The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest by Stieg Larsson
I finished the last book in the trilogy but am only getting around to writing a review on it now. Having finished it, I would certainly recommend the trilogy … but for marathon readers not sprinters. Overall I felt the three books could have done with some serious editing. Notwithstanding that, they are still a very good read. The main characters, though each very different are all likable which helps in these lengthy books. Just thinking, International Women’s Day was this week, Larsson certainly wove a feminist argument through the the books with enormous skill.
I was amused by the descriptions of the minutiae of everyday life throughout. Did we really need to know the full shopping list when a character went shopping? Or exactly what someone wears; She dressed in black trousers, a white polo neck, and a muted brick-red jacket. Or eats for their breakfast; She made two slices of toast with cheese, orange marmalade and a sliced avocado … After all the street detail, I’m expecting to know my way around Stockholm, if I ever go there.
Detail like this helps get the reader into the everyday lives of the characters but when word count is already a challenge, less might just have been better.
I was intrigued by Erika Berger’s relationship with Mickael Blomkvist with her husband’s full knowledge and approval! It’s the approval bit that intrigued me.
Here’s a typical passage; Berger wakes at 7am having spent the night with Blomkvist. She turns on her phone and finds eleven missed calls from her husband. Her reaction is “Shit. I forgot to call”. She phones him and explains where she was and why she had not come home. Apparently she normally called her husband in advance if she was staying over with Blomkvist.
His reaction; “Erika, don’t do that again. It has nothing to do with Mickael, but I’ve been worried sick all night. I was terrified that something had happened …”
He’s one patient man!
Mind you two men in one’s life could be useful sometimes. Berger’s house had been broken into and she ended up at the hospital. Berger cursed the whole time she was at the hospital, and she kept trying to call her husband or Blomkvist.
I’m thinking of times I’m stuck and can’t reach Denis on his phone … 
I’ve started following Liz’s blog. Liz is Irish, living here with her Swedish husband and children. Her blog is very interesting, written partly in English and partly in Swedish. I commented to Liz that from reading Larsson, it seems to me, Swedish people are always drinking coffee. She confirmed this is so.
Whilst I know Sweden is liberal, I’ll have to check the ‘normality’ of Berger’s set up with her.
I loved the line describing Salander in hospital. After a period of computer celibacy, she was suffering from massive cyber-abstinence. I know others close to me who in similar circumstances would suffer from this condition.
I thought the description of a character’s death extremely poignant. He had no family, and none of his friends came to his sickbed. His last contact with life was an Eritrean night nurse by the name of Sara Kitama, who kept watch at his bedside and held his hand as he died.
The film of the first book, The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo is just going on release here in Ireland. It premiered in Skellefteå, Stieg Larsson’s old home town early last year. I for one will be going to see it.
Finally, there’s a rumour of a fourth book having been on Larsson’s laptop when he died. Will it ever get published …
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Great review Lily – enjoyed reading it. I will be going to see the film too.
I went to the bookshelves to look for my copy of ‘a Thousand Splendid suns’ the other evening, planning to read for a hour before I went to bed and couldn’t find it. Now I am trying to remember which friend I loaned it too!!
Lorna, Thanks
Loaning books and forgetting to whom happens me too. I was delighted to see I still had my copy of A Thousand … I haven’t started rereading it yet.
Hi Lily
So funny I am scrambling to finish Stieg’s (very large) third book so I can start A Thousand Splendid Suns and have it finished in time for our BBC review.
I think I might have to do simultaneous readings!
Great review on Larsson’s Trilogy by the way, I too found the descriptions too wordy in places and it could have been edited down. In some places the mundane descriptions work because it brings you closer to the character’s lives, in other places it can come across as somewhat pedantic.
I saw the first film and I like that it is in Swedish (and not Americanised). I was wondering how Salander would come across on screen as she is such a curious heroine (computer whizz nerdy but gorgeous, small but incredibly strong, incredibly intelligent but yet vulnerable) and the actress Noomi Rapace is excellent. However I struggled to find the actor Michael Nyqvist believable as bed hoppin Blomqvist.
PS – Thanks for highlighting Liz’s blog, my husband is also Swedish!
Treasa
Treasa, your description of the film makes me impatient to get to see it. I’m glad that Salander was well cast. The Larsson trilogy must have had even more interest for you, given your Swedish connections.
I understand your challenge trying to read with small children. There was a number of years when I got to read very little as I was so busy with children and even when I had some scraps of free time, I was probably too exhausted! (I never had children who slept well and was so envious of those who had!) Thankfully as they grew, so too did reading time
Great review – this confirms my thoughts about the book – that it was perhaps edited a little lackadaisically
I agree totally with your views on the lax editing, particularly of the last book.
That said I really enjoyed Larsson’s books, they wouldn’t be the type of book I would normally choose, but I was very glad I did this time.
Really looking forward to seeing the movie version when I get a chance. I asked my husband, who spent 8 years working in Sweden, if Erika’s marital situation was unusual, and he said not at all!
Brownieville girl, I hadn’t thought that the editing got more lax in the third and you’re probably right. They each needed cutting but more particularly the third.
Marie, Thank’s for checking with hubby … interesting!
I can’t say I ever met anyone in Sweden who had the same marital situation as Erika Berger in the book, but maybe that’s cos I was mixing with a lot of young women like myself, from Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales and their Swedish husbands, and I wasn’t living in Stockholm either.
There is a lot of living togther, also divorce/splitting up and then second and third partnerships, but not necessarily running concurrently!
I agree with Treasa, re the film, I loved Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander. Coincidentally her husband Ola Rapace is also an actor and he played Wallander’s right hand man in the Swedish Wallander movies. Interesting to be at the dinner table in that house, I’d say!
regards
liz
Liz, interesting comment. I haven’t seen the film yet – it hasn’t yet come to Storm cinema. I’m looking out for it and looking forward to seeing it