Better tad late than never, now I too have finished reading the so called Millenium-trilogy by Stieg Larsson, Luftslottet som sprängdes - The Air castle that was blown up, but will be translated into "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest" - I'm so pleased to have reached the final page of the final chapter.
Even though it was quite the ingenious plot and interesting read in most parts, as opposed to the dash overrated Potter books, it was not as well written as one would have liked and in too many parts rather tiresome. Unfortunately the annoyingly patronizing way middle aged men who think they clearly know the way of the world better than most everyone else far from seldom write did shine through in this last book too.
Larsson very obviously doesn't write as cleverly or well as Arne Dahl. However the degree of annoyance was far from as high as in book number two (Flickan som lekte med elden - The girld who played with fire), the story had a swift flow, you knew the characters and it was slightly easier to look pass their more irritating features and the novel's more or less cheap political points and generous name droppings.
As I've mentioned before, I do prefer suspense novels which are written with more refinement (and dry wittiness weaved in if possible.) Even more so when there's a political edge and criticism of the times that used to be and/or the times we live in to the book.
Having said that I must say he did make some excellent points regarding the even more than ever hot topic of the never seize to amaze greediness in the business world and amongst shareholders, golden handshakes and ridiculous retainers for CEOs that has nothing whatsoever to do with how well they've performed their duties. I couldn't agree more.
All these unbelievable perks they get for a job lousy done. With ownership and prestigious assignments actually do come responsibilities - if the company doesn't do well of course the CEO hasn't earned the right to a fat paycheck nor should the share holders get any allotment of shares. That's called incentive to do a good job, to be a responsible owner, one who actually can look above and beyond one's own greediness. And as far as I'm concerned, the same goes for most politicians. Since again and again too many of them clearly have no idea how *real life* works based on their statements and enforcement of political agendas...
The Swedish screen adaption of the first book in the series has recently been premiered at the cinemas here. Needless to say definitely not on my to-see-list.
A bit more about the writer and my views on the first two books -
Män som hatar kvinnor (Men who hate women) ~ The girl with the dragon tattoo
Flickan some lekte med elden ~ The girl who played with fire - here
i read the stig larsson novels as the first real books i read in danish (i know, they're originally swedish). i read the newspaper(s) every day, but they were my first novels. and as such, i really liked them. i came to love "kalle" blomkvist and the mad girl with the hard life whose name escapes me at the moment (it was awhile ago i read them). but, like you, i have no intention of seeing the film. i actually came to like the characters so much that i was sorry that stig larsson died and there won't be more stories of them. it's a bit how i feel about inspector morse as well...
ReplyDeleteOh, I can understand how you feel about the books them kind of being the introduction to Danish in a way. Perhaps the translation made the book improve too:)
ReplyDeleteI love CI Morse! My favourite British crime drama ever, and I've been known to watch a *few* of those...:) And yes, that was/is sad about the actor playing him pass away...