Review: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

In my last post, I spoke of my initial hesitation to read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and my regret that I had not picked up the book sooner.

Background and Synopsis

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a mystery novel by Swedish writer Stieg Larsson, who unfortunately met his untimely death shortly before the publication of his first book.  The first novel in the trilogy follows financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist as he investigates a cold case committed on an island -- essentially, a "locked room mystery."  The death of Harriet Vanger fifty years prior has haunted her uncle, Henrik Vanger, who hires Blomkvist to write a history on the Vanger family while attempting to solve the murder case.  Meanwhile, the novel also follows Lisbeth Salander, a young outcast who works for a security company and did the background check on Blomkvist for Vanger prior to his hiring.

Review

After finishing part one, I jotted down a few notes.  My main impression was that the opening was slow and deliberate as the author worked to create the setting and introduce the characters.  It's worth it if you have the patience, and the reveal of the catalyst that sets the plot in motion and establishes the driving force of the novel (namely, Harriet's disappearance and Henrik Vanger's desire for Blomkvist to solve the mystery) is accomplished in an appealingly dramatic way.  I loved the pacing of that conversation -- well done.

One aspect of the writing that I really loved was the use of cliffhangers and a "bait and switch" technique.  By establishing two storylines -- that of Blomkvist and that of Salander -- Larsson always had somewhere else to jump to if he wanted to create a cliffhanger.  So essentially, what he would do is set up a scene that would lead to a reveal, but switch to the other character's story line right before or after that reveal.  So you are left with a "What's going to happen?" or a "OMG" moment.  He led the reader to keep reading.  I thought it worked well.  (This was something I thought was also well done in Susanne Collins' The Hunger Games. Although that story is drastically different, the successful use of the cliffhanger to propel the story forward is similar in each.)

Initially, I read a few chapters each night, but today I spent the majority of the day reading the second half of the novel.  I couldn't put it down.  This was due to that cliffhanger technique, and also of course to the mystery aspect of the novel -- I had to know what happened.  That said, I can't say the novel was necessarily the best thing I've ever read. Undoubtedly, the characters are interesting, and the plot is interesting, but the writing style didn't blow me away.  Yes, I fully realize it was translated, so I concede that it might read better in the original Swedish. Unfortunately, I don't know Swedish.

I was disappointed by the ending, too.  While the solution to the mystery probably came a good hundred pages before the end of the novel, the ending still somehow felt abrupt. Larrson concentrated in tying up all loose ends with the financial intrigue that Blomkvist wrote about (which, by the way, bored me to bits because I don't understand anything about economics and financial matters of large corporations).  And yet, the story with Salander seems to leave off suddenly, with no closure.  No doubt this was intentional, considering there is a sequel.  But it was still disconcerting for me.

Overall, I enjoyed the book, and look forward to seeing the movie soon.