The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo: A Novel by Stieg Larsson
Vintage Books, c2008 (translation copyright by Reg Keeland)
ISBN 978-0-307-45454-6
So it seems everyone (and their mother) has read this book but me. This Vintage Books paperback edition was just released and it is on the PB Bestseller list. It is a story of crime, suspense and family saga. Alot of family saga. In fact, TOO MUCH family saga for my taste. I am on page 265 and am just now getting "in" to it. I tried my darnedest (is that a word?) to understand the family lineage, really I tried. But I got tired of it and just ended up skimming the paragraphs (and sometimes pages) of who's who in the Vanger family. Boring. But don't worry, I will not suffer you the same fate! I chose a scene which contains the more interesting side plot which includes the girl with the dragon tattoo.
Her classmates thought she was crazy and treated her accordingly. She aroused very little sympathy among the teachers. She had never been particularly talkative, and she became known as the pupil who never raised her hand and often did not answer when a teacher asked her a direct question. No one was sure whether this was because she did not know the answer or if there was some other reason, which was reflected in her grades. No doubt that she had problems, but no one wanted to take responsibility for the difficult girl, even though she was frequently discussed at various teachers' meetings. That was why she ended up in the situation where the teachers ignored her and allowed her to sit in sullen silence.
She left middle school and moved to another, without a single friend to say goodbye to. An unloved girls with odd behaviour.
Then, as she was on the threshold of her teenage years, All The Evil happened, which she did not want to think about. The last outburst set the pattern that prompted a review of the casebook entries from elementary school. After that she was considered to be legally . . . well, crazy. A freak. (page 229-230)
Good stuff! Of course, I am dying to find out what All The Evil is! The novel takes place in Sweden (another reason I can't "love" it; places I am not familiar with). The other main character, Mikael Blomkvist, is a journalist who is commissioned to solve a 30 year-old unsolved murder. Apparently, knowing the family lineage of the Vanger family is VERY important to the story. He has a year to live on the family owned island and solve the mystery. As a reader, the real mystery is how the two plots will intersect. So far, Mikael and Lisbeth (girl w/dragon tattoo) have only met once, briefly. What the heck is going on? I kinda don't care about the murder, I just want to know where the story is going. Maybe that's supposed to be the mystery!
Toodles,
BookLady
1 comment:
I haven't read it yet. I'm still working on "The Brief and Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao" which everyone else seems to have read.
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