what she said on Stieg Larsson

it took me 3 tries to get through “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.”  2 months ago, i dusted off my arc of “The Girl Who Played with Fire” and stopped just a few chapters in after the ad nauseam description of Ikea furniture and the financial nuances of who owned what and how much of Millennium magazine.  i just didn’t get it which is not an uncommon occurrence being a fairly picky reader.

Janet Porter over at The Millions expresses herself beautifully and much better than i can on just what is wrong with the Stieg Larsson trilogy.

An investigative journalist doesn’t adhere to the “show, don’t tell” creed of the fiction writer. A journalist’s creed is more like “tell, clarify, prove, cite, reiterate.” When a writer moves from journalism to fiction without swapping in the appropriate creed, the result is prose so burdened by over-explanation that it threatens to overshadow the action it’s describing. Such is the Millennium trilogy by investigative journalist Stieg Larsson, composed of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, which currently sits atop every bestseller list in the country. It’s also one of the worst series of books I’ve ever read.

damn, i feel so much better!

(via PWxyz)

posting by marin who did like the movie much better than the book