Why am I not enjoying Stieg Larsson?

[annh]

Ok, I admit I have started with the third book, The Girl who Kicked the Hornets Nest, as I saw it in the library on Sat, but I just can't get into it. Am only on about page 90 but finding it difficult to identify with any of the characters or indeed even keep all the various policemen straight in my mind. Two of the characters also have confusingly similar names. Should I persevere or would I be better trying the first book in the trilogy?

Must admit when I started reading the 1st book was wondering what all the fuss was about but then once all the thrilling stuff kicked in was hooked and really was shocked when found out who the 'Baddie' was. Will be interesting to see how the film turns out!?

Yes the book is horrific to women was really shocked with one particular scene, made me feel a bit sick, so on that note was not enjoyable. Is it true all the statistics at the beginning of each chapter on women being sexually assaualted and attacked?

A literate translation of the Swedish title is Men who hate women, and that is an ongoing theme. There are strong women in the book though and the writer isn't condoning the violence. I did find some scenes difficult though, especially when listening to the audiobook.

sfxmum, have a look here
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_with_the_Dragon_Tattoo_%28film%29

Noomi Rapace who plays Lisbeth is really good in the part I think.

i quite liked the first one but did find the graphic detail in bits pretty hard going. I found it verylong winded as well. To be honest the preamble for the second one has pretty much put me off already.

Currently finishing the second bourne trilogy which is much better imo

I thought the first one was decent, the second one so so and I can't even read the 3rd one.

I find Salander to be the most unsympathetic female character I have ever read.

Read the first one, thought it was bit meh tbh.

Someone once said to me, "a good indicator of how unenjoyable a book is going to be is if there's a family tree or a map at the start".

Also didn't like the way all the female characters fell helplessly in love with the main bloke, the journalist.

"Also didn't like the way all the female characters fell helplessly in love with the main bloke, the journalist." Yes, yes, yes, Definite projection by Larsson there.

I have JUST finished the 3rd one after reading all three. Found the first one quite good, 2nd one not as good and the third hard going. As others have said lots of waffle and repetition and confusing names.... There are so many characters in the 3rd I kept forgetting which one was which and couldn't even figure out if they were male or female! Still he covers some interesting issues and I like the overall story if not a bit unbelieveable. I think Salanders character is excellent.

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

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

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

Yy about shit translation/editing.

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

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 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'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!

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 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.

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

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............

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.

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

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