Stieg Larsson’s The Girl Who Played with Fire starts with a confidence, maybe certainty, that the readers of his previous book will hold on no matter what. Lisbeth Salander gets a lot of pages. This is her book. She travels the world; reads Principia Mathematica; tries proving Little Fermat’s theorem; and gets her breasts enlarged, which is possibly as gratifying as it could get in her life.
Although Salander occasionally thinks aloud about “All The Evil” and we eventually find out everything worth knowing about her past, for more than the first quarter of the novel, nothing more sinister than the vignettes in a dull crime beat section of a newspaper takes place. I felt the writing even getting sloppier in a few corners. Nevertheless, old readers will have stayed, are duly rewarded, and will in all likelihood like this more than the first book once they reach the end.
A double murder and another seemingly unconnected murder in which Salander becomes the prime suspect, a manhunt (more like a modern witch hunt), and three parallel investigations suddenly swallow the reader in a storm much like Matilda in the Caribbean. Larsson does something brilliant at this point: he hides Salander for more than another quarter of the book, essentially conveying the exasperation of Mikael Blomkvist (whom Salander has ignored for more than a year now) and of the Swedish Police to the reader.
Although Larsson made it look convincing, I could not help noticing the incompetence of the Police during their investigation. It is understandable for them to chase in the direction shown by the most apparent circumstantial evidence, but their negligence in following up some crucial matters like the works of the dead “conscientious couple” and the interrogation of Salander’s previous guardian Palmgren made them “lose face” once again. Perhaps I was expecting more from Inspector Bubble and his team – which I can’t be blamed for – but they mostly failed me.
Larsson created even more characters than he did for his previous book, and these are livelier, possibly because these are mostly alive. The underlying debate between blaming the society and blaming the individual for a misdeed is fiercer, and it is clear where Larsson’s own feelings lie. He highlights the failure of social welfare systems through their appalling treatment of Salander herself. Continuing pointing at the atrocities against women, this time he chooses human trafficking as the background, ironically calling it From Russia With Love, and suggests the government’s apathy for underage illegal immigrants. I was amused by Larsson’s caricature of the Swedish media, which to some extent provides good company to the Indian media. Homophobia is an additional theme, and having occasionally heard and read about the Swedish comfort with sexuality and having watched Fucking Åmål, I was surprised.
In The Girl Who Played with Fire Salander arouses more pity than before, especially during her grief about Mirriam Wu towards the end (she cries!), and of course in the devastating final scene, while Larsson has fun by getting explicit about Salander being based on the legendary Pippi Longstocking. While reading this book I was suddenly reminded of my math teacher in school, who was similarly diminutive and quick.
At the end it is clear that Berger may be sidetracked, advokat Annika (Blomkvist’s sister) will play a major role, and Salander will spend more of her time in you-will-know-where in the next book. I could stomach that, I am preparing for the worst, but I am completely unprepared for the unavailability of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest in Indian bookstores.
P.S. I discovered that I don’t like “Jesus Christ” being used exclamatorily more than once in a book.
Image Source: Euro Crime
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