Monday, May 3, 2010

The Girl With The DragI DON'T GIVE A CRAP

Seriously, this book was truly disappointing.

I think it serves me right though for reading a book from a genre I've never been impressed with. I went in with fairly high expectations because of the recommendations from friends whose opinions I have hitherto respected.

This is my summation of it.

Literary Style:
I don't know whether it was the translator sucking or the author himself, but the writing was, to put it succinctly, unpleasant. It felt juvenile, pretentious, and strangely familiar. This familiarity came, I fear, from its clichéd style. EVERY high school novelist knows that when you want to create tension you can just use shorter sentences and plainer language.
Furthermore, I will only tolerate EIGHT HUNDRED AND FORTY ONE PAGES in a book if the information being rammed down my throat is ENTIRELY NECESSARY. I do not need to know everything this stupid journalist did, from having sex with the neighbours to buying bread from the local grocery store. I DO NOT FRIGGEN CARE.
If you are going to write a book with the basic goal of telling a good story and not relate any further moral, philosophical, or theological arguments, at least have the decency to tell the story well.

Story:
Besides being uselessly fleshed out, I found the story bland. Maybe my attitude is so blasé because of the ludicrous amounts of mystery novels I devoured during elementary school, but I was expecting something unexpected.
Unrealistic? Possibly.
Unreasonable? Absolutely not.
I think it perfectly logical for a publishing corporation to filter out all the cliché, repetitive crap and only pass on to readers the good, original,sustantial stuff. I feel sympathetic to the drug addict who has been sold coke padded out with sugar, or weed "watered down" with plain herbage.
After the big exposé scene, which was not sufficiently surprising, the novel dragged on with personal blather and corporation technical jargon. I kept reading in hopes that the author was going somewhere with it, but he wasn't.
The book could have been concluded easily in 300 pages, and Frank and Joe Hardy would have been much more endearing stars than the fantastic, unrealistic weenies than Larsson concocted.

Commercial Plugs:
Apart from the incessant harping about sexual assault statistics and women's rights which can be considered an important social service, there is shameless promotion of ideals, practices, and even corporations which I found infuriating.
We all know that product placement in TV/film media is inevitable. When Miley Cyrus or Hannah Montana (I don't know how to refer to the beast) drinks a bottle of Coca-Cola®, we know she (or her manager) has been paid by the corporation to have it seen.
Was Larsson paid by Apple to have his characters all tricked out with their latest gadgets? There was literally more than a page describing a character's laptop's hardware specifications, right down to the additional RAM.
WHY IS THIS RELEVANT TO THE READER'S COMPREHENSION??
IT IS FREKKEN NOT!
I wouldn't be surprised if the author and Apple had a nifty agreement to make Macs seem sexy, secure, and awesome while making PCs seem ridiculously unmanoeuvrable and vulnerable to hackers.
No matter how good your story is, it is not good enough to convince me that I should buy a Mac (although I already have one.... YOU DIDN'T CONVINCE ME!!).
There were other annoying blurbs of the same sort but I have now effectively erased them from my memory.

Granted, it only took me about 7.5 hours to read, but that is a day of my life I will never get back.
Screw you, Stieg Larsson. Screw you.

1 comment:

  1. I am sorry you hated it :(.

    I totally agree with the too much random details. i have a filter in my head that helps me glaze over those. Also, it does get overly technical in parts.

    I think a certain amount is lost in translation. It could also be that the author had a career in crazy organizations, secrecy and magazines and thought that he should weave them all into one crazy book. (Except it's a trilogy).

    At any rate, I'm interested to see the movie. Partly because I'm hoping they can cut out some of the less relevant stuff and partly to see who they cast and how they film certain parts.

    I still think you should read The Girl Who Played With Fire. it also drags on a bit, but its less predictable.

    Read the other book I gave you. Company of Strangers. Ending = Surprise!

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