A blend of genius, social misfit and violent psychopath, Lisbeth Salander, the protagonist in Stieg Larsson's bestseller, The Girl Who Played With Fire (Vintage Books, 2009, translated from Swedish by Reg Keeland, 724 pages), ranks among the most fascinating of fictional young women. There's nothing tedious about any page on which she appears.
Maybe it's no wonder! The author who created this “frayed individual” has a remarkable history too. Fifty-year-old Larsson, an outspoken Swedish journalist, died in 2004 from a huge heart attack. Rumors swirled that he'd been murdered after receiving death threats for years of documenting and exposing extreme-right, racist and Nazi organizations.
Before his demise, Larsson wrote a trilogy -- three novels. One, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, appeared in 2005 and an English translation three years later. Another, The Girl Who Played With Fire, won a Best Swedish Crime Novel Award in 2006. An English translation of the third, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, appeared recently.
Ironically, The Girl Who Played With Fire's plot features a media story, a magazine investigation into human-trafficking and Stockholm's sex industry, turning too hot to handle. Someone murders the reporter and his criminologist wife.
Circumstantial evidence, bad luck and a nose for trouble make Salander the main suspect. With police and journalists in pursuit, she eludes them and defends herself by computer hacking, puzzle-solving and sheer ferocity.
Magazine editor Mikael Blomkvist, a friend of Salander's from the first book, can't imagine her guilt. Although mystified by the enigmatic heroine, he launches his own investigation to clear her name, perhaps an impossible task. “There are no innocents. There are, however, different degrees of responsibility.”
Working separately, Salander and Blomkvist discover new layers of evil. How can the heroine endure such adversity? At times, she appears to be doomed, but shows astonishing resilience and resourcefulness. “There are not so many physical threats that could not be countered with a decent hammer, Salander thought.”
Sometimes Larsson fumbles with details. One character “woke up on the floor of his living room. He did not know how long he had been unconscious. His body hurt all over and he couldn't move. It took him a while to realize that his hands were tied behind his back with electrical tape….” Could he really identify what held his hands behind him?
Often the author over-explains, giving too many needless details. At other times, he's more concise. Consider a man recovering from a massive stroke:
“He was resigned to being unable to walk properly, and he accepted that there was a great deal he would be unable to do. But he hated not being able to eat properly and the fact that sometimes he drooled like a baby.
He knew exactly what it was he should do: lower the fork at the right angle, push it forward, lift it, and guide it to his mouth. The problem was with the co-ordination. His hand had a life of its own. When he instructed it to lift, it would slide slowly to the side of the plate. If he did manage to steer it towards his mouth, it often changed direction at the last moment and landed on his cheek or his chin.”
Yet even the above passage looks flawed. Most strokes affect half a person’s body -- the right side or left side, depending on where blood-flow problems hamper the brain. Typically, stroke victims still have one hand perfectly capable of handling a fork at mealtimes.
The Girl Who Played With Fire lasts about 100 pages too long and has a few too many characters chasing in circles. But despite the imperfections, it’s entertaining.
Just beware of the heroine. Her friends and sympathizers tend to face unexpected dangers.
Approval rating: 77 per cent.
(March 8, 2010)
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