LOB Book Club -- Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Hey, anyone ready for the next chat about the story so far?
posted by gooner71 @ 6:17 PM
Lakenheath Old Boys
We are all former students at Lakenheath High School and other public schools in East Anglia. We were in school in the 70s and 80s and drank deeply from the well of British culture of those decades - the pints, the telly, and of course the footie!
Monday, June 14, 2010
Hey, anyone ready for the next chat about the story so far?
Lakenheath Old Boys
We are all former students at Lakenheath High School and other public schools in East Anglia. We were in school in the 70s and 80s and drank deeply from the well of British culture of those decades - the pints, the telly, and of course the footie!
Contributors
Previous Posts
- World Cup 2010 - Day 4
- Two Prospective England Keepers Show Rob Green How...
- World Cup 2010 - Day 3
- John Oliver on the Big Match
- The Big Day Has FINALLY Arrived
- World Cup 2010 Day One!
- World Cup Preview - Group H - Switzerland
- World Cup Preview - Group H - Chile
- World Cup Preview - Group H - Honduras
- Between Two Ferns
2 Comments:
Why, yes. Yes, I am. Thanks for asking. I've been working my way through Larsson at a fair clip, so I'm really curious to see what the rest of you think of this issue:
Starting with Chapter 11, we're plunged into some really dark, distinctly non-Agatha Christie territory full of sexual violence. That's foreshadowed by short statistical nuggets on the frontispieces of the different sections. On several occasions, Larsson chooses to juxtapose scenes of (presumably) consensual sex between Mikael Blomqvist and Cecilian Vanger and some horrible rape scenes between Salander and her "guardian" Bjurman.
He does it first on p. 176 where we go from Cecilia stradding Mikael to suddenly Bjurman office where he forces Salander to fellate him. He does it again as if for effect on p. 184 when he goes from an even more graphic rape scene to Mikael and Cecilia lying "peacefully" in bed.
What is going on with that? It really gave me whiplash when I read it. I also wondered whether Bivalve Betsy's copy immediately got returned to the library the next day. I assume that this strange juxtaposition has something to do with what is now a serial murder mystery involving the women whose initials Harriet Vanger wrote on her wall. Were these murder the result of sexual passion gone wrong?
Ah, Blue Devil, you give me little credit. My current favorite TV show is True Blood - takes more than that to scare me off.
I was struck by the juxtaposition of the two sexual scenes as well. Quite unsettling, as I'm sure it was meant to be. The gory details of the attacks seemed a bit unnecessary, but perhaps will prove to be warranted as we get further along in the story.
Post a Comment
<< Home