Why am I not enjoying Stieg Larsson?

I read this thread briefly when it started, and I had not picked up 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'. Its been on my shelf since Christmas time.

However, on Monday night I picked it up, and now, on Saturday morning, bleary eyed from staying up till 1am reading it I have to say that I am loving it!
Yes, the names are complicated, and it would be easy if they were called John Smith, Paul Brown and Peter Green etc, but apart from that I can't fault it.
Yes, there is graphic murder descriptions and violence, but to my its in context and not gratutitous.

Now, all I need is about 3 hours straight on my own with no disruptions & I can finish it!

Oh I'm so interested in this Maria1665. Have been put of reading because of the violence against women.

What is the consensus? Feminist or misogynistic?

I have only read Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and, while the story itself kept me reading to the end, the actual content of the book was full of graphically described extreme sexual violence against women. The major female characters are without exception those with whom the main male character has had sex.

And the 'taster' of the second book, printed at the end of the first one to get me to buy it, was a graphic scene of a woman being subjected to a sadistic anal rape.

The fact that the Llarson starts each chapter with statistics showing the extent of sexual violence towards women seems to have earned Llarson a reputation as a feminist. But the content of the books and the way they are marketed is frankly purient.

Loved them all - you'd do much better reading them in order though

Loved them all - nearly called my new baby girl Lisbeth!!

It was well well over half way through before i really got into the first book, i am glad i persevered but did find the ending a bit disappointing and am not sure i am ready to try book two yet....

I saw the Swedish language film of the first book. made the mistake of goibg before finishing the book. But, although the story twist is quite good, still thought it was a load of gratuitously violent schlop. And hasn't made me want to read teh other books.

Loved them! ALL of them.

I'm about halfway through the third one and have found it slower to get into than the others but I'm really enjoying it now! I was bought the trilogy by a relative and didn't expect them to be any good to be honest but I've barely been able to put them down. Would be interested to see the film though, it's such a complex story that I'm not really sure how they'd have done it?

I read a lot of crime fiction and thought this was just OK, certainly not worthy of the hype - I just couldn't warm to Salander at all.

I really enjoyed them.

You have to read them order.

The first book took me a little while to get into but when I did get into it I couldnt wait to read the whole lot.

Salanders character was great and that was what made me read the other two. Yes, some of it was unbelievable, and some was a bit waffly but the plot was great imo

First two books were great page turners, but I agree with others that found the third book disappointing.

ALL BRILLIANT - WON'T HEAR A WORD SAID AGAINST ANY ONE OF THEM.

I loved them....but agree with all the negative comments! Clumsy writing (although perhaps that's because the translation needs to give the feel of the original), one-dimensional characters (all of whom fancy Blomqvist) and I really hated the description of rape/torture at the start of book 2 - I thought it added absolutely nothing to anything. But they were also fast-paced and gripping, and Lisbeth is a good character (it would have been great if she could have been talented without being "damaged" IMO).

SPOILER ALERT - I thought he would do something fantastic with Camila Salander, can't believe she never appeared.

I found it very hard to start book 3 and nearly went back to read the others again, because of the similar names and characters. I couldn't remember where it was up to. But there's such a clear divide, they are either goodies or baddies, that it doesn't matter if you get one of the journalists mixed up with one of the detectives.

I might read them again...but only once.

I also really liked the first two although read them out of order having picked up no 2 first without realising it... 3 not so good perserved til the end but needed a massive edit as a lot of no 2 in it............

could not read past page 70 of the first one as too dull.

I loved the first one. A classic cold case whodunit based on a totally dysfunctional family.
The second, I struggled with a bit. I found the Swedish names a bit repetitive, and had to focus to understand all the political intrigue. The third one, more so.
I agree some heavy editing should have been done.
I enjoyed the books overall, but I don't classify them as great literature by any means.
Also, (SPOILER)

Was there any woman apart from his sister who Blomqvist didn't sleep with? I began to find it tedious, especially since it seemed to bear no relation to the plot. Though, to be fair, we'll never know now what he had planned. I would have loved to have seen Camilla Salander.

Also, I found the whole Berger/Blomqvist/Bergman thing a bit off. Maybe I'm prudish, but the whole happily married couple who need the wife to regularly shag another guy to maintain their marital bliss just didn't quite sit with me.
Not to mention the bisexual video - that whole plot I thought added nothing to the overall story, just a not very interesting red herring.

But isn't the point that a good translator wouldn't make it sound like a foreign person speaking english. It would sound like everyday english. Untranslated, the text flows really well and doesn't feel at all stilted to me. As always with a book from another culture it's hard to get the cultural connotation when reading. I never thought the Royle family was funny until I had lived in England for a couple of years and simple things like interrupting the christmas showing of Disney on tv, in the first book, wouldn't really translate well. (In sweden, everyone watches a very old Disney show at three a clock on christmas eve and it's pretty bad manners to interrupt it)

I'm half way through the 3rd and really enjoying the trilogy. I do agree about there being too much detail and each book taking a while to get going.

Misogynistic though- NO!! It's about misogynists getting their comeuppance!

I dashed through them all, was enjoying books 1 and 2 in a blockbustery kind of way, but got really disenchanted by book 3 - too obviuosly complete wish-fulfilment by Larsson by then, as others have said.

Yep, bloke with no responsibilities, eternal adolescence, widely respected by peers, all girls want to shag him. And once I'd figured that was all that was going on, I really lost all my enjoyment.

I love them. Am hooked on no 3 at the moment. Did take me a while to get into book 1 (100 pages or so) but then I couldn't put it down.

I disagree about them not reading well in English. I have a couple of good Swedish friends who live in this country and speak English in their day-to-day lives; this is written exactly how they speak English.

I read them all really quickly, stayed up too late because I was quite gripped by the plot.
OTOH I do agree that the translation was clunky and there was too much extraneous detail.
My mum was vastly offended by the sexual violence

1 was borderline/OKish. Gave up quickly on 2.

Yy about shit translation/editing.

I enjoyed them all, although I agree that they need editing.

You have to read them order!!! Starting with the third is pointless.

I have just started the third one for the second time (like you only got into about 50 odd pages and then life got busy so had to put it down). DH then caught me up having finished the last two and he has just read the third one in pretty much one sitting.

It is going to be my 8-hour-plane-journey-book in a fornight.

He said it was fantastic and well worth sticking with