I was sitting in a coffee shop that was part of a book shop, when the woman at the table next to me leaned across said "Are you interested in a good read?" "Of course!" I replied. "Read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," she suggested enthusiastically.
I knew of the book, and its success. It is a publishing phenomenon with more than five million copies sold worldwide. The author, Stieg Larsson went to a publisher with three completed manuscripts for The Millennium Trilogy; then died suddenly, before he could see the success of his work. This is the first novel in the series.
It features a journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, as its hero (probably based on Stieg, a journalist and editor), and the girl with the dragon tattoo, Lisbeth Salander, is his assistant investigating corporate crime and solving a murder mystery.
I have hesitated to tackle detective novels in this blog. It is probably the best-selling genre, but I tend to find them low in literary merit and formulaic. This novel is definitely an exception. It is well-written and thoughtfully considers a broad range of topics including business ethics, fascism, terrorism, internet crime, publishing, journalism and sexual ethics. The characters are complex and fascinating; the plot is intriguing and well-paced.
It is a book I found difficult to put down. However, I am disappointed… There are three aspects of this book which I think are disturbing elements of the modern detective genre. Firstly, I am astonished that the protagonist usually seems to enjoy a healthy sex life which potentially could interfere with their investigative duties.
In this novel Blomkvist is a journalist rather than a detective, but even so there are ethical issues about forming relationships with someone under investigation, fellow workers, let alone his boss! It is curious that high ethical standards in the area of journalism and business are able to be separated from issues of personal morality, but at the very least such liaisons are unprofessional, and could be interpreted as sexual harassment, yet in the novel it is unquestioned.
The second characteristic is that crimes are frequently of an explicit sexual nature. Perhaps extreme sexual deviancy is more common in society than I am aware; however, I suspect the real reason for these crimes featuring in detective novels is that our society is so sex-saturated that the reading public are becoming harder to shock.
Authors have to rely on grotesque crimes, often of a sexual nature, to ensure readers are emotionally involved: fearing for the hero, and anxious for justice to be done. The salaciousness undermines what is otherwise a fine examination of modern organisations, and family politics. It felt unnecessary and I had to skip chunks of the narrative.
The third characteristic is the inclusion of biblical material as part of resolution of the crime. It may well be true that religious fervour and sexual deviancy are linked, although it does not appear on Schechter and Everitt's list of the characteristics of serial killers. Perhaps my bigger regret is that this is rarely offset by characters who are both sane and religiously orthodox!
I am now in a quandary. Will I read the next book in the trilogy: The Girl who Played with Fire? I suspect that my distaste with the sexual values unquestioned, and the possibility of further sexually explicit criminal activity mean that I will not. However, I think this book would not have been diminished (possibly enhanced) by a more restrained hero and a less explicit crime. The question is, would it have been as popular?
