Unlike Most, I Didn't Like 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'

It’s been impossible to not take notice of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series. The books have been everywhere with their unusual covers wrapped around what promises to be a compelling tale featuring a butt-kicking leading character in the mysterious Lisbeth Salander. My parents read the first book. My sister-in-law bought it too. A local book club designated it as a monthly selection. The books were turned into films. So, several months ago, I thought I’d give it a whirl.

In fact, you might’ve noticed that in my “Currently Reading” tab on the right-hand column of this blog, the image of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo had been sitting there for months. And months. Usually it doesn’t take me months to get through a book, unless of course, I’m having trouble getting through it. Such was the case with this book. Damn did it disappoint me. It completely failed to grab me by my shirt collar and demand that I ignore everything else and read it. (The last time a book did this to me was when I re-read The Great Gatsby last year and couldn’t stop reading.)

As I plodded 100 pages into Tattoo, I was so thoroughly bored that I kept wondering what all the fuss was about. Usually, I love books about reporters, being a former newspaper scribe myself, but with this one -- about a disgraced investigative journalist trying to solve a mystery and a computer hacker/investigator who teamed up with him -- I was struggling to keep my eyes open.

When there finally was some action, I was distinctly underwhelmed. The only reason I stuck with it – other than to find out what actually did happen to Harriet Vanger – was because I wanted to see why this series of book is omnipresent in pop culture right now. Now that I’ve gotten to the end – finished it when I was feeling a bit better as I battled with the flu germs which were harassing me – I still don’t understand why this book is such a hit. (I can’t speak for the other two books – The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest – since I haven’t read them and doubt that I ever will.)

Then I read this post from Entertainment Weekly’s Henry Goldblatt who wrote a wry commentary about the phenomenon of the series saying:

“I hate The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series. To many, that is the equivalent of saying, ‘I kick puppies,’ or ‘I choke babies,’ or ‘American Idol is the best show in the history of television.’ Swedish author Stieg Larsson’s crime trilogy about crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist and his hacker lover/pal Lisbeth, in my view, is poorly written, ridiculously plotted and (yawn!) incredibly tedious.”


Anyone else out there find the Tattoo book didn’t live up to the hype?

In the meantime, I’ve started a classic which I’ve never read and, for some reason, think it’s now time that I do: Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities.
I’m also toying with the idea of tackling a whole bunch of classics which I’ve never read this year, or ones which I read in high school and didn’t fully comprehend at the time, but haven’t wholly bought into the idea.

Image credits: Entertainment Weekly and Audio Editions.

Re-Watching/Re-Reading Movies, TV Shows, Books: Just My Style

It was with tremendous pleasure that I read a recent column in the New York Times extolling the virtues of re-reading books. Columnist Verlyn Klinkenborg, who said he's fond of re-reading some of his favorite books rather than instinctively moving on to new material, wrote:

"Part of the fun of re-reading is that you are no longer bothered by the business of finding out what happens. Re-reading Middlemarch, for instance, or even The Great Gatsby, I'm able to pay attention to what's really happening in the language itself -- a pleasure surely as great as discovering who marries whom, and who dies and who does not.

The real secret of re-reading is simply this: It is impossible. The characters remain the same, and the words never change, but the reader always does."

This was a wonderfully simple, yet insightful observation. We readers change all the time, influenced by our life's experiences. The books don't. I re-read The Scarlet Letter last year in preparation for a column and found Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic to be nothing at all like I remembered from my earlier readings of it while in high school and college. From my new perch -- as a married mother of three -- it almost seemed like it was a new book altogether. The story held more meaning for me than it did for me when I was 15, or 20. Ditto for Gatsby, which I recently read again. As with Letter, it seemed like a fresh literary experience because I have a more experienced point of view than when I first met F. Scott Fitzgerald's Jay Gatsby.

As for Klinkenborg's comment that when you're re-reading something you're no longer distracted by finding out key plot points, the same reasoning applies to re-watching movies or TV shows, particularly complex programs with layers of allusions like Lost, Alias and Mad Men.

Take the densely written drama Lost. When I watch a new episode for the first time, I focus almost exclusively on the plot, how the storylines fit into the meta-story of the show and whether they jive with past episodes and character backstories. Once the major twists and turns have been dispensed with, I can dive back into the episode during a later viewing and comb for hints, layers and connections while reveling in the subtleties I missed when I was busy obsessing about the storylines.

On this practice, I differ with The Spouse, who believes that once he's seen something he moves on. Been there. Done that.

Over the weekend, the movie American Beauty was on cable TV. I first saw it in the theater in 1999 with a friend. When it came to VHS (when everyone was still watching tapes), I got a copy and watched it with The Spouse who thought it was just "okay." In the years since, whenever I've suggested that we re-watch the movie, The Spouse has declined. However when we watched the last quarter of it this past weekend together, we noticed new things mostly due to our different perspectives, particularly because we're both in our 40s and the lead character, Lester Burnham is 42. (The experience didn't convince The Spouse to re-thinking his stance against re-watching TV shows and films.)

As far as the books I've read in the recent past which have thoroughly entertained me (such as The Time Traveler's Wife and the Harry Potter series I read last summer), I know that if I allow myself the luxury of re-reading them -- having already satiated my greediness to know what happens -- I will be able to, as Klinkenborg said, "pay attention to what's really happening in the language itself."

Are you a re-watcher/re-reader? If you're a fan of a complex show like Lost, how many times do you re-watch something? Is once enough?