Not too long ago I finished reading the Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larson, more commonly known by the title of the first book in the series, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

I actually have a reason for not blogging this sooner, in that Sara is still reading the final book. I am especially sensitive about releasing spoilers to her, since while she was in the middle of the first book, I inadvertently revealed a huge plot point ruining the entire mystery of the book. It was roughly equivalent to someone walking up to you in the middle of the Sixth Sense and saying, “Isn’t it crazy that Bruce Willis is a ghost?” So I think this post should be pretty spoiler-free.

The hype about the books was well deserved, they were great. However, at the same time, they were totally not what I was expecting. Even though I’m pretty late to the party (as usual), I really didn’t know much about the books. I think I had seen the movie trailer, so I had some vague notion that it was a shoot-‘um-up action movie. Therefore, I was a little surprised when it turned out to be something of a slow developing financial thriller! In fact, the aforementioned “girl with the dragon tattoo” is not even really the main character for most of the first and last books.

Please don’t take the previous two statements as criticisms of the books, because they are not. I was surprised, but in no way displeased. A slow developing novel can be a really good thing if done right, because it gives you time to really invest in a character, which makes you care about them more. This was done right. And don’t get me wrong, there is plenty of action: over the course of the books there are serial killers (plural), spies, drug running biker gangs, corrupt government officials, prostitution rings, deviant sexual behavior, and plenty of dead bodies, to say nothing of financial misappropriation on a grand scale.

You could say the tone is a little dark.

I had heard there was something bad, or gruesome in the first book, and that some people who read it weren’t sure if their wives would be able to handle it. It is important to note that the literal translation of the title is not “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” but rather, “Men who Hate Women”. Sure enough, I found that to be an appropriate title for the entire trilogy, because the entire series stands as a testament to fighting some pretty extreme violations of women’s rights. In particular there are some extremely uncomfortable moments in the first book that involve a man abusing his position of power over a woman in about the worst way possible. It’s probably worse than you’re imagining, and not for the faint of heart.

Therefore, I was a bit hesitant to recommend this to Sara. Not because I didn’t think she could handle it, and not even because I don’t think she would enjoy reading something so dark (although she doesn’t usually choose such). No, I hesitated because whenever we see anything that involves men being jerks, I seem to take the full responsibility for my gender. (Case in point, she didn’t talk to me for several days after we watched North Country.) Not to worry though, she seems to be enjoying the books well enough.

The first book stands alone from the other two, and is a little different. I preferred the second book to the first. It seemed like it got ramped up a little faster, and was a little more action packed. More Tom Clancy to the first book’s John Grisham.

Overall, highly recommended (but you already knew that, because everybody’s been talking about them since about forever).

I haven’t seen the movies, but everybody says they’re good. I’d probably watch them if I had them here in front of me, but honestly I don’t feel much of a draw to see them. I read the story, enjoyed it, and now it’s kind of done, you know?

One last note, I noticed as I was reading that Mr. Larsson seems to be very meticulous about certain details, particularly product names. There is one section, I think in The Girl Who Played With Fire, involving a very large shopping trip to IKEA in which every product is identified and named. I got a big chuckle out of this, because if you’ve spent as much time at IKEA as I have, then you will absolutely recognize all the product names.

This was also true when it came to meticulous street and neighborhood names. By the end of the 3rd book, I was absolutely sure I could navigate my way around Stockholm with no problem (but just in case you can’t, you can always check out the Millennium Trilogy map on Mr. Larsson’s website).

I did have one problem with the books, though. Has anyone in the history of the earth drank as much coffee? It was central to every scene, someone is always pouring the coffee, drinking coffee, going to a cafe for coffee, or getting up to put the coffee on. Coffee is made in coffee pots, in fancy espresso machines, and boiled directly in a pot on the stove. I don’t know if this was just a tick of Mr. Larsson’s writing style, something he falls back on to set the scene, or if Swedish people just drink a metric ton of coffee.

If you haven’t read the books yet, try not to notice all the coffee drinking now. Good luck with that.