Stieg Larsson
Uomini Che Odiano Le Donne

THE REVIEW

I don't know how you feel when reading a good book.

I usually tend to be indifferent. I couldn't care less about anything or anyone. I bask in total indifference towards what surrounds me. And I read, nothing else.

Well, that's exactly what I've been doing these last few days. I told Kierkegaard, Manzoni, Petronius, the Weierstrass theorem, and a thousand other things to go to hell. I forgot to have lunch for two days in a row. I didn't hang out the laundry nor did I load the next washing machine. I didn't even hear my mother's screams when she got home from work to find a mountain of clothes to be dried. She was quite annoyed. Too bad, I had to read.

"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", there's the culprit, the cause of it all. The first chapter of the "Millennium" trilogy, published posthumously in 2005 in Sweden (Larsson had suddenly died in 2004 following a heart attack) and first appeared in Italy in 2007, the book has sold over 8 million copies in Europe, 2.7 million just in Sweden, 1.5 million in France, it has been translated into more than thirty countries and blah blah blah, I could go on with other millions of exorbitant figures. In short, an international success.

Well, I usually don't trust numbers and statistics too much. Sometimes, actually quite often lately, the equation holds: large number of copies sold + countless cheers of joy = huge nonsense.

Mistake, not this time. Fortunately.

Fluid, engaging, gripping to the max, light despite its nearly 700 pages, straightforward and raw to the right degree, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is a great book, which finds its strengths especially in the characters.

Above all, the figure of Lisbeth Salander stands out: half-anorexic, psychologically disturbed, asocial, maladjusted, deemed incompetent, rebellious, a hacker and computer pirate, extremely intelligent, a victim of a violent past and present, as well as one of the most fascinating literary characters I have ever encountered.

I won't spoil the plot for you, firstly because it's too complex, secondly because I'm a jerk. Not really, it's just that I don't want to take away the pleasure of discovering it on your own. Otherwise, what's the fun?

Read it.

I slap the book with a nice 4 and a half which I round up to 5, because not only did it allow me to unplug for a while, but it also proved to be a valid excuse to refuse a favor to an idiot who didn't deserve it.

I'm really a jerk.