The following blog is a guest post by Dan Winter, member of the Chancellor’s Advisory Board to the Women’s Center.
Having just finished The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest last night, I’m missing Lisbeth already.
The author, Stieg Larsson, portrayed most of the women in his books as strong, complicated figures who went to extraordinary lengths to show their loyalty and commitment to lovers, friends, co-workers and siblings. They also, literally and figuratively, went on to kick some serious ass. The author never used their femininity to sensationalize the characters or make them romantically sympathetic.
Salander made virtually all her own breaks. Yes, she had Blomqvist in her corner, but he was hardly a behind the scenes manipulator or sponsor – never the man-behind-the-woman situation I’m so sick of seeing in American novels of the same genre. THIS is what sets Salander and Larsson apart from American novels and allows for Lisbeth Salander to be a true literary heroine. She makes all her decisions independently, doesn’t need a man, or a woman, to define her through romance and displays remarkable resilience.
Of course, driving the whole plot was that the bad guys were in the business of victimizing women. By denying the reader the opportunity to know any of those women as characters, we could focus on getting acquainted with the victim-turned-avenger, Lisbeth, while she methodically went about dismantling the entire sex slave operation, destroying the evil guys and saving Swedish society.
I’ve actually read one blog where the writer, obviously a man, complained that all the bad characters were men in the novels, while women either got off scot-free for their transgressions or were better off for having committed those crimes. I was delighted to see that that writer got virtually slaughtered by other blog posters for his misogynistic comments. Lisbeth, so unlikable, is becoming a beloved literary figure.
Of course, Lisbeth is a feminist heroine. She will go down, I predict, as one of the best-known literary heroines of contemporary fiction. She’s right up there with Clarice Starling of Silence of the Lambs.
The Millennium Trilogy, while sometimes less-than-elegantly written, is nothing short of a cultural phenomenon that will only get bigger when the American movie versions of the books are released. The success of those movies will rest, in my opinion, mostly on the effectiveness of the unknown actress who has been cast as Lisbeth. She has big shoes to follow after the wonderful portrayal of Lisbeth by the Swedish actress, Noomi Rapace, in the Swedish film versions of the books.
Want to know what others think about Lisbeth Salander? Join the discussions tomorrow night, Tuesday, October 26, 6:00 p.m. at the Women’s Center, and also Wednesday, November 17, 12:00 p.m. at the LGBTQIA Resource Center. Scott Curtis, Research Librarian for UMKC Libraries will lead the discussions, Lisbeth Salander as Feminist Heroine?