The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Plot, Structure and Meaning

I am not much of a mystery writer. I don't like the idea that a novel can be created from certain rules that have to be followed for a piece to succeed. For me the whole point of being a writer is that one doesn't have to follow rules, that there is no specific way to do that or this, that a book must definitely contain one thing, or definitely not contain another.
However, that does not make writing an entirely autonomous exercise either. It can be, if you are sat at home writing abstract pieces to cleanse the depths of your soul, but if you are an author you need to write something that people will want to read. And if people want to read something it must comply to certain rules. They may not admit it, but people like to know what they're getting - although they may like different types of food, but they still want their food served on a plate.
So I am going to see how a proper mystery or thriller works, how it is written and why it is written in the way it is, and for this I am going to use The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by the late Steig Larsson. Note, if you have not read this book I may spoil some bits for you, but I don't think I'm going to give away the ending. This is not so much a piece about what, but how and why.

'The trial was irrevocably over.'

The book begins with the hero, Mikael Blomqvist, losing a trial. He is a journalist and he has wrongly accused a businessman of some form of complicated money-laundering and fraud, or so the judge has ruled.
This feels like a great start to a 'thriller.'
First our main character is a journalist, and if he has been defined as a journalist we would reasonably expect him to indulge in some investigating at some point, and some interesting investigating at that.
Second he has a problem. He has just lost a trial. He is at a junction. Something has to happen to him, something which we do not know what or how, but something, and as a reader this makes things interesting.
Third, he has a motive. He has just lost a trial. As the hero we presume he has lost this incorrectly - and so we have some idea what he will want to do, just not how he is going to do it. As a thriller reader we always like to have some idea of what is going on and where things are going to go, to keep us turning the page.

'However, it was not Lisbeth Salander's astonishing lack of involvement that most upset him.'

Okay, so we knew where we were going with Blomqvist - it was money, revenge and bit of infidelity. Fine. For some thrillers that would be enough to go on and probably enough to get us through the whole book, however, this is a better book than that. Blomqvist feels 'safe.' We know where we are with him. We feel happy, but have the potential to be bored very quickly. We want a bit more than that, and here it is. Salander. A less certain character, with less certain traits. She is quiet, taciturn, sexy and potentially violent. She is a corrupting influence on the feelings of certainty we have had so far. She is 'astonishing' and we want to know what happens to an 'astonishing' person. We have something definite to go on, a foundation of plot and character and a large slab of intrigue, all good ingredients for a decent thriller.

I'd like to note a slight sub-element to Salander's introduction here. As astonishing as she is, she is presented under the auspices of a much more fully described (and far less interesting for it) personae of Armansky, for whom this is his peak of involvement in the novel. Salander is being drip fed to us it would seem, just a little at the time. The true poker player, or indeed thriller writer, does not want to show his best hand too early after all.

'Blomqvist spent the hour of the Disney special on Xmas Eve with his daughter Pernilla at the home of his ex-wife Monica and her new husband.'

Here is some succinct character fleshing-out for our hero Blomqvist which, in one sentence, succinctly grounds him in recognisable time and place, and in real, complex feelings. We can relate. This is not just some one-dimensional Indiana Jones wandering into the Swedish wilderness. This is a person, and a person with proper human weaknesses. We can share in this. We can feel how he will react in the difficult situations to follow. This isn't just escapist rubbish, this is something that is happening to 'him,' because 'he' is a 'person.'

'Salander had tenderness in her eyes, but that this strange woman was her mother never ceased to amaze her.'

Salander is being developed now, in the first of many parallels with Blomqvist. It feels a bit contrived - the mother in the mental home. We know Salander is odd and we like it. Better reasons why are explained later on. This one I feel like I've seen before somewhere.

'So there's only one reasonable possibility left, merely which Harriet disappeared against her will. Somebody killed her and got rid of the body.'

Here is the setting for the main focus of the book's plot, a small, remote island accessible by just one bridge, that at the point of this key moment, was blocked in an accident. It is a superbly imaginative situation, one so tight it could be the basis of a small, low budget play. We are thus absolutely grounded in a time and a place, with no real room for manoeuvre, and that is a GOOD thing in this type of book. A sense of claustrophobia breeds mystery and tension at the same time. It demands an explanation in terms of the mystery - here the apparent murder of Harriet Vanger - it gives us a list of suspects, and a limitation on how the murder may have been carried. It is classic whodunit. However, at the same time the remote island takes us away from the real, familiar world. Our fairly conventional protagonist is out of his depth. He is also 'trapped,' environmentally and in the coils of the large family that surround him. We feel tense for him and tension breeds excitement.
The quote above leaves the description of the murder at that exact point. 'Somebody killed her and got rid of her body.' Next chapter. No conjecture. There is no room for doubt. Remember this! The dramatic pause is saying. SHE WAS KILLED AND SOMEONE GOT RID OF HER BODY!

Lastly at this point the conceit of Blomqvist writing a family history is introduced. This another way in which you can tell this novel is a cut above a basic mystery/thriller of the genre - the case is dealt with in two completely separate manners - one with the auspice of being a front for the real investigation, but as it turns out is just as important to the investigation as anything else. It also seems an interesting comment on the novel, or even history-writing as a whole. At its heart writing is a basis for gaining understanding into the mysteries of life that the real world cannot provide, and so it does here. The story of the Vanger family is almost Shakespearean in its nature - the play-within-the play where, when we look harder, the real truths are revealed.
However, at this point WHERE SOMEONE KILLED HARRIETT, this is left at the back of reader's mind, but it gives us a touchstone from which to wonder about the family, and what their complex history might mean.

'Harriett Vanger seemed to have dissolved into thin air, and Henrik Vanger's years of torment had begun.'

Here it is then, the full set-up. For 136 pages the background of the story has built up in front of us and now we stand upon the edge of the precipice, where the action must necessarily begin. No more is to be found out unless characters do something and we cannot wait to find out about how this hole is to be filled. Classically, this is when the protagonist will do something infuriatingly mundane, like go and buy some groceries, but this is also a good opportunity for the writer to slip in something important in a subtle way - the reader has had a pause and will be impatiently diving ahead to find out what will happen next. We as readers want to know things, that's why we are reading in the first place is it not? But as the author knows, secretly we like better than knowing nothing at all.

'Blomqvist said with a smile that he was having trouble remembering the names of all the relatives.'

As readers we occasionally need some assistance. We don't like it, because we want to figure everything out for ourselves (even though we never do of course), but sometimes it can be beneficial. Although a certain level of confusion is preferable to encourage curiosity, full bemusement can promote frustration in the reader. We get the feeling that we, like Blomqvist, will work it out with some perseverance and from Larsson's skill in writing we do, but the Vanger's family tree is complex so some assurances are welcome. We may not listen to the history in full - this is a thriller after all, we do not expect War and Peace - but as each family member is presented in turn through the eyes of Blomqvist these details come back to our minds. However, at each point there is still lingers a sense of confusion and we never know how exactly the family turn out until the end.

'Cecilia gave him another of her joyless smiles. "I wonder sometimes who's crazier, my father or my uncle. I must have listened to him on Harriett's disappearance a thousand times."'

So Blomqvist delves deeper into the characters of the family, and here we see this method of introduction in action. Although this is a third-person narrative, our view is through Blomqvist and how characters interact with him. For this reason, and because Blomqvist is a flawed (and therefore real) character we can never be sure about truth. His good looks and seemingly effortless ability with the opposite sex clouds this even further, and we can never know the motives behind Cecilia's actions. Sexuality is, of course, one of humans' more complex emotions. The contrast with Salander lack of feeling, prepares us for their impending relationship - we need links to want this to happen and as such to keep reading.

'Bjurman was on his way to becoming a Major Problem.'

The short, sharp sentences of Salander's narrative counterbalances the long, ranging stories of the Vangers. She is a succinct character, and we feel that the confusion of the Vanger's relationships needs to be unlocked with a trait such as this - Henrik Vanger has prepared us for this - conceding there is something he has missed, something that is there that he cannot see, and the more Blomqvist interrelates with the family, the more we feel that Salander will provide the answers. The question, and therefore the 'thrill,' is HOW she is to be placed in the story - HOW the two separate stories are to eventually collide.
Furthermore Salander is by FAR the most interesting character and we are desperate for her to enter the main story.

'She sat astride him and kissed him on the mouth. Her hair was still wet and fragrant with Shampoo. (Blomqvist and Cecilia)
'Bjurman stood behind her. Suddenly he was massaging the back of her neck and he let one had slide from her left shoulder across her breasts.' (Bjurman and Salander)

Before the main action scenes take place, and Blomqvist and Salander fully team up, we are given a direct contrast with their position through scenes of sex. Blomqvist - the investigator, is assertive while Salander is still the repressed receiver. Blomqvist is positioned in the middle of matters while Salander is still sat on the outside, receiving and receiving, waiting to explode onto the main plot. We can feel her true self is yet to fully come out, and she is something a Freudian time-bomb, building up in a cauldron of displaced emotions.

The closeness of their sexual experiences in the narrative suggests it is almost as if they have already interacted in this manner with each other, even though of course they have never met.

Finally, these two connected scenes are also Larsson's way of presenting what is to be the dominant theme of his novel - the contrast between consensual and non-consensual sex. The book is not as simple as simply telling us that violence against women is wrong. That much is rather obvious and we do not need lecturing on this fact. Rather what Larsson is trying to explore is the difference between sex as fun, enjoyable and satisfying, and sex as coercive, perverse and damaging. As with everything in this book, the answers do not come through slow, philosophical musings, but in the fast-moving organic place of the plot. Blomqvist is hardly perfect in his sexual morals - he is a womanizer and seems to be able to manipulate women at his whim. In this respect the idea of sexual morality is blurred, but yet in each of his exploits in the book - he does run into any significant problems, indeed quite the opposite - sex seems to be his main journalistic method. So to this extent, misogyny would seem to win the day.
However, this section in particular presents a key difference. Blomqvist is highlighted as a gentle lover that Cecelia accepts because she makes her feel good. There is no sense of coercion of here, just the manipulation of mutual desires and as such the plot moves forward from here - through Blomqvist's probing further elements of the family begin to reveal themselves.

But in the case of Bjurman, and his cruel sadistic abuse of Salander, there is never any question as to whether is going to succeed. The abusers of women receive their comeuppance as we discover further later in the book. Indeed the abuse of Salander seems to prepare the reader for the more gruesome discoveries that are to come, setting the scene in our minds of what can happen and how cruel men can be, put also resting assured that they will meet the their deserved fate. Salander is also the victim here and there is thus the feeling of tension in the reader that this may happen again.
It is perhaps the main point of interest in this book as to how close these boundaries lie and what again seems to take it above the more conventional thriller.

'She no longer felt the need to please anyone who bought her three beers in a pub.'

The parallels in the two separate narratives - Salander and Blomqvist - continue. While Salander's history seems to drift away somewhat from the central plot, it is still tied to the main story through the sexual relationships of the two characters. It thus seems to be no coincidence that Blomqvist first encounters Salander while she has been in bed with a woman, and also that his initially attempts at 'forced entry' prove ineffective.

'She took a quick look around. Bachelor furnishings. A double bed with a high bedstead of stainless steel.'

As a relatively novice reader of fiction, one factor in Larsson's novel that resonated in particular was the brevity of the description. The surroundings are never described at any great length, as this would diminish from the reader's motivation to turn the page - surely the goal of a good thriller. As we see above if they are described it is in a very succinct and prosaic manner. Our minds cannot be distracted from the plot building up inside and thus the landscapes generally feel like blank canvasses, that only need to be filled where the plot demands it.

'Salander opened her mouth to scream. He grabbed her and stuffed the knickers in her mouth.'

It is at this point where both characters attain the same motivation for action - revenge. Blomqvist against fraud and corruption in big business and Salander against violence to women. We are on full - baddie v goodie thriller territory - however the combination of the two characters and their different views opens the possibility that these are not necessarily correct.

'Cecilia had never before been as fragile as she was then. Her marriage had ended three months earlier. Domestic violence...the term was so banal. For her it had taken the form of unceasing abuse.'

A final parallel of the two stories before Blomqvist and Salander unite. This comes immediately after the chapter detailing Salander's triumph over her abuser, and it nods to the potential for Salander to solve the problems that exist within the Vanger family, with the resemblances they have to her own.

'The pictures editor of the Hedestad Courier was Madeleine Blasby, called Maja.'

The plot now goes into full swing as Blomqvist and Salander investigate the series of photos from the day of Harriett disappearance. Lesser characters appear and none are wasted - for instance here we gain a brief insight into a photographer who will examine some of the pictures. They are more than stock characters but are still deferential to the greater need of the plot moving forward. Only Salander it would seem still has her own agenda, suggesting that it is her character that dominates all, more than just this one plot and one novel.

'The Light of Life was most definitely a sect of the type that he would not hesitate to lambast in Millennium.'

The plot cannot move forward on just the basis of Blomqvist/Salander v The Vanger Family alone. A good mystery will have the intervention of a third character, so surprise the reader and give the plot a greater level of variety. In this instance Blomqvist's daughter intervenes in serendipitous manner. Her religious beliefs present an immediate parallel to Hariett's and then provide a vital link to the biblical source of the phone numbers in Harriett's diary. I understand this, and I understand what it adds to the plot, but as a non-familiar reader to thrillers it all felt incredibly contrived. Blomqvist's daughter has had almost no other mention in the book and for her to appear, and then have such a key impact, seems fortunate to an unbelievable extent, interrupting the natural progression of the plot which felt based in credulity until this moment.

'She sees something - someone - on the other side of the street. She reacts with shock. She contacts Vanger for a private conversation which never happens. She vanishes without a trace.'

While I felt that the inclusion of Blomqvist's daughter was a distraction, and the general theme of religious fanaticism rather tiresome and familiar, the movement of the Salander and Blomqvist's investigation through the photographs of the scene is a brilliant tour-de-force. Characters appear and disappear. Expressions are read and misread. Information appears and disappears. Identities change from one to the other. This is what mystery and thriller writing is all about - uncertainty, deception, investigating, all at an increasing pace and with a sense of danger growing ever larger on the horizon. With the collection of separate photos the events of the day of the disappearance are revealed piece by piece, with each of the Vanger family taking a separate role and a different perspective, throwing the readers view this way and that like the turns on a fairground rollercoaster. We have ideas but can never be sure, in the way a roll of film never quite sums up the true events - there are always gaps, always pieces that have been missed.

In fact this section was so good that the rest of the book has trouble living up to it. The appearance of the killer presented no surprises and the previous detail of Salander's abilities meant that the success of the characters to escape their foe never felt in doubt. Salander herself felt underused in the abilities and depth that have been nodded to in previous chapters and it is no surprise that some of her full capacities are revealed in the end with a nod towards the second of the trilogy.

Is it a problem, I wonder, that the method of getting to the conclusion is far more interesting and entertaining than the conclusion itself? When should the peak of the thrill be?

I feel that everything seems to fall into place very simply from the moment the characters in the photographs are identified, although I was impressed by the way the theme of abuse was dealt with. Perhaps there should have been more ambiguity in the motives in the killings, rather than the rather hackneyed biblical allusions. I feel we did not ever fully get to understand why the killer did what they did, but perhaps this is not the novel for that. As Blomqvist suggests, they have no choice but to leave most of it unexplained - to leave room for the exposition to take the fore, of Blomqvist's initial foe, the corrupt figure of Wennestrom . The details with which this occurs feels tacked-on to some extent, given that the issues with the Vanger family, the clear purpose of the plot so far, have been fully dealt with. One feels that Larsson is determined to include this as well, given that this is his journalistic background in this field, but one feels it may be for another novel rather than this one. It is no doubt entertaining, but feels like something of an after-thought to what has come before. I would have ended this earlier, gone deeper into the killer's motives and heard more about Harriett's life in a way to reveal this.

Lastly a word about the narrative technique as a whole. The novel is written is in the third person, but the as I have alluded to previously, the narrator is fairly redundant. The narrative flows through each character and how they interact with the plot and this is why it moves so effectively and why the plot feels so seamless. Like the series of photographs of the Vanger's Island, we move from one perspective to another, with no time for 'godly' narration in between. A thriller has no room for irrelevant pauses and none are present here. We are taken on a 'living' plot - instead of 'this happens,' it is 'this happens to her' - which makes the book much more readable as a result. However, there are weaknesses. In not taking on any omniscient faculties, we are trapped in a tight narrative tunnel as readers. Characters' actions drive the story but there is never a pause to discover what characters think - it is implied at many points, but is never actually explained. Now there is no doubt this makes for an entertaining read, but I was still left with a certain emptiness at the conclusion, that I had just read an interesting and gripping story, but was somewhat aloof from the players involved. As a reader I want to be in engaged, I don't want to feel that things have happened that I have not been a party to and in a way this was how the narrative left me at the end.
Maybe this is Larsson journalistic background, and maybe this makes it the type of book it is, but there is a constant emphasis on 'what' and only a very superficial description of 'why.' Perhaps this is the first lesson in how to write a thrilling book, but I am still not certain it leaves to a wholly satisfying read.