A Life Spent Reading

This is the sequel to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and happily it is up to the same high standard. Stieg Larsson has crafted an unusual plot here – I can’t remember ever reading a book where the action was driven to the same degree simply by whether the various members of the supporting cast liked the protagonist or not. But Lisbeth Salander is a very polarizing character, and the device works very well.

The translation here, again by Reg Keeland, is the same odd but workmanlike admixture of British and American English that somehow fits very well in helping to convey the idea that you’re no longer in an English speaking country. I also like the fact that he doesn’t go for the usual cheap trick of throwing in simple greetings and whatnot in the local language. Nothing is worse than trying to get through a novel set in an exotic foreign locale and having to deal with guerilla assaults from italics.

This novel is the second volume of the “Millenium Trilogy”, and unfortunately ends a bit abruptly. (Much different from the first volume, in which the main plot point was solved over a hundred pages before the end of the book.) Apparently the third volume, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, is more along the lines of actually being the second half of this book. All fine and well; I have no problem waiting for the next installment to come out in another six months or so. One piece of advice for those new to the series: I would suggest reading the first volume before tackling this one. While some slightly tedious plot-summarizing occurs at the beginning of this book, you will have a much greater understanding of the various characters’ motivations, which, as mentioned above, is really key to understanding the novel.