"The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" - Absolute Drivel!
Kapellmeister
Posts: 41,322 Forum Member
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I enjoyed the first Larrson book and the second was ok-ay but I've nearly finished struggling through TGWKTHN and it has been one of the worst books I've ever read. It was so bloated, so badly in need of serious editing, so tedious and boring.
e.g., in the style of Larsson:
"Blomkvist woke earlier than usual, got up and showered, using his favourite herbal shower gel, before getting dressed and having some breakfast: a bacon sandwich, complete with some brown sauce served up on a blue and white plate. The Colombian coffee was delicious, a rich blend that he bought regularly from a small shop on a corner near his apartment. He then walked to the office, enjoying the sunshine of the early morning. The buildings he passed were of all different types, some made of stone, some of brick, some white, others darker, but this was Stockholm and there were a lot of buildings in Stockholm that day".
FFS! Get on with it!
All the characters do is sit around in groups talking to each other and reading different files. It is all indescribably tedious. I hate Salander as a character and always have done. She is totally repellent and impossible to sympathise with. But Blomkvist is even worse. I despise him. His faux-Bohemian, middle-class, self-satisfied, self-righteous, pseudo-intelligentsia smugness is unbearable!
The plot is contorted and boring. Larrson goes on for pages describing the inner workings of some secret police department. I actually skipped entire paragraphs, something I hardly ever do when reading. Fair enough, Larsson enjoys getting on his soapbox about his 'causes' but I resent having it so dictatorially forced down my throat.
Finally, the book is stuffed with the sort of man-hating crap more characteristic of a deranged 1960s feminist. In the book, all the men are either weird, sex-perverts and/or criminals and all the women either feisty freedom-fighters or victims (except for the men like Blomkvist who have adopted supposedly feminine traits - Blomkvist ends up with some short-haired, tall blonde who is physically stronger than he is). It's all appalling trash.
I cannot think why this book has had such good reviews or such an easy ride (apart from the obvious answer that it's just an Emperor's New Clothes scenario brought on by the sudden death of the author).
:mad::)
e.g., in the style of Larsson:
"Blomkvist woke earlier than usual, got up and showered, using his favourite herbal shower gel, before getting dressed and having some breakfast: a bacon sandwich, complete with some brown sauce served up on a blue and white plate. The Colombian coffee was delicious, a rich blend that he bought regularly from a small shop on a corner near his apartment. He then walked to the office, enjoying the sunshine of the early morning. The buildings he passed were of all different types, some made of stone, some of brick, some white, others darker, but this was Stockholm and there were a lot of buildings in Stockholm that day".
FFS! Get on with it!
All the characters do is sit around in groups talking to each other and reading different files. It is all indescribably tedious. I hate Salander as a character and always have done. She is totally repellent and impossible to sympathise with. But Blomkvist is even worse. I despise him. His faux-Bohemian, middle-class, self-satisfied, self-righteous, pseudo-intelligentsia smugness is unbearable!
The plot is contorted and boring. Larrson goes on for pages describing the inner workings of some secret police department. I actually skipped entire paragraphs, something I hardly ever do when reading. Fair enough, Larsson enjoys getting on his soapbox about his 'causes' but I resent having it so dictatorially forced down my throat.
Finally, the book is stuffed with the sort of man-hating crap more characteristic of a deranged 1960s feminist. In the book, all the men are either weird, sex-perverts and/or criminals and all the women either feisty freedom-fighters or victims (except for the men like Blomkvist who have adopted supposedly feminine traits - Blomkvist ends up with some short-haired, tall blonde who is physically stronger than he is). It's all appalling trash.
I cannot think why this book has had such good reviews or such an easy ride (apart from the obvious answer that it's just an Emperor's New Clothes scenario brought on by the sudden death of the author).
:mad::)
0
Comments
You mean it was 700+ pages of nothing
As a concluding part to a trilogy, I found the book weirdly unsatisfying mostly due to Salander's absence. But it's worth bearing in mind that it was never intended to be a trilogy, so I'm going on the theory that Larsson was 'resting' her until book four when she'd pop back up again.
OT but I work in a bookshop and one of our customers claims there are over 50 mentions of coffee in the Hornets Nest alone :eek:
Amazonians only had one breast, however there is no evidence whatsoever to back this up.
The last 100 or so pages of the book were great, the rest of it was pretty pish
I've got about 40 pages left to read. I can't believe I've nearly made it to the end, and yes, the stuff about the Amazons was just pointless (unless we're supposed to equate Salander with an Amazon). I was gutted that Blomkvist
I've never read a book in which the main characters are so unbearably smug.
Really enjoyed the build up to the court case. It was a very satisfying end to a wonderful trilogy.
I agree with every word. Yes, the fact that Blomkvist was an idealised version of how Larrson wanted to be was painfully obvious.
Anyway, I've now finished it, thank god. Even the ending managed to go on and on and on. One ridiculous final episode involved Salander going to Gibraltar and we were given a long, detailed and utterly boring back story about her accountant! And then the scene with her brother at the end seemed totally rushed and incidental. I wonder whether it wasn't tacked on by someone else after Larrson died in order to tie up the loose ends.
I reviewed it on Amazon and gave it 2 out of 5 stars.
I agree with some others though, I don't think it was intended to be a trilogy, apparently, according to some websites he was in the middle of the 4th book, but I don't know if thats just rumours or what.
The court case and the arrests of Sapo was probably the best writing of all 3 books, I was hooked!
If they had had been edited down they could have been alot better, but it is what it is, populist thriller, I've read alot worse.:eek:
I'd also agree with others who say that Blomkvist is somewhat smug. And all the women characters seem to fall into bed with him at the drop of a Billy bookcase.
I thought that passage was great, and even found myself thinking of checking out the Ikea website to see what some of the stuff was she'd bought.
I'd agree Blomkvist was a bit annoyingly smug at times, but I don't mind being annoyed at characters.
This made me chuckle.