Ejderha Dövmeli Kiz (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo)

Original Title: Män Som Hatar Kvinnor

Turkish Title: Ejderha Dövmeli Kiz

English Title: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium, #1)
Author: Stieg Larsson

Pages: 646
Rating: 4/5
Applicable Challenges: 50 Books A Year, Awesome Author Challenge 2010, Chunkster Reading Challenge, Book Awards Reading Challenge

WHY THIS BOOK?
In Turkey the publisher spent a good amount of money on advertising the book. I just couldn’t avoid and bought the book at the end. I am happy with my decision as it was a really nice read.

THE STORY:

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the first book of Millennium Trilogy by Swedish author, Stieg Larsson. It’s an award winner and its genre can simply be classified as crime. The author had finished his Millennium Trilogy in 2004 but the books were published, translated into many languages and became bestsellers all around the world after Larsson’s death in 2004.

The book is mainly about a middle-aged financial journalist, Mikael Blomkvist and the year he has to spend searching for a mysterious disappearance, which has remained unsolved for almost forty years. He gets the help of Lisbeth Salander, a lonely girl who loner who treats everyone she meets with a certain level of hostility.

MY COMMENTS:
As usual, before I start writing my blog post about this book, I spent some time to read what other reviewers/bloggers said about the book. I was surprised to read about what one of the first translators of this book said.

The translator, Reg Keeland was not happy with the English editor’s after work and he insisted that the credit of the translation be given to a pen name. He was so disgusted with the output that he didn’t want to be any part of it. The most annoying thing for Keeland was the change in name. The original Swedish title would be either “The Man Who Hated Women” or “Men Who Hated Women”. Having read the book, I can relate to Keeland’s argument for the change in the title.

When it comes to book itself, it was a quick read for me. I see that many has described the book as a page-turner and I absolutely agree. Some parts of the book (those including scenes of violence) were a bit annoying for me but on the other hand, I know these are everyday realities for a good number of people.

The book was also informative for me because I was clueless about the Nazi activism in Sweden before, during and after World War II. When I checked the background information of the author, I read that Larsson was a leading expert on the antidemocratic right-wing extremist and Nazi organizations. Now I wonder if there are still hidden Nazi leanings in Swedish business world. I believe the author’s original aim was to create some curiosity about the reality of racism between the lines.