THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO - Stieg Larsson - Fiction

Feminism and genre fiction can be uncomfortable bedfellows. The tropes upon which genre fiction relies can frequently come into conflict with more enlightened ideas about, for example, who can be a detective, who can be a victim, and with what severity certain crimes are treated. There is little doubt, to me, that Stieg Larsson intended to write a mystery novel which aims to be feminist, and certainly addresses feminist issues. Each segment of the novel is introduced by a statistic about violence against women in Sweden. Its original title in Swedish is MEN WHO HATE WOMEN (possibly toned down for a primarily-female American mystery-reading audience). It references many female titans of the genre--Dorothy Sayers, Sue Grafton, Agatha Christie, Sara Paretsky--and takes a laissez-faire view of relationships, propounding polyamorous setups and female choice.

The series has two main characters, Mikael "Kalle" Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander, the latter of whom is, quite simply, competent miles beyond the scope of the mystery and dangers contained in the novel. Lisbeth is a preeminent computer hacker, a punk, physically small but extremely fit and strong, capable of astonishing feats of research, endowed with a photographic memory and excellent intelligence, and quirkily pretty. But, lest she start to sound like a Mary Sue--too perfect to be real--we are told that she also has cavernous faults, involving a tumultuous and abusive childhood resulting in her affectless, vindictive personality, hatred for (almost all) men, and legal status as a ward of the state, despite being an adult. She's a smart, antisocial vigilante, admittedly admirably, that being a category that admits few women in popular media. (Perhaps the most obvious comparison is River, from the TV series "Firefly.") Although this setup would lead us to believe that the "socialization" of a reclusive prodigy like Lisbeth is to be the focus of the novel, she isn't introduced to the central mystery until halfway through the book. (In the first half, she is preoccupied with her own research, and with revenge on her state-appointed guardian, who violently rapes her twice before she strikes back, violently and definitively, blackmailing him into giving her almost total control over her life.)

However, it is, perhaps, a wise move to keep Lisbeth away from the mystery for so long, because she solves it handily even though she spends less than a third of the time on it that Blomkvist has. She also digs up earlier crimes that tie together to provide crucial clues to the present mystery, and rescues Mikael from a psychotic killer in what seems like a laughably short amount of time, due to a technological security system she set up just days earlier. She then pursues the killer on her motorcycle until he commits suicide by purposely crashing into an oncoming tractor-trailer. Because this leaves us with a fair amount of spare pages until the end of the novel, she also helps Mikael with another aspect of the mystery, and then goes ahead and performs an astounding feat of hackery that rescues Mikael from the charges of libel he is convicted of at the beginning of the novel; she is able to provide information from an industry mogul's own computer files that exonerate Mikael and show evidence of even shadier dealings, boosting the journalistic coups of his magazine, Millennium, to even greater heights of glory. Lisbeth is amazing, and her talents here are not even slightly stretched, much less put to any sort of test. Lisbeth is infallible. It is inconceivable, within the confines of this story, that Lisbeth would ever lose, so of course she doesn't--with the exception of a love affair with Mikael, which ends up breaking her heart with the realization that Mikael does not love her exclusively, or nearly enough for her liking.

But wait; Lisbeth hates men, has a tortuously troubled past that has left deep psychological gashes and scars, is legally declared incompetent by the state, and is almost criminally misanthropic. Why would she fall in love with Mikael? And why would Mikael enter into a relationship with this woman, knowing about her personality quirks and yet knowing nothing about the past that produced them? Well, because everyone in this novel loves Mikael Blomkvist. He is conducting a long-standing affair with his colleague and co-editor, Erika Berger, a situation to which Erika's husband assents and accomodates. (Notably, at least to me, Erika's husband is never in-scene for the entire novel; either he, a semi-famous artist, is completely uninteresting, or, more likely, the novel's favoritism towards Mikael's perspective only wants to know that, so long as he must exist, he won't get in the way of romance.) Mikael was married once, and had a daughter, but was divorced over his unwillingness to give up other women, including Erika. While investigating the disappearance of a wealthy businessman's daughter, he has a brief affair with Cecilia, the businessman's niece and Mikael's temporary next-door neighbor. He is apparently alluring and kind, a good lover and a good conversationalist, and almost comically undemanding, needing to know next to nothing about a potential lover aside from her willingness to be romanced. He has his moments of weakness and naivete, but if I had to point to a character who was fulfilling the hopes and dreams of his author, Mikael Blomkvist would be it. This is a man who enjoys his stint in jail, gets offered a rich salary to do a type of detective work which he has literally never done before, for the thinnest of pretexts, and in the meantime befriends and seduces everyone around him who doesn't happen to be a murderer, or the associate of one.

Because Lisbeth is mysterious, pretty, and smart, it doesn't stretch credulity that Blomkvist, or a man in a similar position, would be attracted to her; what does is that her violent outbursts, hatred of most of humanity, and extreme unwillingness to share personal information don't raise any questions or warning bells in Blomkvist's mind. Salander doesn't want to get close to men who want to control her in any way, even if that means attempting to help her better her own situation, and Blomkvist's lackadaisical attitude toward their relationship certainly fits that bill. But, in the end, he cannot tear himself away from other women--most notably and continuously, Erika--and Salander, like Blomkvist's first wife, drops him because of it. And yet, this was obvious from the start; Mikael makes it clear upon mention of Erika that they are in a relationship which is unlikely to end, and that he prefers to keep it that way. Lisbeth's appreciation for Mikael causes her to conveniently ignore this sticking point, and become well-nigh infatuated. Then, with little fanfare, she sees Mikael and Erika together, realizes she plays second fiddle, and renounces their relationship.

Although the second and third volumes in the trilogy do promise to address this, there is the feeling of getting short shrift with respect to Lisbeth's inner workings. Mikael is, for all intents and purposes, the first emotional relationship she has ever had--she has sexual relations with men and women, but these are rarely long-term and never emotionally involved. What about Mikael makes her comfortable, aside from his lack of curiosity about her? What is she feeling, letting someone into her life, however tentatively, who is old enough to be her father, and physically large enough to overpower her? When the mystery they investigate uncovers a serial murderer and torturer of women, who conveniently dies right after his crimes are discovered, Lisbeth blames the women who knew about his actions and did nothing for their cowardice, and blames Mikael for agreeing not to go public with the story to save the reputation of his benefactor. Her hatred for authorities of any kind prevent her from going public herself. But what are her thoughts throughout this process? Is she, in some way, making up now for being unable to rescue herself from a similar captor in the past? Because Lisbeth's intelligence and physical strength cannot be tested, her psychological composure becomes an object of curiosity, but remains unprobed. Mikael is an interesting protagonist for an Everyman, but the narrative focuses on his inner life unnecessarily; the shifts toward Lisbeth's perspective promised later in the series will hopefully herald the arrival of feminist thought and discourse from a female perspective, fulfilling the novel's promise.

(A brief note about the text--certain types of descriptors are comically absent, whether because of the original Swedish or the translation; Lisbeth refers to the men she hates as "creeps" "fools" or "pigs," which is almost quaint--less charmingly, Lisbeth herself is continually and preoccupatively referred to by the narrator as "tattooed and pierced" and "anorexic" despite having more salient--and accurate--features.)

UNDER THE DOME - Stephen King - Fiction

I tried to write a short story on these themes once--tried a few times, actually--telling the story of, among other things, an outsider who struggles between concepts of personal and public religion, told through the lens of genre fiction. Need I say outright that Stephen King is far more accomplished at telling this story than I was? Of course, he benefits from nearly 1100 pages in which to tell his tale of an extraterrestrial terrarium that unleashes the tyrannical impulses of the second selectman in a sleepy small town in Maine. King admits that he wanted to tell a metaphorical tale about the Bush/Cheney administration, from the perspective of the evils of power and the many ways in which frightened and confused people can be manipulated and misled. He succeeds, in a pitch-perfect narrative encompassing nearly fifty important characters and yet taking place over less than a week. We come to hate Jim and Junior Rennie, and to love Dale Barbara and his ragtag group of problem-solvers, and their plights seem continually real, despite the science fiction touches of a race of "leatherhead" aliens who end up being responsible for the Dome.

Of course, the solution to the Dome ends up being so unempowering as to make it seem that King believes there is little hope in preventing such circumstances as bring out the evil that lies dormant in powerful men. The citizens of Chester's Mill end up having to beg for their freedom from aliens who, for all we know, can't really understand them at all, and they are spared only because the alien they manage to catch between playtimes is a young child with some capacity for pity. If this summary seems awkward, it's because the plot point is--we know that our heroes have to succeed in lifting the Dome, and soon, because they are running out of breathable air, but rather than a scientific breakthrough or a show of cunning, they are left to beg for their lives and hope for the best. One almost wishes the Dome were a military experiment gone awry, to carry through the metaphor of the misuse of governmental fiat. Instead, the military is just as helpless as we are, and happen to be represented within the Dome by Dale Barbara, town hero, and so we are made to sympathize with them, even though our liberal consciences insist that they are part of the problem. Instead, local police become the brownshirt villains of this tale, and terrorize the town simply because their personalities predispose them to doing so.

I really never thought of King as being a feminist before--CARRIE being what it is--but UNDER THE DOME does bring to the forefront a number of strong female characters, including the town's newspaper editor, who succeeds in bringing down the Dome, bedding Dale Barbara, and single-handedly foiling Jim Rennie's every move. There are a number of strong narrative choices made in UNDER THE DOME, and one of the best is allowing women to save the day and outsmart the sexism of Rennie and colleagues.

UNDER THE DOME is a quick and compelling read, made more accessible than its brother-in-arms, THE STAND, by its circumscribing devices: containing the action within a single town and a number of days, and making the antagonists easily recognizable and the threat from outside concrete and quantifiable. If you prefer THE DARK TOWER, you'll prefer THE STRAND; if you like the scope of IT, then UNDER THE DOME is a natural extension.

THE INNER CIRCLE - T.C. Boyle - Fiction

There are two ways to write about this incisive, trenchant, detachedly anti-humanist book. In one, we contemplate the importance of sex research, and the sex education and greater levels of community and personal acceptance to which it led--in the 40s, when Alfred Kinsey was publishing his watershed works, homosexual behavior was strongly condemned, and many were unaware that women had active and sometimes "deviant" sexual desires--while contrasting these beneficial outcomes with the always-slippery slope of research into areas of strongly conflicting moral opinion, noting that Kinsey sometimes used himself as a research subject, and that many accounts point to his widely varying sexual appetites as impetus for his research. Yet down this path lies no real conclusion: T.C. Boyle masterfully mixes fiction and fact in his portrayal of Kinsey as part man, part monster, and of the fictional John Milk as his docile right-hand yes-man. We are shown both Kinsey the great biologist and dynamic proponent of scientific research and work ethic, as well as Kinsey the coercer of men and women, who rides roughshod over his team and his wife, and decries differing moral opinions as "sex-shyness." The very term, first brought up by our narrator, Milk, and later echoed many times over in Kinsey's conversations, goes from a quaint piece of researcher dialect to a threatening and two-faced accusation: the sex-shy are inhibiting Kinsey's work, and the sex-shy are those he defines as people unwilling to share their sexual lives with him. Quite the conundrum.

The other way to discuss the impact of this novel is to ask how, and to what extent, we will encourage or tolerate fiction about the lives of real people. Fan fiction on the internet has gone from being a cult activity (Star Trek fans wanting to write about Kirk and Spock) to a mainstream pursuit that has recently drawn legal attention (Harry Potter fans writing stories involving their favorite magical wizards are frequently recipients of cease-and-desist letters warning against stealing the intellectual property of the hottest entertainment conglomerate in town.) It's hard to say that THE INNER CIRCLE, accomplished and literary and beautifully written as it is, isn't another piece of fan fiction. Alfred Kinsey and his wife (whose nickname is Mac) were real people, and Kinsey's work is as much the stuff of record as of legend. Sure, Milk isn't real, and Boyle has largely invented the individual interactions between Kinsey's staff and their varied interview subjects. But, the portrait painted here is at times intensely unflattering, and it's hard to imagine another author who could get away with describing another subject's painful "urethral insertions" with such aplomb.

How much respect do we owe the dead? And how much can we get away with by attaching a disclaimer saying "this is a work of fiction?" These are as much legal questions as artistic ones, but they also carry a degree of artistic responsibility. One would have to go back to source material and biographies in order to determine how much of Kinsey's work as depicted in THE INNER CIRCLE is real, and one's first reaction, coupled with the suspension of disbelief inherent in fiction, is to assume it is all real, to the probable detriment of the reader's perception of Kinsey's work. In the fan fiction community, writing stories about real people--for example, writing about the actors who play Kirk and Spock, rather than Kirk and Spock themselves--is seen as somehow more morally questionable than writing about fictional characters, even though legally a charge of libel is harder to prosecute in these circumstances than a charge of copyright violation. The idea here, as I see it, is that inventing sexual relationships for real people is an invasion of privacy--and although libel requires the person being libelled to be alive, I would argue that the rule is perhaps even more important if the person in question is dead, because he then can't answer to the charges.

The ethics of fiction primarily concern fabrication of non-fiction, or plagiarism, as many recent high-profile cases can attest. In general, celebrities can make name-dropping appearances in fiction without much cause for concern. But I almost wish that Kinsey could write a rebuttal to this novel, not solely for the joy of his prose, but because he would have been apoplectic at such a challenge to the validity of his work.

EATING ANIMALS - Jonathan Safran Foer - Nonfiction

Every fact in this book is something you should know. I mean that two ways--it is important, and nearly imperative, to know about the conditions under which the meat you (most likely) eat is grown, killed, and prepared. But you also know most of these facts already--most of us are familiar with factory farming, slaughterhouses, and large-scale fishing, and their impacts on the environment and our health. Most of us already know that chickens are stuffed full of antibiotics and given space equivalent to a sheet of paper to live in. Most of us know that bycatch from commercial fishing is draining the ocean of its marine mammals, sea turtles, sharks, and endangered fish. Most of us know that slaughterhouses frequently send live cows down the line, dismembering them while they are still fully conscious. And yet, most of us scoff at "those PETA people" and eat meat not only willingly but avariciously, enthusiastically, at the exclusion of other food groups. Jonathan Safran Foer, in a conversational style reminiscent of his novels, tries to explain why.

I read this book having already become a pescatarian--someone who eats seafood along with a vegetarian diet--but the book has impelled me to start giving up fish. I honestly can't imagine another reaction. There's the animal rights standpoint: why do we keep animals as slaves and brutally kill them, solely for their taste, when eating meat is not biologically necessary to remain healthy? There's the public health standpoint: why do we consume unnecessary antibiotics, and allow the animals we raise to encourage antibiotic-resistant bacteria to proliferate, and eat meat that has been soaked in a bath of tepid fecal matter? There's the personal health standpoint: why, when meat and dairy products have been shown to contribute to a range of diseases, including heart disease and cancer, and living near factory farms has been shown to exacerbate asthma and lung cancer, do we allow these practices to continue?

I've seen criticisms of this book, arguing that Safran Foer isn't saying anything new, that he acts as though he is the first person to have thought of these arguments despite the copious amounts of ink spilled on the matter, that because he wrote this book after having a child and deciding what to feed that child, he is inexcusably solipsistic. In fact, one of the best and most convincing aspects of the work are the sections Foer gives over to other voices: an animal-rights activist with whom he infiltrates a farm, the owner of one such farm, the operator of a 'more humane' slaughterhouse, the founder of Niman Ranch, a cattle ranch, and his vegetarian wife, a PETA employee, and more. Foer wants you to have the whole picture, and he wants you to hear personal accounts from people whose lives are tied into the industry of meat: either supported by it, or fighting against it. These testimonials and justifications lay bare the equivocation and denial necessary to eat meat and tell yourself it's okay to do so. These essays are really all you need.

But Foer's personal story is useful too, because this decision is a personal one at heart. What you are going to eat is going to affect your personal relationships: what you tell your parents to serve you when you come home on the holidays, what you order when you eat out with your friends, what you make for a potluck dinner party, and where you buy your groceries. Not eating meat is not difficult. It's healthy, it's cheap, and it's accessible, by now, with every restaurant offering vegetarian options and every grocery store stocking Boca burgers and textured soy protein. The difficult part is telling yourself, when it comes time to choose between pepperoni and cheese, that the decision you're making is not just about what would taste good to you, what you can afford, or what you would prefer--it's about the life of an animal, about your health and the health of others, and about your moral relationship to animals. It's about being able to look at an animal--your dog, or a cow on a farm--and not feel guilt. It's about hearing about a disease like MRSA, a bacterial infection resistant to multiple antibiotics, antibiotics which we feed to chicken and pigs to prevent them from getting sick under terrible conditions--and knowing whether or not your choices have contributed to its spread. It's about feeling good personally.

On a personal note, giving up meat, even months ago when I gave up everything but chicken and fish, and again when I gave up chicken, and now, giving up fish, I feel wonderful. I've lost weight, I feel like I have more energy, and I feel healthier. I'm happier being able to make that choice at every meal, and feel good about myself. I'm happier to be part of a community of people who have thought about their actions and are choosing a moral good, rather than acting as though such considerations are beneath them. I like having something in common with Jonathan Safran Foer. I would like to have this in common with you.

WICKETT'S REMEDY - Myla Goldberg - Fiction

It's a good thing that the dead are around in Myla Goldberg's novel, supplementing the text with David Foster Wallace-style sidenotes giving their charming and often befuddled recollections, because otherwise this book would be depressing as hell. With a death toll admittedly appropriate for the time (the 1918 flu pandemic), there are still four primary characters felled in rapid succession, of an above-the-line cast of perhaps three times that many. The first death, that of Lydia Kilkenny's earnest and wonky husband, Henry, comes as a striking blow to a narrative constructed around the couple's quest, after Henry drops out of med school, to concoct and market a flavorful tonic designed to cure illness by the force and wit of its accompanying letters of introduction. Lydia shows promise of blossoming into a businesswoman, and Henry comes out of his shell as he realizes the import of his talent with words.

Then Henry dies, immediately and as a result of a bout of what we will later learn is the deadliest influenza ever to blanket the world. Her entrepreneurial hopes cast aside, Lydia turns the reigns of their operation over to Quentin Driscoll, who, as the text has been preparing us for continuously, is to turn the false medicine into a real soft drink sensation. Perhaps the weakest part of the novel, the intercut newsletter (the QDispatch) and press releases from various arms of QD soda are so obviously false and cloying and twee that I instantly disliked Quentin Driscoll, despite the text's attempt to paint him as an up-and-coming young man who inspires confidence and awe in Lydia from their first--and unfortunately only--meeting. This plot putters on, showing us an aged Quentin Driscoll who has stolen the recipe for QD Soda from Lydia without providing her their agreed-upon royalties, and only fesses up when he is about to turn the business over to Ralph, a delivery boy who has risen through the ranks to gain Driscoll's favor. Of course, he also gains Driscoll's favor for sharing the name of Driscoll's deceased son, the victim of, perhaps, a suicide at sea on the part of his mother, Driscoll's last and best love. Now, none of this happens in scene; we hear of it all through imagined newsletter correspondences written by Ralph in quite an ass-kissing tone. The plot is interesting enough to make me want to hear more about it, but aside from these chapter-ending missives, we are given nothing at all to continue this plotline.

Instead, with her brother killed immediately after shipping out for the war, and her neighbors half felled by flu, Lydia discovers that her true calling is nursing, and answers a newspaper ad to be a nurse (or, really, a nurse's aid) at an island of medical experimentation designed to demonstrate how the flu is transmitted (in a cute exchange of anonymous dialogue bookending two chapters, two patients argue over "whether influenza is really bacterial at all!" Of course, as we now know, it is a virus.) On the island, Lydia meets the man who is to be her next husband (again, a fact we only know second-hand through the voices of the dead and these end-of-chapter text selections; can't we have anything in-scene in this novel besides death?) and comes to terms with the grotesqueries of attempting to infect navy deserters with the flu in exchange for commuted sentences.

The novel does a masterful job engaging the reader with the importance of language and friendship in curing disease, and paints a wonderfully vivid picture of 1918 Boston, and particularly Southie. In the end, though, it feels like two novels--one about Lydia-as-entrepreneurial-medicine-saleswoman, and one about Lydia-as-influenza-nurse, and although Lydia's transformative moment, a day as a volunteer at an overrun hospital, is beautifully written, the fact remains that the narrative is held at a joint, and hinges the reader's attention in an ultimately dissatisfying way.