The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest - Steig Larsson

So…. We’re back to Lisbeth Salander.  This Hornet’s Nest was hanging over my head and really I just wanted to get this trilogy over with. Based on my experience with the first two books, I was not looking forward to this or expecting much. Or, really, I was expecting to just get through some gruesome violence, a lot of tedious detail, and more Swedish history and politics that I ever needed to know. I did not expect to be very engaged – after the first two I felt like I had just watched one of those random action movies that pop up on TBS at 2am – all boom and no substance.

Imagine my shock when half way through I realized, “hey! I am actually sort of into this!” I’m not really sure what the difference is here. There were still way too many characters with confusing Swedish names to keep track of. And way too much detail about the inner workings of Swedish government organizations that I could have done without. Larsson’s writing is just so… intricate. Not in that he creates beautiful sentences of literary amazingness. More in that he details every single thing about every single person and every single scene in almost excruciating I don’t need to know how many sugars are in his coffee! detail.

The counterbalance to all that is that this time around we get more Lisbeth. Lisbeth on her own and not in relation to or reacting to Blomkvist  or the other men in the story. Ok, maybe she is a little, since you know, that’s what the basic plot circles around, but mostly she is acting on her own here as an individual with her own agenda and plans. I like that she is trying to save her own ass and reluctant to accept help from others unless it is on her terms.

Maybe that whole theory that you find things in books to relate to your own life (that’s a theory right? It should be) is at play here. Lisbeth is a tough chick taking control of her own life, and I have been doing a little of that on my own too. I appreciate Larsson’s focus on women and the patriarchal abuses they suffer – things we like to think don’t happen anymore because we want to ignore the inequalities that still exist in the world. Lisbeth is somehow a perfect antidote to that ignorance.  

Is some weird way, I think I want to be more like Lisbeth…I’m even thinking about getting anther tattoo….