The Girl Who Played with Hornet Castles in the Air

Interestingly, the original Swedish title is only the same in English (translated, of course) for The Girl Who Played with Fire; the first book translated as Men Who Hate Women and the third as The Air Castle that Blew Up.  I actually prefer the English titles because they lend a sense of consistency to a series; these are "the girl who..." books in my mind.


I actually liked the latter two books better than the first; or perhaps, my reading experience was better because I was ready for them to simply be fairly well-written crime thrillers, populated with cartoon-y heroes and villains, with some awkward bits that the editors should have caught** and without any deep thoughts*** -- something about the reviews of the first book/movie led me to think that it was more than that.  To be clear, Larsson definitely succeeded, in the sense that I was sad upon finishing the third book because there aren't any more Salander stories to read, and I stayed up late in order to finish each of the last two books.


** Figuerola is a 6 foot tall former near-Olympic quality gymnast?  Even coming after the slightly ludicrous natures of Lisbeth's mind, Niederman's physique, and Blomkvist's sex appeal, this was hard to swallow.  I also disbelieve that no one from the police went to interview Palmgren in The Girl Who Played with Fire.  That's a little bit too incompetent.  Lastly, the "mystery" of Berger's stalker is disappointing because there are no clues as to who the perpetrator is.


*** I can applaud Larsson's stance on discrimination against women without having learned anything new from it.... though perhaps something to talk about.  Blomkvist is a complicated character in all this because he is presented as someone who by their words and actions is someone who doesn't hate women in a series filled with men who hate women... and yet, he is a terrible husband and father.  Paradoxically, the only two women in the series that he actually has a socially well-defined duty to love and support are the two he does his best to ignore.