Tag: Girl Who Played With Fire

Stieg Larsson versus Jo Nesbo

A 19th-century propaganda image of (from left ...
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Stieg Larsson everybody knows. With Jo Nesbo it is not the same, despite the many books this guy has already written.  After the whole buzz about Stieg and its world-famous Millennium series, the seek for the next thing to read was unstoppable. So I stumbled upon Jo Nesbo, also Scandinavian, but from Norway.  Now I dare to do this comparison, although one might argue that it might be too soon, as I have read 1800 pages of Stieg and only 480 from Nesbo. Nevertheless, crime fiction has its rules and Nesbo also writes a series with one character (Harry Hole). So allow me to infer that all Nesbo’s books with Harry may have similar content and characteristics. So, here we go:

  1. Personas. Stieg have created Lisbeth Salander, the most innovative and intriguing character in decades. Also others like Bloomkvist and the Vanger family are very well constructed personas. Nesbo’s Harry is a detective with some peculiar aspects, but does not surprise that much. Stieg wins by far.
  1. Plot. Stockholm against Oslo, most of the time. A Tie. But when Nesbo puts Harry in Brazil, for instance, he describes the country, its people and some cities with enormous veracity. Nesbo wins.
  1. Rhythm. The first 150 pages of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo were hard to overcome. A real challenge, but once you’ve done with them, the remaining 500 pages of the first book are pure magic. The other two Millennium books suffer also from this sort of valley, but all in all their pace is fine. Nesbo starts his book already at an incredible speed, but strangely is not capable to keep it throughout the entire journey. Stieg wins, but also a tie could be an option.
  1. Climax. The chain of action that leads to the superb end in Millennium 1 is not so well repeated in The Girl who played with Fire and also not in The Girl who kicked the hornet’s nest. The book I’ve read from Nesbo is also not so fantastic in this regard. Stieg wins only by a nose.
  1. Extras. Stieg builds some other very astonishing stories around the main one. These stories are also involving and interesting and they give you many insides on Sweden, on financial crimes, on violence against women. All of a sudden, it is not anymore just crime fiction, but something else. Stieg wins undoubtedly.

So, in a nutshell, Stieg 4, Nesbo 1 or Stieg 4, Nesbo 2. You chose. But Stieg wins and the search continues.

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The Girl who played with Fire – Millennium 2

The Girl Who Played with Fire (film)
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Millennium second appearance on big screen, “The Girl who Played with Fire ” does not cause the same impact as the first one, “The Girl who the dragon Tattoo”, unfortunately. Using the very same actors, who have delivered good transpositions for the roles of Bloomkvist and Salander, Director Daniel Alfredson have made good choices about what to show from the 600 pages of Stieg Larsson’s book. The mess of the book, with its enormous amount of secondary roles, ws cleaned up. This was for the benefit of the film, although even some important characters were reduced to the very least. The appearance of Dag and Mia, for instance, the couple that triggers the crucial events of this part, was reduced to last less then two minutes! But a more severe mistake was made with the role of Zala. In the book, this character can be identified as Leviathan himself, the incorporation of the Apocalypse. In the film, we see a deceiving simulacrum of a bad guy… There are also too many mistakes in the rithym. To use an expression from “Be kind,,rewind”, but of course with another meaning, this second part is too much “swedish” . I explain: So much is being said recently about the American remake of the first movie, most of it criticizing the fact, myself included. Hollywood tends to deliver a “less dense” film, more oriented to action as it would be adequate, losing the focus on the manifesto against violence on women and most probably also loosing the awkwardness of some characters, like Salander. Well, in the case of this second part, the remake is a need. Because in his second book, Stieg had left the ball kicking for Hollywood. He seemed to have written this already thinking on the screenplay, this being most evident at the book’s final part, which was very spectacular, very very mainstream. The Swedish shooting fails in this second part for not knowing precisely how to dose suspense, action, soundtrack. These essentials elements were too subtle in many scenes, leading to a monochord tone that turns to be very inadequate. In a nut shell: Chance for Hollywood here.

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