Synopsis (in brief by me): The Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson follows the unlikely heroine Lisbeth Salander and journalist Mikael Blomvist. In this trilogy, Salander fights for her civil freedom and takes revenge on certain people who have harmed her in the past. Armed with phenomenal hacking skills and tenacity to live, Salander might fight the system and everyone who wants her to stay down. Mikael Blomvist enlists her help to uncover government conspiracies and together they fight the dominating power.
These three books are among some of the best I have read this year. Translated from Swedish, the three books open my eyes to a new setting; I was bored with crime novels set in North America and this series provided a refreshing change from that. I think that one very important issue this series has raise is that of Authority. How does someone pronounced as mentally incapacitated fight back the same authority that labels her? That is some kind of resistance, I'd have to say. It's akin to telling a panel of interviewers that they are wrong -- how can you ever dream of trifling with people who makes the rules and those who can simply brush you off as unimportant? I really liked this bit in the trilogy. Well, this bit is a recurring theme that runs throughout the trilogy.
Larsson has made a very intriguing heroine. She is a victim but not victimised; she is vengeful but not cold-blooded; she is small but not weak; she deserves empathy but not sympathy. Lisbeth resides in a critical balance between these dialectics. This is what makes her an unlikely heroine. She is nothing cliche. At some points she overshadows Blomvist, but the two main characters both have their own charms in the trilogy. Blomvist is not a perfect hero, which only serves to make him more convincing as a human being.
That said, I think this series is worth reading. It's partly sad that it requires a Straits Times review to get Singaporeans interested in this series; then again people haven't read the novel to learn for themselves to hell with supposed authority to not let their reading habits be dictated by journalists.
