Stieg Larsson
Uomini Che Odiano Le Donne

The maternal advice remains there, patiently waiting to be heeded. On a rainy evening a few months ago, (before the sales boom exploded), unsure of what to do, I glance at the kitchen table at home. Mysterious and intriguing cover with a beautiful use of the burgundy color. I flip through it with curiosity. Soon, I find myself sitting down to read "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"; the first part of Stieg Larsson's "The Millennium Trilogy".

I liked it for several reasons.

Despite having two sequels, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” stands on its own. It concludes by solving the mystery that sets the stage and breaks the initial balance: the murder/disappearance that had obsessed the life of an elderly Swedish industrialist (Henrik Vanger) for 40 years. The natural consequence is that when the reader closes the last page, they feel sated and satisfied. They cannot foresee how the subsequent "The Girl Who Played with Fire" might evolve and are therefore not put in the unpleasant situation of having to seek out the sequel to resolve loose ends left annoyingly hanging.

In the easy and misleading collective imagination, Sweden is a "cool" place. Beautiful girls, maybe wanton, strictly with blonde hair and blue eyes. A cold and distant country, yet close to Europe. A happy land with few inhabitants immersed in a nearly untouched natural environment, with a healthcare and welfare system at the forefront, etc... Larsson, under the guise of the plot, uses the machete and talks to us about women and his Country, offering us a dark and detailed photograph of a nation in crisis: political and economic, wherein the mistreatment of women reaches not only worrying but dizzying percentages. With violent and realistic descriptions, we enter the lowest and most animalistic side of the human soul that knows no justifications.

The north has always attracted me: I have always imagined it dangerous, yet fascinating. The location chosen for most of the events is a tiny village at the bottom of Sweden: Hedeby. We feel the biting cold gripping it in a long, lightless embrace for months, and then we savor the explosion of colors that bursts forth in a handful of days of mild summer. A place thus capable of being suitable for both the darkest misdeeds and the beginning of a hesitant and fleeting love story.

Larsson's style is simple yet winning. Short sentences with few lengthy subordinates. The result is a narrative that flows with generally elementary language yet has the capacity to become extremely technical or vulgar and heavy as needed. One of the book's strengths lies in its meticulous description of situations as they arise, focusing even on minute details. As we read, we have impressed in our minds the icy roads, the diners, the basements, and, in general, the locations of the thriller with truly exceptional precision.

Theoretically, based on the plot, the protagonist should be the missing girl (Harriet is her name), or the journalist/impromptu detective (Mikael Blomqvist), who goes on a hesitant and perplexed search. And yet, though the spotlight shifts on her much less compared to the subsequent two chapters, the real star is the petite Lisbeth Salander. The ice-hearted hacker. Larsson realized he had created a cryptic, magnetic, and damnably current character. He is in no hurry, peeling back the protagonist layer by layer, offering glimpses of what might lie beneath, only to retreat immediately. Bisexual, judged psychologically incompetent despite possessing an exceptional intellect, hacker, light as a breadstick yet lethal and tough as a coffin nail. Glacial and hermetic to the nth degree, she embodies the complexity of contemporary society within her 40 kilos.

The story constructed is overall captivating, with an intriguing mystery unraveled after long and rewarding detours and meticulous search. The journalist (a charming Don Giovanni in crisis) who investigates faces an unresolved puzzle covered in cobwebs: he knows the perpetrator is likely one of the town's inhabitants and, after 40 years, tries to piece together the mosaic. Thanks to a good construction of the plot and sequence of events with studied scene changes (Hedeby and Stockholm), we struggle to find the culprit. Nevertheless, as previously mentioned, if it weren't for Lisbeth's character, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” would simply be a successful thriller. Pleasantly written, for its setting and story, it would inevitably end up forgotten.

The fact is, when we close the book, we are not completely relieved and satisfied by the closure, as usually happens. Instead, we spontaneously think of Lisbeth's character. We see, in fact, the enormous submerged iceberg to be revealed in the following two chapters, and as we head to the bookstore, we realize that "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" was but an eternal intro, a tantalizing bait, and that the author (unfortunately deceased) has skillfully hooked us.

In conclusion, I would advise against watching the namesake film released this summer. Not an indecent movie, but absolutely incapable of capturing the atmospheres and complexity of the characters described in the print, and because of its mediocrity, could preclude reading the book, infinitely superior and fulfilling.

ilfreddo