The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
by Stieg Larsson
I did not want to like this book. Its UK publishers have chosen an unfortunate cover design that makes it look at worst like a third-rate mystery and at best a thriller that tries too hard. Fortunately it’s neither of these things, but nevertheless I still had problems.
It takes a long time to understand what the story will actually be about – the reader is 100 pages in before Larsson unveils the central thrust: that a young girl went missing 40 years ago, that her aged uncle is now keen to claw her back and that he will expose the corruption in his powerful family to do so. He recruits a rebel with an axe to grind to do the hunting, and before long a social-outcast is in tow, dealing with her own demons while uncovering those of a terrible dynasty.
There is little originality there, for sure. But it is Larsson’s intriguing approach that gives this thriller its edge. Tattoo is the first part in a trilogy published hastily after Larsson’s death. I suspect that, owing to his death, the trilogy did not receive much of an edit. For it is stunted by missing links crucial to a crime novel. Our hero Blomqvist has a daughter who performs no function (not even to characterise Blomqvist); we feel that she could be important to the story but she just is not (one wonders if she’s highlighted in later parts). Additionally, there are numerous passages in which Larsson eschews craft in favour of reporting blandly what happened. This way of telling not showing can be tiresome and distracting. The novel is also full of clichés (“coming up for air” during sex should surely earn him one of Literary Review's Bad Sex Awards) that really annoyed me.
That said, and although it could not be described as a tight thriller, Tattoo has its charms. The politics of running a respected magazine fascinated me and the central enigma itself did have me hooked (even if there were not enough options for the armchair detective to consider). I’ll be reading the second part when it is published in paperback, if only for a fix not love.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
A mature voice
The Country Ahead of Us, The Country Behind
by David Guterson
It is alarming how effortlessly Guterson paints a character. He needs only a few words drawn into a sentence or two to show his reader almost everything about a character. Guterson’s skill is in giving his reader almost the whole person in an instant. It is a sensation so rarely found in fiction, that of seeing a character as vividly as you see the lady opposite you on the bus, as she yawns and looks apprehensively through the free newspaper at the outcome of dinner tonight.
This slim volume contains 10 short stories. Each contains a different cast of characters; although they shade the pages temporarily Guterson’s characterisations are so complete that you feel as if you’ve read an entire novel on every one. Each story in this touching collection manages to dismantle the minutiae of a man’s life (the old hunter who deliberately leaves behind his gun on his last trip, the brothers who have to move to the city so their father can work) while simultaneously looking objectively at how a man forges his identity: the experiments of childhood, the upheavals of maturity, the disappointment of age.
The collection shines with honesty as it explores the crises that trouble men of varying ages, exposing their flaws and their beauty. Country is an immense achievement in subtlety and precision of language. And it is also one of the most quietly affecting books I’ve read in a long time.
by David Guterson
It is alarming how effortlessly Guterson paints a character. He needs only a few words drawn into a sentence or two to show his reader almost everything about a character. Guterson’s skill is in giving his reader almost the whole person in an instant. It is a sensation so rarely found in fiction, that of seeing a character as vividly as you see the lady opposite you on the bus, as she yawns and looks apprehensively through the free newspaper at the outcome of dinner tonight.
This slim volume contains 10 short stories. Each contains a different cast of characters; although they shade the pages temporarily Guterson’s characterisations are so complete that you feel as if you’ve read an entire novel on every one. Each story in this touching collection manages to dismantle the minutiae of a man’s life (the old hunter who deliberately leaves behind his gun on his last trip, the brothers who have to move to the city so their father can work) while simultaneously looking objectively at how a man forges his identity: the experiments of childhood, the upheavals of maturity, the disappointment of age.
The collection shines with honesty as it explores the crises that trouble men of varying ages, exposing their flaws and their beauty. Country is an immense achievement in subtlety and precision of language. And it is also one of the most quietly affecting books I’ve read in a long time.
Full of excuses
The Member of the Wedding
by Carson McCullers
Like a poem, wrote McCullers, this novel had to be beautiful otherwise there would be no excuse for it.
A startling – but honestly correct – admission; McCullers was not wrong. Indeed, if it were not for the beauty in her fourth novel’s language this mere coming-of-age story would fall flat. For it is via precise prose that we are led into the world of Frankie, a twelve-year-old tomboy who is wasting away a long, steamy southern summer with her housekeeper and much younger male cousin. Instead of enjoying what she has in front of her – a sassy surrogate mother in Berenice and a loyal, adorable friend in John Henry – Frankie superimposes herself onto dreamed-up scenarios. Her most real and apparently believable dream is to be part of her brother’s wedding. Not content with having a part to play on the day, Frankie is convinced that she can join the marriage, that she can live a wonderful, classy life with her brother and sister-in-law. It is this central dream that forms the basis of McCullers’ novel, as Frankie deconstructs her own individuality as a twelve-year-old girl and asks philosophically how she can become part of a ‘we’.
Frankie spends the most vivid scenes of the book plodding around the kitchen, riling Berenice (the best black character written by a white writer from the time) and confusing poor John Henry. It is a book in which nothing much happens. But, on the other hand, everything happens. Epiphanies do not happen atop mountains; they occur at the kitchen sink. And so it is in her father’s sleepy house that Frankie does not quite come of age but merely begins asking the tough questions that will lead her to adulthood.
In the novel’s surprising central sequence, we follow the young girl into town. She wanders about aimlessly and begins somewhat of a relationship with a soldier. It is in this development that McCullers can explore the clash of childhood innocence with the corruption of adulthood. The passage is incredibly brave and could so easily have subsumed the novel’s focus. Instead, it is merely one step in Frankie’s blossoming – as she does with everything in her life, Frankie storms through it. She paves her own path, teaching readers who have forgotten that twelve-year-olds are naturally struck at that age by an extraordinary feeling of opportunity.
In writing a simple coming-of-age tale, McCullers must have felt the weight of opportunity. She chose one absurd but infinitely endearing desire for Frankie and built the story and her protagonist’s development around that. It’s a clever excuse.
by Carson McCullers
Like a poem, wrote McCullers, this novel had to be beautiful otherwise there would be no excuse for it.
A startling – but honestly correct – admission; McCullers was not wrong. Indeed, if it were not for the beauty in her fourth novel’s language this mere coming-of-age story would fall flat. For it is via precise prose that we are led into the world of Frankie, a twelve-year-old tomboy who is wasting away a long, steamy southern summer with her housekeeper and much younger male cousin. Instead of enjoying what she has in front of her – a sassy surrogate mother in Berenice and a loyal, adorable friend in John Henry – Frankie superimposes herself onto dreamed-up scenarios. Her most real and apparently believable dream is to be part of her brother’s wedding. Not content with having a part to play on the day, Frankie is convinced that she can join the marriage, that she can live a wonderful, classy life with her brother and sister-in-law. It is this central dream that forms the basis of McCullers’ novel, as Frankie deconstructs her own individuality as a twelve-year-old girl and asks philosophically how she can become part of a ‘we’.
Frankie spends the most vivid scenes of the book plodding around the kitchen, riling Berenice (the best black character written by a white writer from the time) and confusing poor John Henry. It is a book in which nothing much happens. But, on the other hand, everything happens. Epiphanies do not happen atop mountains; they occur at the kitchen sink. And so it is in her father’s sleepy house that Frankie does not quite come of age but merely begins asking the tough questions that will lead her to adulthood.
In the novel’s surprising central sequence, we follow the young girl into town. She wanders about aimlessly and begins somewhat of a relationship with a soldier. It is in this development that McCullers can explore the clash of childhood innocence with the corruption of adulthood. The passage is incredibly brave and could so easily have subsumed the novel’s focus. Instead, it is merely one step in Frankie’s blossoming – as she does with everything in her life, Frankie storms through it. She paves her own path, teaching readers who have forgotten that twelve-year-olds are naturally struck at that age by an extraordinary feeling of opportunity.
In writing a simple coming-of-age tale, McCullers must have felt the weight of opportunity. She chose one absurd but infinitely endearing desire for Frankie and built the story and her protagonist’s development around that. It’s a clever excuse.
Welcome to my book review blog!
Hello to everyone out there in the blogosphere and beyond.
Here you will find reviews of books I come across.
My reading list has no design. What I see is what you get.
Happy reading.
Adam.
Here you will find reviews of books I come across.
My reading list has no design. What I see is what you get.
Happy reading.
Adam.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
