Ooops, it’s been a long time…

And it’s not like I had nothing to post about. There’ll be a lot of posts over the next few days about books and the people that want to buy one but aren’t quite sure which one…

For now here’s a what’s going on post:

Sadly (and possibly due to my evisceration of The Girl Who Played with Fire) I did not get a proof copy of the new Steig Larsson. This made me sad because it means I won’t have a lovely set of three blue-covered books to sit snuggled together on the shelf. In all likelihood what happened was that the people at our head office cottoned on to the popularity of the books and snarfed all proofs of the third installment for themselves. Bit late now people. I do have a copy of it, and started reading it on the bus last week, but I was having trouble getting started (mainly because a world specialist brain surgeon just happened to be in the vicinity when Lisbeth was admitted to hospital with that pesky bullet in her brain which made me sigh, and grumble). So I decided the best way to gird myself for more would be to remind myself of how good the first book was. And how best to do that?

Well, there’s a movie! And it was made in Sweden so it’s actually pretty faithful to the book. It goes by the original title (well, obviously) Män Som Hatar Kvinnor, and it’s actually really good. Salander and Blomkvist (played by Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist respectively) are both perfectly represented. It occurred to me while watching that there’s no way the book can successfully be made into a movie by the Hollywood types, since there is way too much nudity and violence required. The rape scene is horrific and followed by an equally nasty Ms 45-style retribution. All shown on-screen, unflinchingly. Pretty hard to watch, but essential to the story, and not just of this one, but of the sequel (which is apparently already out in Sweden, and they’ve finished shooting the final part). The casting and acting is pretty much impeccable and the movie really does justice to the source material – it’s not often you can say that. They even have scenes with Plague in his den of computers, and he’s just right too (yeah, I’m fond of Plague). Attention to detail is stunning, down to the name of the program Salander uses to access Blomkvist’s hard drive, it’s the same name as was used in the book – and you won’t see that unless you’re looking for it. Everything that matters from the book is covered, I couldn’t think of anything that got left out, and they handle the nuts and bolts of hacking very well, and in a very low-key style – which puts it head and shoulders above most Hollywood representations of same (see, variously Hackers, The Net etc.). Yeah, I’m a nerd and these things matter to me, but here it just goes to show how much they wanted to make the definitive movie of the book. And how well they did.

Plea for the day (and a pointless one, I know), let this one stand as the movie of the book. No Hollywood remake, no sanitising, no casting of Tom Hanks and Megan Fox (gawd, the horror). I for one will be more than happy to read the subtitles and enjoy the original Swedish movies.

And all of that said, I’m going to knuckle down and finally read The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, and I’ll post in a few days with my verdict, which won’t matter a whit as the book is currently outselling Dan Brown by 5 to 1. For that reason alone, I already love it.