The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Originally: (in February) I was trying to read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo all of last month (recommended AND chosen for Book Club) and I didn't get past page 68 or so. I kept waiting for the eponymous character (who, let's face it, has a description that I want applied to myself) but she was a total no-show. So I exercised by third inalienable right and moved on.

I went to Book Club, all prepared to hate it and then everyone (who was there) loved it. wtf. I totally thought I wouldn't be alone in this. Long story short, I felt compelled to read on. I finally finished it (it took the better part of a month!) and I gotta say… still not all that impressed. Okay, maybe it was a bit better than I anticipated, but, uh, not really.

First of all, let's talk about the "framing" of the story - the Vanger mystery wrapped in the Wennerström enigma. I really really REALLY didn't care about the Wennerström thing. Not only because it was dry and uninteresting, but also because with was a wee bit inaccessible to non-Swedish readers. All those names and companies! Who could keep track? The Vangers themselves were also unlikeable (even more so as the story progresses) and there is only one impetus that makes the story go forward: what happened to Harriet Vanger. And once you find out (or, in my case, once your theory is somewhat corroborated), you're so dismayed to find out that you have yet another 100 or so pages to go, you almost want to cry.

But it wasn't the plot that finally broke me. Oh, no, poppets. It was the translation. And I say translation because, clearly, I haven't read the original Swedish so I cannot comment upon it. The translation, however was full of dangling modifiers, comma splices and pronoun/antecedent agreements (or disagreements, as the case may be)… it was very distracting. While I commit many of those errors (along with typos and missing words…) I am not an internationally-recognised author. I would hope that if someone took the time to translate me into Swedish, s/he would not butcher my work in the progress. Finally, the straw: I can't stand when "special" words (especially descriptors) are used too often and I really can't stand when they're used on the same page. Yes, I finished the novel but I was not happy about the reading of it. Not at all.

Anyway, I'm happy to see the movie is coming out soon. I think it may translate quite well in that medium, especially since it's subtitled and not dubbed. Should you read it? Who am I to say? I can only lament that I backed this Book Club pick.