Notes on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

*I seriously considered leaving out this spoiler alert out to save you from wasting your time reading the book.

I am a bit tardy to the party, but I’ve finally been integrated myself into the Millennium craze and, after reading the first of the series, I can confidently say that The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo will be the last book I ever read by Stieg Larsson.

As a fan of feminist writing, I sought out The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo at my local bookshop as this book has been coined as an empowering one for women. I should have been tipped off at how inaccurate and poorly placed this claim was when I saw that it was written by a man, or should I call him a boy since he refuses to call the grown-ass protagonist a woman even in the title, which I’ve come to find would be more appropriate if it were instead The Woman who is Defined by a Minor Physical Characteristic that, in fact, Plays No Functional Role -- Major or Minor -- in the Plot of this Book. This freaking tattoo means absolutely nothing. Actually, none of her tattoos mean anything except that Larsson is a douchy BOY who harshly judges woman by insignificant physical features.

Despite Larsson being allegedly “sensitive” to sexual abuse and harassment of women, that hardly means that he is free from sexist and misogynistic idiosyncrasies. In the image, you can see all the pages I’ve folded throughout reading. Each one crease marks where Larsson narrated misogynistically and -- mind you -- I tried not include any character dialogue or thoughts. Since starting this blog, this is by far the most sexist text I have read (I know, that was only five books ago, but STILL). He’s not “sensitive” enough to write realistic thoughts of women, though I’m not sure any man is for that matter.

For reference, here are some examples of reasons as to why I folded the page:

"Armansky's star researcher was a pale, anorexic young woman who had hair as short as a fuse, and a pierced nose and eyebrows."

Followed shortly by,

"She did not in fact have an eating disorder, Armansky was sure of that."

What a sensitive man you are, Larsson.

"She had put on make-up in a colour scheme that indicated she might be colourblind."

LOL at other disabilities, Larsson, you are so funny indeed.

"But he knew he would not tolerate it if his daughters behaved like Salander or lived the life she lead."

At this point, Salander's employer is judging her life before we know anything about it. So you don't want your daughters to be geniuses and fight back against those who rape them? Okay. Glad I'm not your daughter.

Upon discussing Harriet's 14-year-old picture,

"a young woman on her way to becoming dangerous"

...because she's beautiful? wtf does that even mean. She's dangerous??

Obviously and as expected 30 pages into reading, this book and all 533 of it's pages does not satisfy the Bechdel Test; Larsson's prized work written to help women only passed the first test. Give me a moment to atrociously roll my eyes. Even the rear cover was poorly created: “The Journalist (man)...The Industrialist (man)...The Girl (woman).” Salander is a brilliant hacker who is literally defined as a genius, only to be demoted to just a GIRL with a effing DRAGON TATTOO. This book sucks.

Additionally, Larsson is obsessed with boobs. I can think of two instances where characters were described only by their breasts. In other situations, breasts were unpurposefully mentioned or mentioned with more detail than any other characteristic on a woman, though, he did manage to describe Salander’s body with a more flavorful adjective: anorexic. Larsson literally used “anorexic” several time to describe how she is thin, though she obviously has no such mental illness. Like what the fuck.

Apparently, this type of WOMAN, one with tattoos, a reserved attitude, ("anorexia") and a genius-level IQ are the only ones who have the capacity to fight back against their rapist or abuser. Thanks, Larsson, what a truly inspiring message.

With that being said, the murder investigation was engaging and well-paced, albeit Harriet’s fate being predictable. I liked the fact that a serial killer was thrown in there. Overall though, I was not very impressed, so those are the only comments I have on the body of the story.

The ending was awful -- the last hundred pages are dedicated to the financial reporting which is a yawn compared to the murder investigation. It was painful to continue reading after Mikael returned home. Plus, it was obnoxious reading about how much of a journalistic hero he was when Salander literally did everything in regards to finding the Wennerstrom materials.

The final paragraph made me feel like I was conned, like I was just a pawn in a stupid business scheme for selling books that were poorly written (two times, TWO, Larsson's narration made contradictory statements within two pages of one another -- who misses stuff like that?).

Evidently, I have a strong opinion about this story. I’m torn between awarding it one star or none at all. Because I have the attitude that worse must always exist, I will give The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo one star and will not be reading any more of the series.