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.)