06 14:30

#13

Catchfire

I haven't read any of Larsson's books (despite his most excellent name), but I did see the first movie. I have read that the horrible, violent and gratuitous rape scene in the film, reminiscent of torture-porn flicks, is not so-represented in the book.

Here is the take by Jack (Judith) Haberstam, a queer/trans cultural critic. I'm a fan of Halberstam's writing, but I'm not sure I completely buy his take here:

Quote:
The original title of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo in Swedish was Men Who Hate Women (Män Som Hatar Kvinnor) and indeed this title, one to which Larsson was totally committed, could easily be the master title for the whole series. Salander, a slightly autistic hacker with a violent past, repeatedly goes after the individual men who have screwed her over in her own life but also the organizations and institutions that support them (psychiatry, banks, the law just to name a few). Indeed, these novels seem to thumb their noses at the ridiculously elaborate conspiracy theories of a Dan Brown novel and they seem to say that if you want a good conspiracy theory, just start with a radical feminist take on patriarchy! Critics have debated just how feminist the Millennium series actually is given how much rape and violence and incest is represented here but Larsson’s point in showing so much violence against women is to underscore how ubiquitous the violence really is. The feminist component to the trilogy rests partly with the character of Salander and partly with the complex plotting which repeatedly links family violence to larger systems of political and economic violence and which implies that any resolution to the plot has to seek social justice by connecting the intimate and personal politics of the home to the public and transnational politics of the economy. The Swedish films made from the novels retain all the complexities of the plot but apparently American versions of the films are in the works and who knows how that will go – maybe they will star Angelina Jolie and the corporate criminals will suddenly all be Russian double agents!

Anyway, while we have a moment to revel in the manic, caffeine induced mayhem of Millennium before the American versions appear, let’s celebrate Salander, a queer utopian and feminist vigilante. In Valerie Solanas style, Lisbeth Salander tries to take down the men who hate women one at a time and with a variety of tools and weapons. Noomi Rapace, who plays Salander in the Swedish films series, shares a very slender build with Angelina Jolie and like Jolie, she does a lot of scowling and pouting (although Jolie often tries to do both at the same time to hilarious effect in Salt). But Rapace as Salander brings a genuine sense of rage to her role and in The Girl Who Played With Fire, she channels her rage into a few well-executing scenes of punishment! Indeed, in the film version of The Girl Who Played With Fire, in addition to a truly feminist plot, we also see excellent lesbian sex between Salander and her hot femme girlfriend, kickboxer Miriam Wu. We also learn about the intricate connections between government, police forces and international sex traffickers, and there is some good old patricide thrown in for good measure.

Thu, 2011-01-06 21:07

#14

500_Apples

An aspect which impressed me in the novels is the very successful and imo accurate way that the narrator demonstrates the misogyny of many of the characters. I\'ve been there, done that as well as have heard no shortage of comments from my male friends and acquaintances over the years. I found that Larsson did a competent job of portraying how many men think from time to time or all the time.

For example, you could have the narrator explore a scene where Sonja Modig (a police inspector) is interacting with another character and they\'re jointly analyzing something in a perfectly competent manner. Some pages later, a bunch of male characters will be analyzing the police members and when they get to Modig it\'ll be \"What about the woman? She seems to be ruled by her emotions\". She\'s the only one not even named (simply \"the woman\") and they end up on a classic stereoptypical trope, even though these are all highly effective and successful people in the story. I don\'t remember the exact words but it was something like that, that\'s the way it often unfortunately is in the real world and Larsson is very successful at making the biases of men look ridiculous.

On the other hand, I\'ve never met any man as ridiculous as Hans Faste, but I\'m down with exaggeration as a literary device.

Thu, 2011-01-06 21:45

#15

Timebandit Timebandit's picture

Catchfire wrote:

I haven't read any of Larsson's books (despite his most excellent name), but I did see the first movie. I have read that the horrible, violent and gratuitous rape scene in the film, reminiscent of torture-porn flicks, is not so-represented in the book.

Here is the take by Jack (Judith) Haberstam, a queer/trans cultural critic. I'm a fan of Halberstam's writing, but I'm not sure I completely buy his take here:

That's a lot closer to my reading, actually.

I would also add that Larsson's story also doesn't take justice within the system for granted (or even regard it as anything approaching usual) - it's a patriarchal system that has wronged many women and Salandar sees this and seeks her own justice via her own means.

It also didn't hurt that it's a smokingly well-written narrative.

(I also really enjoyed Salt. Even the unrealistic bits.)

Fri, 2011-01-07 23:34

#16

Ripple

CMOT Dibbler wrote:

May I join the discussion?

I would be very interested to read what you think about these novels, CMOT Dibbler.

My sister has been reading them at rapid pace. Our interests seldom intersect, but this thread makes me think I should borrow them and ask her about them.

Fri, 2011-01-07 23:38

#17

Boom Boom

Unionist wrote:

Has anyone seen the movie?

It's on TMN (The Movie Network) all this month, and so far I've missed every opportunity to see it - not deliberately, I've just been forgetful. I've had no idea what it's about.

Fri, 2011-01-07 23:40

#18

Timebandit Timebandit's picture

I've been meaning to rent the dvd, but life keeps interfering.

Sun, 2011-01-09 00:57

#19

CMOT Dibbler

So many spoilers! I received The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for Christmas and haven't finished listening to it (it's on CD, and unabridged).

Something I've noticed, besides the fact that the translation from the original Swedish is quite stilted, is the fact that most of violence Larson talks about in the book is physical, not mental. Steig Seems to be ignoring the fact that it's possible to brutalize someone and not leave a mark on them.

Sun, 2011-01-09 12:40

#20

500_Apples

I won\'t spoil you with specific details CMOT but that aspect does change later on in the story.

I do agree about the translation being stilted.

Sun, 2011-01-09 13:11

#21

Catchfire

Hey Apples, the last two times you posted in this thread, you posted the same thing about 30 times each. Is there something peculiar about where you're posting from/how you're posting? I had to delete over 30 replicate posts.

Wed, 2011-06-08 17:22

#22

CMOT Dibbler

I am very sorry.
I finished watching the Swedish film adaptation of the girl with the Dragon tatoo, and I realize that as a left-wing, pseudo-intellectual Canuck, I'm supposed to believe that all European cinema is absolutely marvelous. But in this instance, I have to say that the Swedes have not done a particularly good job of bringing Steig Larson's Feminist, socialistically inclined epic to the big screen.
I realize that it was originally a TV movie, but I still feel that have created a higher quality film.

They managed to keep all the essential plot points of the novel, but all of the information in the book that actually made us care about the main characters seems to have been removed. I actually stopped watching before the end.
I'm looking forward to the English language version(not in the face! not in the face!) I won't have to read subtitles and hopefully Fincher will make Larson's protagonists a bit more dynamic.

Wed, 2011-06-08 19:44

#23

Fidel

I liked the movie. Not your average feel good family movie, but it held my interest to the end. I like foreign pictures mostly because they don't follow the usual Hollywood formula that leaves you asking, So what big deal, at the end. Euro-Scandinavian movie characters we can sometimes relate to as opposed to the large majority of cookie cutter Hollywood types.

Wed, 2011-06-08 21:12

#24

allah

I heard an interesting discussion about these books on PBS a few months ago. One participant was a woman from Sweden who said that she and others were gratified that the truth about mysogeny and associated violence in Sweden was brought to light. Specifically she stated that Sweden is often portraid as semi-utopian and it is just as horrible for women there as in other countries, but often not admited to. Larson's pre-chapter notes attest to this.

Wed, 2011-06-08 21:37

#25

Timebandit Timebandit's picture

I thought the movie was a rather good adaptation, which is always tricky because novel and film are such different forms. Great moody feel to the lighting and sets, and I particularly liked the performances. I have a suspicion the American remake will be closer to melodrama in form - it usually happens that way. On the other hand, NA audiences are usually more comfortable with that.